Chapter 15 #2
I miss him like crazy. I can’t stop thinking about his crooked smile, about the light in his eyes when he looks at me.
The way he snuffles in his sleep, seeking me out on my side of the bed and throwing an arm across my waist when he finds me.
The scent at the nape of his neck, the notch of his collarbone, the little hollows just inside his hips, and how he grips the sheets when I nuzzle them.
The way he teases me, the way he zeroes in on me even in a crowded room and always seems to know what I’m feeling, even when I don’t know myself.
I open our text thread and I read the last messages, a week’s worth of flirtations exchanged under Bree and Seth’s noses, and I long for that ease, for that playfulness. I want it back desperately.
But when my thumb hovers over the call button, my stomach turns to ice.
I picture his tearstained face on Bree’s front lawn.
I picture him walking away from me, when we were young.
I think of every word I haven’t said, every word that lodges itself in my gullet, unwilling to push through to the light of day.
And I know I can’t present him with the raw hamburger that is my heart.
Besides, it’s September, which means school is back in session.
I’m grinding again, shuttling back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan, teaching five days a week at three different schools and trying to keep my head above water, to escape the undertow of despair.
I tell myself this isn’t anything I haven’t done before, that muscle memory will carry me through.
But somehow, just a few months stepping out of my rut has reshaped the earth in front of me, and I can’t find the grooves again.
There isn’t a part of me that Cole hasn’t touched, and I see his imprint everywhere.
I force myself to get up in the morning, to shower and put on clean clothes and eat at least twice a day, to show up for work and teach my classes.
I don’t get off the subway at 23rd Street for a late afternoon quickie, and I don’t sit in quiet restaurants with interesting menus.
I don’t eat out at all. Instead, I go home and I hunch over my desk and I work until my eyes are blurry and my head is full of cotton.
Then I fall into bed, and if I’m lucky I manage six hours of broken sleep, dreams haunted by unseen and unnamed dread.
Before everything, before Cole and I fucked it up so badly, Bree and Seth had floated the idea of a joint bachelor and bachelorette party.
But with things as they are, it’s not a good idea, and so one weekend I take the bus up to Boston and I meet up with Seth and his groomsmen and we go to an escape room and then a brewery tour.
We end up back at Seth and Bree’s apartment, gaming until three in the morning, and it’s nice, I guess.
But Bree takes her party to a luxury resort in St. Barts, and I stalk Cole’s Instagram, scrolling through pictures of white sand beaches and bright turquoise water, of tropical greenery and outrageously colorful cocktails.
It’s where he belongs, in an exotic place with beautiful people, and he looks right at home in the pictures, with people who understand him.
And it tears something ugly inside me to think about how wide the gulf between us really is, how I could never give him any of this, how I would never fit in.
Three weeks into September, I’m sitting at the desk in my apartment, the dregs of a bowl of Kraft mac and cheese beside me.
It’s late, and I’m finally finished grading the latest stack of response papers.
But it’s also the start of the academic hiring season, and even though this is my third year on the market and I know my chances of getting a tenure-track job are slim at best, I still have to try.
So I open a tab in my browser and navigate to one of my usual job hunting sites.
And there’s a new listing.
United States History, with a concentration in military history or U.S.-Caribbean relations preferred. Something flutters in my stomach, and I click to open it.
It might as well be describing me. All the electives I’ve ever wanted to teach, all the questions I asked myself while I was writing my dissertation.
It’s been a while since I last touched my book manuscript, but I could fudge that if I got an interview, maybe send out that draft journal article that’s been languishing in a folder on my computer so that it looks like I’ve actually been doing something.
I’m already making plans, thinking about how I can update my documents, drafting an email to my graduate advisor in my head.
But then I scroll to the end of the listing to see where the school is. And it’s in fucking Montana.
I sit back in my chair. It’s in fucking Montana, and it’s a 4/4 load, which means four classes a semester.
Just as much work as I’m doing now, but with the pressure to publish, the tenure clock ticking every minute of every day.
It’s not like I have any friends anyway. But here in Brooklyn, at least I have —
I swallow hard, my eyes stinging. Someone on another floor must be cooking a late dinner, because the whole building smells like beets.
I pull up a map of the small town. No major airports nearby, just a tiny dot in a sea of green. I bet it’s pretty there. But there’s no ocean and there’s no community and there are no tall buildings or bodega owners who have your coffee ready before you step in the door. There’s no — there’s no —
“Cole.”
I say it out loud, and my face crumples. My shoulders are heaving and my cheeks are wet and I’m making sounds that I don’t like, pressing the palms of my hands over my eyes —
And I’m not someone who cries, I never cry, but a dam inside me is breaking and all of it, all the bullshit, all the — okay, I’ll say it, the fucking heartbreak — is pouring out and it’s all I can do to hold onto the pieces of myself in the current —
It doesn’t last long.
I’m still in my chair and my nose is stuffy and my eyes are scratchy with salt. I dash the moisture from my face and I pick up my phone and I scroll through my recent contacts. When I find the number, I press it with my finger and hold the phone to my ear, counting the rings.
“Hey, Ezra?” Seth’s voice is groggy and a little concerned. “It’s late. Are you okay?”
“Um — yeah, I just —” My voice is hoarse from crying and I clear my throat. “You know that job you mentioned, when we were on the Cape? Is that still a thing?”
“Yeah, it’s absolutely still a thing.” Seth’s voice is clearer now, more alert. “What about it?”
“I want to take it,” I rasp. “Or at least, I want to talk about it. I — I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
“Whoa, that’s amazing! I’m so glad. I’ll have my assistant set up a meeting with you first thing tomorrow, okay? I can’t wait to get started.”
Already, I feel lighter. “That sounds great. And hey, Seth — sorry to wake you up.”
Seth yawns. “Any time, little bro. I’ll talk to you in the morning, okay?”
I know I’m still completely fucked up. But at least there might be the tiniest glimmer of hope.