Chapter 2
A lba wrapped an arm securely around the shoulders of the woman who had just collided with her. She had no idea what had happened, but she had no doubt that the flood of tears was not simply the product of having run face-first into a stranger at the mall. That was a little embarrassing, perhaps, but, on a good day, the two of them would have laughed it off and gone their separate ways. For this particular woman, though, the second Alba had looked down into her face, she’d known something was very wrong.
She glanced around, inwardly cursing the lack of benches, before leading the pair of them off towards a low wall, some half-bare landscaping providing a little cover from those coming and going to the parking lot.
The woman went willingly enough, hiding her face in her hands, her chin to her own chest. Alba figured she’d probably do the same thing if the roles were reversed. Though she couldn’t help but wonder whether both of them should have more of a sense of safety and refrain from allowing strangers to lead them off to hidden areas of massive parking lots.
“Here,” she said softly, guiding the woman down onto the wall and sitting beside her, one arm still wrapped around her shoulders.
They sat in relative silence for several minutes, the only sounds being those of the environment and the woman’s quiet sobs. Alba hated how obviously she was attempting to stop them, how stiffly she was holding her muscles as she attempted to stifle her sadness. She wanted to say that it was okay to cry, that the woman could let it all out, no shame, no grudges held, but she got the feeling the woman needed the silence to feel like she wasn’t crying on a stranger, to find the strength to carry on.
Alba focused instead on the birds flying overhead, landing in the trees, and twittering to one another. In her peripheral vision, however, she couldn’t help but notice the way the light caught in the woman’s hair. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d describe the color of it—something that seemed to sit at the intersection between blonde, red, and light brown—but she couldn’t help thinking about how the lightest hairs sparkled in the sun.
Eventually, and though Alba could still feel how tense the woman’s shoulders were, even through her own gloves and the woman’s coat, the tears subsided slightly and the woman sat up straighter. She glanced quickly at Alba, her blotchy face only serving to highlight how piercingly blue her eyes were.
She took several steadying breaths and Alba simply smiled softly at her, fully prepared to wait as long as the woman needed.
“I’m so sorry,” she croaked, clearing her throat immediately upon hearing her own voice.
Alba inclined her head towards the woman. “It’s really okay. You’re welcome to cry it out as long as you need. Sometimes, we just need someone to sit with us while we cry.”
She laughed, the noise was something bitter and sad. “Usually with someone we know, not some random person we just literally ran headlong into.”
Alba laughed with none of the bitterness. “Perhaps, but I think it’s easier, maybe, to do it with someone we don’t know.”
Those blue eyes and blotchy cheeks turned, fully focusing for the first time on Alba’s face. She narrowed her eyes, considering. “You think so?”
“Definitely.” She almost laughed at the confused scowl, but she figured being laughed at was the last thing the poor woman needed. She shrugged. “Think about it. We’ve never met before, we’ll probably never meet again. Whatever happens in this moment exists only here. No matter what you tell me, no matter what I see, it’s not going to matter in any kind of consequential way once we part. You’re never going to have to regret what you told me, or how you were, because who will know about it? Who is going to say anything about it? You could slam every person you’ve ever known and you’d never have to regret it because I don’t know those people. You’re not going to have to face me knowing that you spilled how you were feeling about people in a dark moment.”
“Huh.” She turned away, staring at the worn tarmac and its faded parking lines. “But we’d still both know.”
“True, but do you care what a stranger you’ll never see again thinks?”
She chewed her lip, ducking her head again. “A little bit,” she murmured.
Alba breathed a laugh. “That’s fair. I have been told I can be a little shameless. Perhaps it’s different for other people.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, somewhat absently, and Alba found herself wanting to know what the woman was thinking.
“Okay, think about it this way, then: whoever has upset you is not someone I know. You can say whatever you want about them and what happened, really get it off your chest, and, when you’ve gotten the worst of it out, you’ll be prepared to discuss it in a more measured way with the people in your life. All the people you’re worried about saying the wrong thing around, or worried that they’ll start judging someone they know based on one angry moment, they won’t be a problem. You can get all of that out on a stranger who has no skin in the game.”
She looked intrigued by the idea for half a second before a shadow crossed her face and she huffed a breath.
“What is it?” Alba asked, unable to stop herself.
“It doesn’t really work that way when the person who upset you is someone almost nobody in your life knows about.”
Alba’s mind swirled as she attempted to put the pieces together. Something secret, something hurtful, something that clearly made this woman feel worthless.
Even without knowing the woman or anything that was happening in her life, Alba knew she deserved better.
“Or,” she continued, “when you can’t bear the idea of having to listen to the people who do know telling you again that… that really can’t be too bad, and what’s the harm in it?”
Something in her quiet, resentful voice and the way she avoided what she was talking about felt like a vice clamping around Alba’s ribs. She could only imagine what it must feel like inside the woman.
“Well,” she said carefully, “I am not someone in your life, but I am here right now, and I’m available to listen if you want to tell someone about it. I promise not to belittle you or tell you there’s no harm done.”
The woman breathed another bitter laugh and Alba’s heart ached for whatever it was that had weighed this woman so far down it felt like she would drown under the weight of it.
For several moments Alba simply watched her in her peripheral vision as the woman fidgeted with her hands in her lap, her side still pressed against Alba with seemingly no urgency to get away. But, eventually, she let out a heavy breath, glanced at Alba, and said, “I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable.”
Alba paused. She’d said it like an introduction, like a primer to a bigger reveal, but, when she didn’t go on, Alba shook her head. “I promise I’m really not that easy to make uncomfortable.”
Her expression quirked and Alba couldn’t decide whether she was amused or doubtful, but she took a deep breath and continued. “I just got dumped.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“In the middle of Best Buy.”
“Oh, no.” Alba worked to find an expression that conveyed a socially appropriate amount of horror at such a revelation from a stranger. Inside, though, she felt the same burning rage as if her best friend had just told her that same thing.
“Yeah. With the same words other exes have said to me when the reason is just so apparent to all of them and I’m the idiot for not understanding it was coming.”
Alba blew out a heavy breath. That was low. She didn’t even need to ask if the latest ex knew others had used those same words, it was apparent they did.
“And, to make things better, she’s the one who drove me here and a weekend bag of my stuff is locked in her car because she’d insisted she wanted me to stay over at her place this weekend.”
Alba winced. Who did that? If you knew you were breaking up with someone, wouldn’t you do it… literally anywhere else? And anywhen else? Not when you’d seemingly picked them up for the weekend?
“Must have been one hell of a fight about refrigerators,” Alba said, looking for anything that might make the woman feel the slightest bit better, while also conveying that Alba was happy to hear more, but absolutely not pressuring her. The last thing she needed was pressure.
She made a noise that started as a laugh and ended as a choked sob. Something about her expression as the noise trailed off looked too tortured to only be about this breakup. Alba couldn’t help but think that along with their relationship, the woman’s ex had taken something bigger from her, some dream of a future she now felt would never come. That was probably what happened when your partner broke up with you using words plagiarized from your exes.
“Chance would be a fine thing…” the woman muttered, mostly to herself, and Alba’s heart broke for her.
“It’s her loss,” Alba said firmly. She didn’t need to know either of them to feel that way. Even breaking up via text would have been kinder than this.
The woman shook her head, her eyes filling with tears again. “I don’t think that’s true. If I could be… better then none of this would be happening.”
Alba frowned slightly. Whatever had happened, it was clear that the sobbing woman blamed herself. There was something unbelievably heavy and broken in her words, like she knew exactly what the problem was but didn’t have a way to fix it, and not simply because she didn’t want to. And wasn’t that worse? It was one thing to break up with someone because you wanted different things, but repeatedly being left over the same thing—as seemed to be the case here—was a unique form of torture, especially if it was something foundational about you that you just couldn’t change, no matter how hard you tried.
Alba squeezed her shoulder. “You deserve someone who loves you for exactly who you are. Those are the people who won’t leave you feeling like this. And this is just a temporary stop along the way to that. Even if it hurts like hell right now, it won’t always.”
“It will,” she gasped, sounding low on air. “It keeps happening and there’s nothing I can do about it. I thought I found someone who understood, but it was just an illusion. Nobody is going to want to live that life.”
Whatever it was, Alba was certain she must know she wasn’t alone in the world, but she was also certain it must feel like she was. Breakups were always like that. It didn’t make them any easier, even if you didn’t add the extra layer that was at play here.
“I hear you, and I’m here with you,” she replied quietly, shuffling a tiny bit closer to the woman to hold her tighter again. Sometimes, all you could do for someone was hold them together physically while they fell apart emotionally.
She laughed wetly, burying her head in Alba’s shoulder. “As if I wasn’t being embarrassing enough. Now, I’m falling apart on a complete stranger and ruining their whole day.”
“We already went through this. It’s totally okay. We all deserve to have someone there for us when the world is falling apart, and, if the universe provides a stranger, so be it. There’s a reason for that too, even if we don’t understand it.”
“You believe in fate?”
Alba shrugged. “I believe in a lot of things. I don’t think fate is particularly simple, but, yeah, I think I was where I needed to be today.”
“Why would you think this is where you needed to be? Surely you had other things to do?”
“Nothing more important than this.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“It’s more interesting that way.”
She laughed, the sound a little less bitter than before, and Alba was certain her usual laugh must be beautiful. “You’re so odd.”
“Mm. Yes. Best way to be if you ask me. Running around, supporting women, being mysterious… Sounds like a great day to me.”
She pulled back, sniffling and wiping at her face. “You really don’t have to be nice to me.”
Alba smiled. “I know, but I want to. Even if you want to scream and kick and tear the world down, you deserve to have someone being nice to you.”
“I’m pretty sure such behavior is generally frowned upon and you’re not supposed to be nice to people doing that.”
“Never been much of a fan of what I’m supposed to do. Go your own way, I say.”
She stared for a moment, her blue eyes sparkling through the tears. “Do you think so?”
Alba nodded earnestly. “I really do.”
“You don’t think that just leads to you being…” She took a deep breath that seemed to get stuck in her throat. “All alone?”
Alba stood, watching her carefully. “No, I don’t. I think the road can be messy and lonely at times, but, in the end, I think it gets you to the people you need. The ones who stick with you through the stormy days.”
She looked away, her emotions warring on her face. “I really hope that’s true.”
“It is.”
She laughed but still didn’t look up at Alba. “You seem awfully sure.”
“I am. The universe led me to you today. Everything works out in the end.”
“You say that like me running into you was a good thing.”
“It was.” Alba shrugged. “Today might be a terrible day, but at least you didn’t have to ride this part out alone. And… at least you have a way to get home now.”
Her head snapped up. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly.”
“You could possibly, and you will, because I’m offering, I want to, and that seems far safer than you trying to figure out some other way home alone.”
“I can… call a taxi or something.”
Alba bent slightly, to look her directly in the eyes. “If you would feel safer not having me drive you home, that’s totally okay, and you can tell me. No problem.”
“Oh. No… Uh, no, it’s not that. It’s just… I’ve already caused you more than enough trouble today.”
“You’ve been no trouble at all. And I really want to help you get home safely.”
She fidgeted and shuffled along the wall she was still perched on. “Well, I guess, if you’re sure?”
Alba grinned. “Absolutely. Plus, you just get to help me avoid the things I’m supposed to be doing. And you know how I hate those.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. If you’re supposed to be somewhere or meeting someone—”
“It’s nothing that can’t wait,” she insisted, pulling her phone out to text her cousin that she was caught up with something important and would be late.
“I really would be fine—”
Alba waved her phone in the air before sliding it back into her pocket. “All taken care of.”
The woman watched her like she’d just pulled a rabbit from thin air, as though she’d done something so magical and spectacular and confusing that it didn’t make any sense at all. Whoever the woman was who’d broken up with her, she’d clearly not been doing a very thorough job of making her feel important even before the breakup. It was Alba’s experience that those who became overwhelmed by kindness were those who thought the people in their lives were kind, but really, they’d just been the kind ones all along and they’d gotten used to putting up with less-than-mediocre treatment, believing it was the best that they deserved.
She held a hand out to the woman, noticing again how the sunlight caught in her unusually colored hair. It really was quite mesmerizingly beautiful.
The woman took a deep breath and avoided Alba’s gaze as she accepted the hand up from the wall.
“No judging my car. The stuff in the backseat is for work. It’s usually a lot tidier.”
She looked up at Alba in confusion. “I don’t think I’m in any position to be judging anyone today.”
“Being sad doesn’t remove your right to experience other emotions. People do loads of things heartbroken, and that’s okay.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Come on. I’ll race you.” And Alba took off running, still holding the woman’s hand, before she could start spiraling on the emotions she was and wasn’t supposed to be feeling.
The startled sound that became a confused laugh as she caught up with what was happening told Alba her efforts were working.