Chapter 12 #2
Her dark brown hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, her eyes looking wider than usual and full of mischief.
“What is it? Tell me.” She grins like I’m about to hand her the secret code to a happy marriage.
I swear she’s on the hunt for a man and would major in getting her MRS if she could.
She’s the perfect audience for this story.
“I saw a guy I . . .” I what? Used to like? Hooked up with once? Fell in love with over the course of twelve hours? My brain can’t seem to wrap around what Keats was or what he is to me. What were we together?
“You saw a guy?” She looks around, taking another sip of her cocktail, and then says, “We’re in a room full of them. I see lots of guys. Did you notice the cute one in the beige three-quarter zip spinning at the counter stool?”
There’s so much wrong with that sentence, from beige to spinning at the counter stool, that I don’t even know where to begin.
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t notice him.
” I don’t bother to look now because I don’t want to sidetrack this conversation.
I need to get this off my chest so I can start healing from a one-night stand that I can’t seem to forget.
“I saw a guy on the train that I once dated.” I unwrap my silverware and slide the napkin to my lap, keeping my gaze on my fidgeting hands.
The admission feels so heavy on my chest that I wonder if I should take a walk outside for fresh air.
I finally look up. Sympathy has dragged the corners of her eyes down along with her mouth. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. I wasn’t on the train. The doors closed.” I can still feel the pressure of my palms slamming against the glass, the exasperation of being one second too late that washed through me, and then a soothing balm just from being in his vicinity. “He didn’t see me. He was reading—”
“He was reading? A book?” I nod, finding it odd that’s the only part that stands out to her. “God, that’s sexy.” Her shoulders fall as she exhales loudly in a swoony sigh. “Sounds like the perfect guy for you, Sos.” She smiles without commiseration but with genuine curiosity. “So what happened?”
“The train left the station.” I laugh to myself, finally able to breathe as if the confession was keeping me from doing so all along.
I also catch the irony in the phrase and laugh again.
Resting my elbow on the table, I drop my chin on my fist, finally finding humor in this heartbreak.
“That is so fitting for what became of us.”
“Going in two different directions?”
“Yeah.” I rest back, smiling for some odd reason. “I suppose we were.”
The server taps his fingers on the table’s edge, and asks, “What can I get you to drink?”
Feeling out of sorts in this new realization, yet comforted by seeing Keats again, I reply, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Glancing at the menu before he rushes away, which is what he seems to be on the verge of doing by how antsy he looks, I add, “And the burrata to start, please.”
“Gotcha.” He dashes off as I knew he would.
“And another for me,” Marcy calls behind him.
He waves like he’s got it under control.
Marcy leans back with a gleam in her eyes. Crossing her arms over her chest, she says, “You never order cosmos. What gives?”
I lean back too, mimicking her. “I’m not sure. Maybe it’s time to move on and try new things.” I hate to admit that it might include letting my Poet go. He didn’t look miserable. He looked good, like life is treating him well. I hope it is. He deserves it.
“Why are we here again, Marcy?”
She laughs, the sound echoing around us on the street. “Shhh.” Her finger is pressed to her lips, but then she startles like I had done it. Pointing at me, she sways. “You dragged me here.”
“I’m drunk,” I state, defiantly poking my chest as if being wasted wasn’t obvious. “I’m in no state to be leading anyone anywhere.” A finger wag catches my attention until I realize it’s mine I’ve been watching. “Why would you trust me?”
I turn in a circle to find Marcy not looking her best. Her head swivels on her neck, and with her hands planted on her hips, she replies, “Of course, I trusted you. You think I have my shit together? I’m drunk.” She looks at the building, then back at me again. “Is it safe here?”
“How would I know? The only time I was here was with a guy who was way bigger than I am.” It fascinates me how I can remember hugging myself to his chest, the scent of his cologne coming back, but was he six-two, six-seven, or .
. .? He could have been seven feet for all I know.
I just remember not worrying about my safety with him. I was protected and felt it.
I look down the street one way and then the other, not feeling so secure in this idea of coming here at night with another girl who’s just as drunk as I am.
“Well, we’re here.” Throwing her hand in the direction of the building, she says, “You came to see if he was here, so you need to follow through, or the eighty-three dollars for the ride over was for nothing.”
I’m still surprised I even found the place. We circled three blocks in the area before I recognized the building. “Okay.” I reach into my bag and pull out my lip gloss to put on as I study the entrance. I look at Marcy, hoping she’ll save me.
She doesn’t, and says, “Good luck.”
“Yeah, thanks.” I head toward the steps, clearly leaving my better judgment at the restaurant where this plan got concocted over a fourth round of cosmos and not enough food in our stomachs.
I pause on the bottom step because this doesn’t feel like a great idea anymore.
What will I do if I see him? What will I say?
Oh hey, I saw you on the train today and was wondering if you have any good books to recommend?
God, this is the worst idea ever.
I take a step up, then the next three, before jiggling the handle to see if it’s open. It’s not. Staring at the locked door, I say, “Now what?”
“Buzz him to let you in to confess your undying love for him.”
I swore that tonight was a fresh start, and Keats would no longer be a part of my daily thoughts. I’d kick him out of my chest, where the memory of us thrives, and try to find someone else to fill his spot in my heart. Impossible.
We are still unfinished business. Until it’s resolved, there’s no moving on.
I tug on the door. It releases and sends me back a step.
My gaze whips back to Marcy, who jumps up and down in a silent cheer.
She stops to sweep me inside with the back of her hands.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I enter the small lobby and am confronted by the stairs that will lead me back to him.
The door slams behind me, causing me not to just jump but to start the trek up the four flights to his door. I don’t know what I’ll say. There’s just this urgency I feel building from a need inside me.
I reach the landing and notice a doormat with a black cat design that reads wipe your paws.
Keats never came off as a cat kind of person, but is that something I’d have known in the short time we were together?
No . . . maybe? I don’t know. How would I know this information? He didn’t have one back then.
I knock before I lose my nerve. Straightening my back, I raise my chin, hoping I don’t look drunk. The sound of feet coming is heard just before the locks are unlatched and the door is opened.
I blink. And then again.
The woman is shorter than I am by just a little. Her hair is longer, and her eyes are a darker brown. She’s pretty. Very pretty. I feel sick . . .
“Can I help you?” She glances over my shoulder toward the stairs like she expects someone else. “Do you have the food?”
“Food?”
She tilts her head, and her brows pinch together. “Do you have my order, or are you some psychopath knocking on my door?”
“Oh, um . . .” I catch a glimpse of the couch that Keats once folded out and the bookcase in the corner.
The Christmas tree is gone, the books are more organized, and the rug is pink, but it’s mostly the same otherwise.
I back away, my butt hitting the stair railing.
“I have the wrong apartment.” Tears flood my eyes as I realize that could have been me.
Cozy and cuddling in his arms every night could have been my life.
I never needed the life I have, but I wanted a life with him.
“Who are you looking for?” she asks as concern crinkles the corners of her eyes. Unsurprisingly, this makes her even more beautiful. Figures.
“No one. I’m sorry. Wrong apartment.”
“Babe?” A man’s voice sends me running down the staircase as soon as she turns away. My feet are moving so fast that my body struggles to keep up. My thoughts are spinning, and as soon as I push through the door, I stumble onto the sidewalk where my heart shatters all over again.
“Sosie?” Marcy runs to me.
Bent over, resting my hands on my legs, I can’t breathe. My tears fall from my eyes like traitors hell-bent on revealing my weakness. Him. It will always be him.
Wrapping her arms around me, she pulls me to her. “Oh Sos, I’m so sorry.”
It takes a minute for my eyes and mind to clear, and when it does, I take a deep breath. “We should get out of here,” she says, hooking her arm with mine and pulling me away. “This was not my best idea.”
Just out of the spotlight of the building, I stop in the shadows and look back. “It’s okay. This was the closure I needed.”