Chapter 3 #2
And as much as I don’t want to be here, I also don’t want Miles to think I’ve turned into the kind of person who just walks away from a conversation.
I shouldn’t care what he thinks—this man literally walked away from our relationship—but I don’t like making other people uncomfortable. Miles included.
“So what happened?” he asks.
“In my book?”
“With your fiancé.”
I grind my teeth. Of course Miles has no shame in asking deeply personal questions like that. He’s never been one for social niceties. I’m over here trying my best not to make him uncomfortable, and he could not care less.
I don’t have to play his game, though. He lost that kind of access to me a decade ago, and if he thinks he can just slide right back into my life like the last ten years never happened, he’s got another think coming.
“I just told you,” I say as the waitress returns with our drinks. I hand her some cash as she hands me my drink. “He left.”
“Hm.” Miles takes a pull of his beer, and I watch the way his Adam’s apple works. A single line of sweat appears on his neck, rolling down to his collarbone. I track it, watching it crest and cascade down his chest, mingling with the pool water.
When my eyes travel back up to his, I realize I’ve been caught.
My cheeks burn with embarrassment, and I dart my gaze away quickly, but not before I catch him returning the body scan.
I resist the urge to squirm under his scrutiny.
My body isn’t carved like an Italian marble sculptor made me, but I know at one point in our lives he loved it.
Treasured and worshiped it even. He was the first person in my life who had ever made me feel so wanted, so deeply desired.
But that was before he decided he wanted a career in hockey more than he wanted me.
Almost the same way Todd decided he wanted a life without me more than he wanted a life with me.
I’ve only had two serious relationships, and both times I was blindsided by the end.
Todd and Miles don’t have a lot in common.
Miles is fire and energy. Todd is calm and orderly.
And in both relationships, I thought everything was fine until it wasn’t.
Todd and I never fought. I thought we were happy.
He said he thought we’d both be happier if we found people who suited us better, as if I were holding him back from some better future.
I thought Todd suited me just fine, but I guess I thought that about Miles, too.
We did suit each other, though—in college, anyway.
His sporty, boyish charm was fun to be around.
The art world always felt so serious, but Miles brought levity and movement to my otherwise still world.
In the end, I guess I was too still for him, like an anchor holding him back.
The dark bubble in my chest grows and threatens to burst. I sip on my daiquiri in an effort to distract my body from the rising tide of emotions inside.
It’s been six months since Todd left, eleven years since Miles left, so why is all this sadness coming up?
It feels like the anesthesia is wearing off a tooth that’s been numbed, pain returning in small doses of awareness.
“Strawberry daiquiri, huh? Since when are you a fruity drink kind of girl?” Miles asks.
“Since always, Miles. But no one makes frozen drinks or margaritas at frat parties.”
“The girl I remember used to double-fist vodka shots and shout the words to every song that played that she knew the lyrics to at parties.”
“That girl also could wake up the next day without a hangover. She was wired differently.”
“I bet that girl is still in there somewhere. Should I get us some shots?”
“No.”
It’s snippier than I intend it to be, but I’m agitated.
He’s carrying on like we’re old buddies reminiscing, and we could not be any further from friendly former acquaintances.
Sure, let’s talk about the good old days, and while we’re at it, should we reminisce on how I could barely get out of bed for three months after you left?
The bubble in my chest continues threatening to burst, and I know I’m going to start crying. I will not cry in front of Miles. He’ll try to get me to talk about it or, worse, try to comfort me. He used to be that person for me—my source of comfort—but it’s been a long time since that was true.
“So how long are you—” he starts, but I get up, tossing my e-reader in my pool bag and picking up my drink and towel. “Hey, where are you going?”
“I…sorry, I’m not feeling well.” I hate that I’m lying to get out of this conversation. I wish I were brave enough to just be honest, but how am I supposed to look him in the eyes and tell him I simply don’t want to be around him right now?
It’s honest, but it’s too mean. He would do it, but I just… I can’t.
“Oh. Do you have a migraine?”
I nearly stumble at his words. He remembers that, too?
Then I tell myself it’s not that impressive, given that I had a migraine just about every three days in college.
He stands too. “Can I get you anything?”
The unexpectedly kind question tips me over the edge. Tears blur my vision, and without another word, I hurry away.
By the time I get back to my room, that sadness bubble has burst. Miles doesn’t know he’s poked right at the most tender place in me.
The hardest part about being single is dealing with my migraines alone.
There is no hell like being nauseated and needing water and having to get it for myself but knowing that getting up will mean making the throbbing pain in my head worse.
I don’t mind being single, unless I’m in pain. And then I don’t want to be alone.
Could he really remember that after all these years?
I remember plenty of things about him, but I wasn’t distracted by hockey while we dated.
My hands are still shaking as I dig around in my bag for my key. Before I can find it, I hear footsteps behind me. Probably my neighbor. My room is tucked back into a small hallway with one other room across from my own.
I glance up to give them a friendly smile, hoping my eyes aren’t red-rimmed from the tears. I’m not one of those people who can easily hide when I’ve been crying. I end up doing a double-take.
No.
“Did you follow me back to my room?”
Miles laughs, a deep, loud guffaw. “This is my room,” he says, pointing to the door across from me.
Room 1077.
He looks like he’s about to say something else, but I’m in my room with the door closed before he gets the chance.
I lean against the door as it clicks shut behind me, tipping my head back.
My chin wobbles, and as fresh tears spill down my cheeks, I have to remind myself that I’m at a resort in Cabo, and not on the floor of my room at my parents’ house, trying to accept that I am not getting married.
And I am definitely not twenty-two, nursing a fresh heartbreak, crying on the drive home from my new teacher job.
Even if right now it feels like that, I know it will pass.
And while I wait for the feeling to pass, I start a hot shower for myself.
My instinct is to call Hazel. I know she would be there for me, but the therapist I’ve been seeing for the last few months encouraged me to try and take care of myself when I’m having a lot of feelings instead of outsourcing the processing to other people.
It’s especially hard at moments like this, when the sadness from my decade-old heartbreak bleeds into the feelings of my most recent breakup.
This trip was supposed to be an escape. Time away from the real world, time for just me without the stress of my job or the pressure to make a decision about leaving or staying. No reminders of Todd, enjoying a solo vacation—and after less than a half-hour near Miles, all of that feels so far away.
I take my time in the shower, letting the feelings move through me and the hot water bring me back to myself, to the present.
Dwelling on the past has never done me any good.
I learned that as I was healing from my breakup with Miles.
In the year after he broke up with me, I would find myself doing better, and then I’d get curious and search for him on the internet—looking for news stories about him.
I’d watch his games sometimes, but it always ended the same way—I’d cry so hard I gave myself a migraine.
I eventually stopped, made Hazel keep me accountable, and found that as long as I never thought about him or saw or said his name, I would be fine.
I thought I was doing well just six months out from Todd leaving me.
The fact that I even told Hazel I was interested in kissing someone before I came on this trip feels like progress.
But even if I am willing to have some kind of vacation fling, I’m obviously a lot more delicate emotionally than I thought I was, and Miles is a bull in a china shop that I need to stay away from.
I don’t want to spend my entire vacation fighting demons. I want to spend it reading all the books I piled onto my e-reader and calming my nervous system.
It’s clear I cannot be around Miles if I want to have the vacation that I need.
So I just have to figure out a way to spend ten days at this resort without running into him.
How hard could that be?