Chapter 35 #2
“I think I’m going to go talk to him. I think, maybe, we both need the closure.” As I say this, I’m checking the time, pulling my denim jacket on, opening my Uber app.
“Mal?” Carmen says casually, using her phone as a mirror as she applies lip gloss. “Maybe wait until you’re not drunk.”
I sit back down, deflated. “Right. Good idea.”
I dither back and forth about it for a couple of days.
Is it worth going down that path again? Can I handle seeing him?
Do I even want to see him? There’s a chance that seeing him will ignite some forgotten spark between us.
Or that he will be completely over me and confused about why I’m there at all.
I suppose there’s also the chance that he won’t live in the same place anymore.
But he’d already lived there for eight years when we started dating, so I’m relatively confident he’ll still be there.
I decide Friday is the day. He used to head straight home from work on Fridays, or go for a quick happy-hour drink with his fellow teachers before heading home at a reasonable hour.
So, after work, I take a quick body shower to wash the bus commute off me.
My hair is cooperating today, so I let it tumble over one shoulder, which works well with the plunging neckline on the shirt I chose.
Even if I’m just planning to apologize, I feel like it’s a requirement to look your best when you’re going to see an ex.
I pair the top with some hip-hugging jeans in the style all the cool kids are wearing these days.
I missed my jeans while I was gone. There’s no need for pants of any kind in Florida in June.
Around eight, I step out of the car in front of Alex’s complex.
I’m thankful his building doesn’t have a call box like Daniel’s—here, I can just walk around the back, climb a flight of stairs, and knock on Alex’s front door.
This makes me remember when I showed up at Daniel’s unannounced and the way he let me in, no questions asked.
But I wasn’t showing up on him after literal years apart.
I push thoughts of Daniel out of my mind.
I don’t know why, but I don’t want to think about him right now.
When Alex answers the door, my heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears; I’m too flustered to read into the expression on his face.
He stands there in the same clothes he wore to work that day, I assume: a blue checkered button-down and dark-wash jeans.
The shirt, and his wavy black hair, are rumpled, like he’s had a long day.
He’s so handsome it makes my chest ache.
“Mallory.” His eyes widen the slightest bit, but as always, he holds his emotions close, revealing almost nothing. Or perhaps he’s just truly unruffled—I could never quite tell with him.
“Hi, Alex.”
He stands in the doorway for such a long moment that I’m afraid he actually does have someone with him, or that he’s not going to invite me in.
But finally he blinks and says, “Do you want to come in?”
Inside, he gestures stiffly to the living room.
He doesn’t sit, so neither do I. It occurs to me how different his place is from Daniel’s.
There are framed travel posters on the walls and books shoved onto every possible shelf, toppling in piles under the end tables.
I take this all in over the span of a second or two, and then I gather my courage and look him in the eyes.
“Long time no see.” I try for some awkward charm. He simply looks bemused.
“You look…” He sort of gestures to me and then lets his hand swing down to his side. “Tan.” He clears his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to…” I glance behind me at the couch, desperately wishing we could sit, but I don’t feel like I can suggest it. So I just stand there. “I wanted to talk, and… apologize.”
“Okay.” His heavy, dark brows furrow ever so slightly.
That minuscule change of expression makes me feel the full force of the guilt I’ve been harboring for the past couple of years.
Like I had the power to hurt this grown man, and I did.
For someone so confident and stoic, he still had a heart to break, and I broke it.
“I…” I reach for his hand but then can’t bring myself to touch it. “The way I ended things was wrong. It was cowardly.” It almost hurts me to say it— cowardly —because I’ve thought of myself that way for so long, it’s like a dirty secret.
He sort of scoffs, and for a second I think he’s going to say it was no big deal.
“A text. A text, and then nothing. You never granted me so much as a phone call.” There’s a bitter twist to his voice.
“You’re right. You didn’t deserve that.”
It occurs to me that I half expected a sense of chemistry to still exist between us. But there’s a definite chill in the air. No spark.
And, honestly, how could I have expected anything other than a chilly reception after what I did?
“Was there anything else?” He asks it in a wooden voice that throws me off balance. “Any other reason you showed up here with no warning?”
“Alex, come on. I wanted to apologize. And you asked me if I wanted to have coffee sometime, so, I thought…”
“You could have apologized anytime in the last three years. And a normal person would have scheduled coffee with me first. Why show up now?”
I can’t find the words to explain what I’m doing here.
Probably because I don’t even know, myself.
I spent the last few days thinking about whether or not I should, without asking myself why.
What is the point? It’s not like Alex has been waiting for me to show up out of the blue.
This isn’t a movie where I show up one day to find that he still loves me and I still love him.
I just… I just finally understand how I must have made him feel.
How it feels to care about someone and then have them disappear from your life like it was no big deal.
And also—the thought dawns on me all at once—I understand now that the way Alex made me feel wasn’t right.
I don’t deserve to be hidden away. So I might come off as shy sometimes, I might not always be the life of the party, but that doesn’t mean I deserve to be hidden.
The man I’m with should be proud to introduce me to everyone in his life. Like Daniel was.
“I just wanted…” An apology. But I can’t bring myself to say it. “I wanted you to know that the way you treated me wasn’t—I deserved better. I wanted you to meet my family and vice versa. You shouldn’t have hidden me like a dirty secret.”
He stares, and for a moment I think he might argue.
But finally he says, “I know. I realize that now.”
“You do?” It’s not an apology, but he rarely apologized for anything—perhaps I should have seen that for the red flag that it was.
“Yeah. I’ve been seeing a new woman for a while now, and I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Oh.” Of course he’s seeing someone new. I wait for anger or hurt, but, unexpectedly, something inside me softens. It takes me a second to realize that I’m happy for him. We didn’t work out, but he deserves to be with someone who’s right for him.
“What is she like?”
“She’s a speech therapist. She loves board games. And backpacking.”
I grin, and after a moment he grins back, laughing a little.
Because those are Alex’s hobbies that I could never get into.
The board games were fun sometimes, but usually I spaced out while he tried to explain the rules.
And backpacking? Just the thought of hiking up a mountain with camping gear strapped to my back makes me shudder with horror.
“She sounds perfect for you. So you’re going to introduce her to your parents, then?”
Slowly, he nods, with an apologetic shrug.
And even though I’m certain that I’m over Alex, even though I’m glad that he’s found someone, a part of me breaks open. Because, three years ago, I wanted so badly to be the person he brought home to his parents—and now, I am that person, for a different someone. Or I was a week ago.
Tears well up from deep inside my chest, and my throat aches with the effort of keeping them inside. The memory of how joyfully and unreservedly Daniel introduced me to his family hits me. I wanted that for so long. And I had it, for one brief, shining moment.
“I’m happy that you’re happy, Alex.”
“Hey. Same to you. Are you? Happy?”
Faking it is the only option right now. Because I didn’t come here to pour my heart out to Alex about how much I miss Daniel. I just wanted to end my last romance on a high note, instead of the low note that’s been lingering for too long.
“I am.” I beam at him, smiling through tears.
He finally reaches for me and pulls me into a hug. It’s the embrace I’ve thought about countless times, but right now I’m vibrating with the effort of trying not to cry and I just want to leave.
As soon as I’m a block away, I pull out my phone and call Carmen. Because I do want to pour my heart out about Daniel. To someone who will understand and care about every single interaction, every up and down, every kiss. To my best friend.
That night—after crying buckets of tears to Carmen as we drink chamomile tea on my tiny patio, the chill of the Seattle summer night cooling our skin as music pours out of a neighbor’s window—I feel cleansed.
Now the whole story of Daniel McKinnon is out there—in my best friend’s brain, at least—and I can accept it for what it was, and move on.
I feel like something has been wrung from my heart, leaving me lighter, with more room to breathe.