Chapter 11
NOEL
It’s a quiet kind of joy, having Luca back in my life. Subtle and maybe even a bit contained, but pervasive all the same.
Okay, okay, okay. I know. I know. I can’t go all in, gotta temper my expectations and all that, and I’m not.
This could still go all to shit, and he’s got a wife still and a baby on the way, and none of this is ideal.
We’re definitely not back to that place we were, ever so briefly, before he left me, not even close.
But still.
The effect it has on me is enough that my boss takes notice when we have a video call on Monday morning. “You seem cheerful today,” she remarks from behind the screen with an encouraging nod.
Maybe she’s being a little patronizing, but I am in too good of a mood to care. Instead I just smile and say, “I feel cheerful.”
“It’s nice to see a smile on your face for once. I was starting to think you were this dreary, gloomy person all the time.”
Personally I enjoy the idea of cultivating that sort of vibe for myself, at least from an aesthetic point of view. It’s certainly better than mercurial and hysterical. Or just flat out crazy.
In fact I’m feeling so good that I kind of think maybe I could get off my meds, for real.
It’s not that I’m necessarily thinking of quitting just because of Luca; I’ve been wanting to for a while.
Not feeling extremes can be nice, but the side effects suck and not being able to drink much sucks and also, not being able to feel extremes can suck, too.
Not being as happy as I could be right now, the ecstatic high that feels like a drug, and I kinda miss it.
But I am happy.
Danika notices too, the buoyancy in my overall mood, when she calls me in the middle of the week to wax poetic about her relationship woes—which I am listening to with rapt attention, because I fucking love drama that doesn’t involve me.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Danika complain about her boyfriend’s porn habits while pushing back my cuticles. I have a reason to look pretty again.
“You sound like you’re in a good mood,” she accuses me, breaking off from her diatribe.
“Mm?” I’m briskly smacking a bottle of nail polish against my palm. “Do I?” I haven’t gotten much of a word in edgewise other than no way and oh my god and then what?
“I can hear it in your voice, all squeaky—wait, what’s that sound? Are you jacking it right now?”
“Seriously? I’m painting my nails, you degenerate.”
“Oh.” She is mollified for the moment. “Sorry. Dan’s just gotten so far in my head with this bullshit, you know. I’m seeing gooning and ’bating wherever I go.”
“But is he actually gooning and ’bating while you’re on the phone?”
“Yes! Isn’t that disgusting? Just one hand clapping away while I’m trying to ask him about his day.
I swear, like—it’s what he does sixteen hours out of the day.
It’s like he can’t keep his hand off his dick for a minute.
It sucks. And now our sex life is in the toilet.
What’s the point?” Aggrieved sigh. “It’s ruining everything. ”
“Sounds like an addiction,” I say. “If it’s really that bad.”
“But when we first started going out, he wasn’t like that. He was perfect. I don’t get it.”
“Maybe he was on his best behavior to impress you or something at first? If it’s making you miserable and you don’t want to try working through it, dump him. It’s not like you’ve been dating that long.” Another thing I love: giving out advice I have proven incapable of following myself.
“Yeah, maybe. I’m not going out with someone who’d rather jerk off than touch his girlfriend.” Danika sniffs. “Anyway, what’s new with you?”
“Not much,” I say. “Nothing at all, really.”
It sort of sucks that I can’t tell my friends about being with Luca again.
I mean, I could tell them, I don’t have to hide him like a dire secret that can never be discovered.
But I don’t really want all the negativity that cascades along with it.
I do understand why my friends would come down on me about it, considering the nature of our breakup and my general pattern with relationships.
And it’s not like I don’t have my own reservations.
He’s had whatever talk with his wife (and I hate that she’s still his wife), and now I’m supposed to go over there to meet her and play nice with her over lunch this weekend.
I’m not looking forward to it but I suppose it’s sort of inevitable, and anyway he assured me she’s nice.
When I pointed out we’ve met before at his shop, he just said antagonizing her months ago doesn’t count, and I guess I hope she doesn’t remember that day too well because it’s not like I made the best impression. I’d been so goddamn jealous.
Whatever. I don’t know how this is all going to shake out. And there’s always the chance he’ll shy away from this, us, me and I go right back up on the chopping block again.
Fuck, I hope that doesn’t happen.
I think this time it might be real, and as long as it’s real, the rest should fall into place somehow.
Gotta keep the little flame of hope alive and fan it with everything I’ve got because the alternative is unthinkable.
Can’t let it gutter out in the darkness of that black hole inside me, or it will swallow me for real.
“Nothing at all, huh?” Danika’s voice yanks me out of my dilating thoughts. “No updates on your personal dick quest?”
“Actually,” I say, steering the conversation into a completely different direction, “I was thinking about getting off my meds.”
There’s a brief pause before she goes, “Really,” and she doesn’t sound very impressed with me at all. In fact I can basically sense her winding up to scold me. “Like cold turkey?”
“No. I’d talk to my shrink about it.”
“But why? You’ve been doing really well on them.”
I uncap my bottle of topcoat. “Because the side effects suck ass. I don’t think I really need them that much anymore, anyway. I’m feeling better. Things are better overall.”
“You’re feeling better because of the medication, Noel,” she says in exasperation. “If you stop them, you’ll go right back to feeling like shit and making it everyone else’s problem.”
“Ow, okay. Tell me how you really feel.”
“I mean that with all the love in the world.” When I don’t say anything, she adds, “I really don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s only been a few months. Stick it out a while longer, maybe the side effects will get better.”
“I don’t think they will,” I remark sourly.
“Sounds like you’ve made up your mind, then.”
“It’s just an idea I’m floating, Dani. I haven’t committed to anything yet.
” But now I sort of feel like I should do it, just to prove that I can be fucking normal and well-adjusted on my own.
I don’t need pills that make me feel nauseous and dizzy half the time to do it.
Pills that make something as base as getting off an act of sheer concentrated effort.
Although it is easier with Luca, a lot easier. Just not as easy as it used to be.
Hell, I miss the access to my full spectrum of emotion. Sure, a lot of it was either one end or the other, the extreme highs and lows, and sure those feelings fucking hurt like a bitch, but the limbo is kind of worse. I think. I don’t feel like me and I want out of the box.
None of this I can convey to my friend in a way that will make sense to her, though. I know she and everyone else want me to be dampened down. A bite-sized version of myself that is easier to swallow.
We say goodbye and I hang up, thumbing the end call button carefully as to not smear wet polish all over the screen.
A few minutes later as I’m cleaning up, a message comes through.
I check eagerly under the assumption it is Luca telling me he’s on his way over and instead I receive a slap across the face; a backhand, actually.
It’s Jordan.
My stomach sinks like an anchor and it’s an awful, sick feeling, so visceral that I think for a second I might throw up.
I don’t know what on earth he’s doing, messaging me a whole week and a half after he fucked me up.
Also why the hell do I still have him saved as a contact in my phone, anyway?
Why didn’t I block him when he blocked me?
I haven’t had any interest in him in months.
I flip my phone over before I get up and pace the short length of my kitchen, waving my hands so my nails will dry faster as my mind races. And then I can’t actually handle not knowing whatever it is he wants to say to me, so I immediately return to my phone and look.
Hey.
Did you get home okay the other night?
There’s three little dots because he’s still got more to say, and then it pops up:
Are we cool?
I fling my phone away from me like it’s a snake with its fangs bared. It skids across the table before it tips off, clattering to the hardwood floor. I press the heels of my hands, very hard, into my eyes, until it aches and I see starbursts exploding in the darkness behind my eyelids.
Nothing happened. He didn’t actually touch me. I think.
I drag my hands down my face and cover my mouth. My phone lies on the floor, face down, hiding whatever damage it might’ve incurred on the way there. I take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and then let it go very slowly.
You’re okay. You’re safe. Everything is fine. Hardwood under your feet and the smell of acetone on your fingers. In two three hold two three out two three. Rinse. Repeat.
Why am I scared?
I have never been scared of Jordan. He was awful—he is awful—but I have never, ever been afraid of him, even in our very worst moments.
He wasn’t really like that. I’ve had so many screaming, crying meltdowns where he just looked on coldly or simply ignored me.
Or, when I well and truly fucked up, he would grab at me, shove me, snarl in my face, and those times were actually preferable to being ignored or watched in a silence that was somehow derisive.
The only thing I’d been really afraid of is him leaving.