Chapter 12 #2
Maybe it was his relationship with his coach or the injury softened him a bit, but to change your mind about anything requires maturity.
“Have you thought about reaching out to him? Your dad. If a lot of the anger is gone, is there a part of you that wants a relationship with him again?”
Miles twists his mouth to the side, studying his drink. “I’ve thought about it.”
A waiter comes by, drops guacamole and a basket of chips in front of us, and refills our waters. I withdraw my hand from Miles’s, smoothing my napkin onto my lap.
“And at this point, I’m not even sure what I’d say to him. I’ve spent almost a decade not having a relationship with him. I’m not sure I know how to have one now.”
I wish I hadn’t taken my hand away, because again, I find myself at a loss for words.
“I don’t know what that feels like exactly, but I do know how it feels to be unsure what to do or how to do it. And that is an uncomfortable place to be,” I say. “Thank you for telling me all that.”
“You asked,” he says and offers me a kind smile.
“And now it’s your turn,” I say.
“I’ll go a little easier on you to start.”
I tip my glass to him in thanks before drinking.
“Are you any closer to deciding on that graphic design program?”
“I thought you said you were asking an easy question,” I say and hide my face in my hands. I can hear him laugh at me.
“I didn’t ask if you decided; I asked if you were closer to deciding.”
I peek out from between my fingers. “No?” I say, unconfident.
He presses his lips together and nods. “Because you aren’t even thinking about it?”
“I’m thinking about it, like, every day. An unhealthy amount, probably.” I remove my hands from my face and dive into the chips and guac.
“Can I do anything to help you decide?” he asks, leaning in, propping his arms up on the table.
“Decide for me?” I suggest.
“I think you know what I’m gonna say.”
I nod, knowing damn well he would tell me to say yes.
If only it were that simple. But my yes to that program would come with so many consequences.
Saying goodbye to my coworkers, my community.
Giving up all the joys of watching kids fall in love with art and get better over time.
Being an art teacher is all I’ve ever known.
If I give that up, will I even recognize myself?
Will I still know myself? Will I like myself?
The unknowns are almost as overwhelming as the knowns of doing another year of teaching. There simply is not an easy path forward.
And all of this doesn’t account for the fact that I don’t think it’s wise to make decisions while this burned out.
“I’m just…not convinced that a vacation won’t fix me,” I say.
“And has it? You’re what…five days in? Has it fixed you?”
He’s asking a rhetorical question and we both know it. I avoid looking at him by really focusing on the chips and guac. One of my chips breaks in the dip and I fish it out with another chip, taking a big bite to avoid answering.
It hasn’t fixed me—or at least I don’t think it has. Not completely. I do feel more relaxed than I have in a long time. My mind isn’t constantly racing, and I don’t feel so jumpy. I’m sleeping better, too. So maybe it is on the way to fixing me.
But I still feel torn by the decision ahead of me.
“All right, my turn,” I say, and follow my chips and dip with my margarita. He dips his head toward me in acknowledgment. “Why are you still single?” I ask.
He chuckles. “This one might be even harder to answer than the last one. But not for the same reason. It’s because I don’t know.”
I tilt my head to the side, narrowing my eyes at him. He finishes his margarita and looks around for a waiter.
“I don’t buy that,” I say. “You did some therapy. You just talked about your complicated relationship with your dad. Are you really telling me that your emotional maturity stops there?”
He taps his empty glass against the table, shaking the ice around in the cup. “I just…haven’t found anyone that I wanted to be more serious with. Casual relationships are working just fine for me.”
“You’re telling me you haven’t had one serious relationship since you graduated from college?”
“Not a single one,” he says. He doesn’t seem proud of the fact, nor disappointed by it. All I can hear is, “I don’t want to get emotionally invested with someone.”
And that should not matter to me one bit. Except that I feel like my heart is being pinched by some invisible hand.
Why am I disappointed in his answer? I know he’s not emotionally available. He never was.
All the more reason that we absolutely cannot hook up again. I refuse to become attached to someone who can’t return that attachment.
“I have to admit, I find that odd,” I say, trying to hide my real feelings in my drink. I’m taking slow sips so as not to get a brain freeze, but frequent ones, so as not to show my hand.
“Why?” he asks.
“Not to boost my own ego or anything, but it’s sort of giving ‘I compare everyone to Abby and no one is measuring up so I’m not committing’ vibes.”
I’m half-teasing, and his smirk matches my own, like he’s in on the joke. I’m about to press him on the point, but he’s saved by the waiter, who takes his order for another margarita and assures us that our food is on the way.
When he turns back to me, his face reveals nothing. “My turn,” he says. “Since we’re on the topic of relationships, what happened with your ex-fiancé?”
Miles dips into the chips and guac, more relaxed now that it’s my turn to answer.
“Todd was a nice guy. He was just…looking for something else,” I say. Even after all this time, I still feel humiliated by our breakup, but I tell Miles what happened anyway. That Todd sat me down on a random Wednesday and said he wanted to talk to me.
“I can’t tell if you even want to marry me or at this point if you’re just going along with it because that’s what you always do,” Todd had said.
“If I didn’t want to marry you, I wouldn’t. I would tell you.”
“See, I don’t believe you. Just last week, we went for Ethiopian food, which you said you were fine with, but you didn’t eat anything when we got there.
We spent last Christmas with my entire family and you didn’t talk to anyone but my parents and sister the whole time.
You didn’t tell me until after we left that you were uncomfortable.
I chose an all-inclusive resort for our vacation because I knew you would just go along with every suggestion I had for a trip around Europe and I don’t want that. I want a partner, not dead weight.”
“I asked him if that’s what he thought I was. Dead weight. He insisted he didn’t mean it like that, but broke up with me a week later.”
I keep my eyes on my lap, where I clasp my hands so tightly together that my fingers go white.
“What a dick,” Miles says.
I lift my eyes to his. “No, no, Todd wasn’t…he’s not a bad guy.”
“You’re too nice, Abby. The kindest thing I could possibly say about him is that he’s a fucking idiot for letting you go. I would know.”
My lips twitch, a smile threatening. Hazel expressed a lot of the same sentiments, but she has to; she’s my best friend.
Six months away from the breakup, it doesn’t sting like it used to. Todd’s words don’t lacerate my heart anymore, and even telling Miles now, it feels like I’m telling a story that belongs to someone else.
It was hard, adjusting to a life without Todd, but things have been looking up for me. I wouldn’t take him back, even if he asked me—not because he was a bad guy; he just wasn’t the one for me. And I like the person I’m becoming without him.
“Do you want to get married?” Miles asks.
“Hey, it’s my turn.”
He holds up his hands in surrender.
“But I’m going to steal your question,” I say.
He fakes shock. “Hold on a second, that’s not in the rules.”
“There are no rules. Not that we established.”
“Yeah, okay, fair. Proceed.”
“Do you want to get married?” I ask him with a smirk.
“To the right girl, I would. Same question back to you.”
“I would like to get married,” I say and leave it at that.
Fortunately, our dinner arrives, and the question game comes to a natural end.
We eat, and both Miles and I have another round of margaritas. When dinner is done and our plates are cleared, Miles and I only linger for a few minutes before leaving the restaurant; neither of us has any interest in dessert.
And I have a surprise for Miles.
We get to the end of the restaurant walkway, where I stop and turn to Miles, clasping my hands behind my back.
“Feel free to say no to this, but if I remember this very niche fact about you…I don’t think you will… In about…twenty minutes, there’s some entertainment at the theater here.”
Miles raises his eyebrows at me. He clearly didn’t read the resort program guide today.
“It’s a magician,” I say, trying to hold back a smile.
Miles doesn’t even try to fight it. His face cracks wide open with a grin, his eyes lighting up. “Oh, hell yeah. Let’s go see a magician,” he says, still smiling, his words brimming to the edge with joy.
He offers me his elbow, and I deem the contact safe enough, looping my hand through the crook of his arm.
“You know I’ve always had a thing for magicians,” I say as we walk to the theater.
“If you’re referring to the magic phase I went through in high school, I told you that in confidence. Not to be used against me.”
“I’m not using it against you! I think it’s cute.”
“I found David Blaine late in life, okay?” he says, defensive.
I throw my head back in a cackle.
“I still love magic,” he says with a nonchalant shrug.
“So you’re still performing card tricks at family reunions?” I tease.
“That was one time.”
“One time too many. You should have seen your aunt Sheila’s face.”