3
KIERA
FIVE YEARS LATER
“You don’t get it!” I take a deep breath as I get us a glass of wine. “We were supposed to be flying to the Bahamas right now. But you know what the jackass did? He decided to trade my ticket for one for her.”
Ellie is staring at me with her eyes about to come out of their sockets. “What?”
I nod, then let my head fall down, my chin hitting my chest. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
“What’s wrong?” Her eyes are lasered in on me. “Oh, my God, you did something, didn’t you? What did you do?”
“It′s not my fault he never changed my email when he got her ticket. So, I might have called the airline company and had both tickets cancelled. Like this morning.” I hide my face in my hands.
“No.”
“What? It’s not my fault he always checks in electronically, so I waited until the site marked them as checked in and called to say there had been some last-minute problem and asked them to cancel the tickets and I’d wait on the line for the confirmation they had been cancelled. I mean, it wasn’t that hard since I had all the details about the reservation.”
“But won’t they get the cancellation email?”
I shake my head as we walk to the living room. “Since I was on the phone and they had checked in already, the tickets became non-refundable, and I told her to send the confirmation to my email address. And I know, it wasn’t exactly the most mature thing to do, but I still feel good about it. If Derek is going to make my life at work hell, this is the least he deserves.”
As I walk past my couch, my toe stubs the edge and I limp a few times. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” And that’s karma for me.
I sit down on the couch, wincing slightly.
“Oh, you poor thing.” She walks back to the kitchen and pulls out a bag of frozen peas for me.
I put it over my toe while she sits beside me. “I’m scared of you but also proud.”
“Thank you for coming to stay with me. Your flight ticket must have been super expensive.”
“Kind of,” she admits. “But this is a national-level emergency.”
I roll my eyes. “Hardly.”
“It is . No guy gets to hurt my best friend like that. Especially not a pretentious douchebag like Derek.”
She takes a sip from her wine.
“I’ll drink to that.” I hold up my glass in salute and take a long drink of the red I poured myself. The sour-sweet taste leaves a tingle at the back of my throat.
“So, why aren’t you at the museum today?”
I grimace. “I love it there, but I can’t bear to be there anymore. It doesn’t help that the woman he’s been cheating on me with is the one he hired a few months ago as the assistant art director.”
“What’s that?” She frowns.
“It’s something he came up with this year.” I shrug. “That should have been my giant, waving red flag. I mean, I should have seen this coming. So, the whole thing is really on me.”
“That’s so not true.”
“Did you know he saved her on his phone as Pookie Bear.”
“Barf,” she says, making a face. “The guy sucks. Even his nicknames are gross.”
“I get it, you hate him. But the truth is, I didn’t see it coming. He was sweet to me. We spent all the time together, and yet he still found the time to fuck someone else? How does that work?”
“Some men are just assholes.”
Ellie is lucky in many ways. She's been laser-focused on her career in sports media and met her long-distance boyfriend on the job.
I shake my head.
“My asshole-meter went off when I met him the first time. The guy couldn’t stop talking about his acquisitions for the museum for two minutes. I don’t think he even stopped to breathe when he was bragging about his turnovers from the museum visits ever since he became the curator or whatever. The guy was a walking inflated Excel sheet. All he could do was toot his horn.”
I had noticed that, too. But I saw it differently.
Derek was passionate about his work and had a real eye for spotting genius.
That’s why I didn’t suspect anything when he spent long hours at the museum, even after everybody else had left. It was normal for him.
The irony was when I confronted him about the cheating, he said that he felt like I was not giving him enough time, that I was ignoring him and focusing on my work—work that he had assigned me in the first place.
“Maybe. And it’s not like I was already hearing wedding bells or anything. I mean, I’m not even sure I wanted to marry him. But I wanted the chance to find out without having the rug pulled from under me again. Why do I never see how much guys like him suck?”
Ellie leans down next to me and takes my hand in hers. “You just want to see the best in people. Also, I think partly you always choose the safest choice.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Before I explain, tell me how you feel about the breakup?”
“It sucks.”
“Go on,” she nudges.
“I hate that this is the second time that I got cheated on.”
“How did you find out?” Ellie asks.
“Taylor told me.”
Taylor works at the museum, and like me, she’s in charge of one of the wings.
“We’re not that close either, but she had my back, and at least this time, I wasn’t totally betrayed by someone I considered my best friend.”
“Why does everything have to come back to him?” Ellie asks.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well. ‘He-who-must-not-be named’.” She uses air quotes.
I’ve banned using Jake’s name, but Ellie is right. He does come up often in our conversations, but she has actually never met him in person.
I scowl. “Why are we even talking about him?”
“You’re right, I got distracted. What I meant to say is, why did you go for Derek? Because he gave you butterflies?”
I shake my head.
“Well, he certainly didn’t give you orgasms.” She rolls her eyes.
“And he was weirdly obsessed with Picasso. What was up with those figurines at his house?”
“Those dolls really stare at you when you’re on the bed, going at it.” I shudder.
That earns me a guffaw from Ellie, and I can’t help but crack a small smile of my own. The more I talk about Derek, the more I realize what a terrible choice he was.
“The point is, you only liked him because he was safe. He asked you out, and he seemed like a decent guy.”
“So, now it’s a crime to be practical?”
“It is when it comes to love.”
“Yeah, guess that’s why I got cheated on twice.” I shrug. “Here’s a lesson for me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Ellie says. “You know that. Kiera, how do you really feel about the breakup?”
“Angry, hurt.”
“Because he was the one?”
No.
I dream about a loving family, someone to share my likes and dislikes, my love for art, someone to come home to or who chooses to come home to me. With Derek, it was never about that.
Derek was a practical choice.
Having to put myself out there, take time out of my busy life to meet someone is hard and scary. And he was there and he was interested.
In retrospect, I now realize what a terrible idea that was. And because of that, I have to go in to work with Derek and have his infidelity thrown in my face every day.
“No, he wasn’t the one. Even if he was hinting at an engagement. Which, now that I think about it, might have been him overcompensating for the cheating. It really doesn’t matter, though.” I sigh.
“I’m just angry but not heartbroken. I’m maybe even a bit relieved. Is that normal?”
“No, that’s not normal. But it is good in a way.” She smiles. “Heartbreak is awful. But in your case, you just feel bad because of what happened, not specifically about him.”
I lie back against the couch with a groan. “Why do I always attract the worst men you’ll find?”
“I think it’s already decided that he’s the one who sucks, and you just happened to get the short end of the stick.” Ellie pats my leg. “I propose we get everything he got you during the relationship and burn it to a crisp. It’ll be a fresh start.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to burn down my apartment,” I tell her with a snort.
“I’m not saying we have to do it here.” Ellie nudges me with her elbow. “We can go up to the terrace and do it.”
“And burn down the entire building instead?”
“Don’t be a pessimist.” She playfully slaps my arm.
“It’s hard not to be when you keep getting cheated on in your long-term relationships,” I say. “And it’s always like at the one and half year mark.”
“I admit, that’s a little crazy.”
She flicks her finger against my forehead.
“Hey! What was that for?”
“Snapping you out of it,” she says. “It’s not that your relationships fall apart in that mark; it’s just the fog of hormones lifting, and you finally see the truth.”
I consider that for a second. “Fair.”
I shake my head. It was the same with Chris.
I was more broken up about Jake’s betrayal than his.
“You need to get yourself out there—not romantically. I know you’re not ready,” she says. “I mean professionally. If you don’t want to work with Derek, you don’t have to. You graduated magna cum laude in your year. You’re that bitch.”
“I don’t think many opportunities are waiting to line up for an art history graduate.”
“And that’s where you are wrong.” She’s on her phone, scrolling through it.
“Are you even listening to me?”
She turns the phone toward me.
“A job opening. You’re right; there aren’t many openings in museums or galleries, but there are in the private sector. This one here is looking for, and I quote, an art consultant with at least two years of experience for a full-time position.”
I sniff. “I’m not going to work for a multi-national company.”
“Let’s see… You’ll get health insurance, three weeks of paid annual leave, and the option to travel across the country, fully funded. Tell me that doesn’t entice you.”
I hesitate.
“And you’ll meet interesting people in the corporate.”
“All of that sounds great, but—”
“But?” Ellie shakes her head. “There are no buts. I’m going to apply for it on your behalf. Just forward me the resume.”
“Okay, fine.” I sigh. “Let’s do it.”
“And let’s burn his stuff later?” Ellie looks at me batting her eyelashes.
“Nope, still not doing that.”