Chapter 9 #2
facing the infamous bench of heartbreak.
Drake’s still not there.
“Yup,” Celie mutters,
rubbing a finger across her gums.
“Definitely OD’d.”
I pull the bill of my Yankees cap down
and sink into the shadows.
“It’s a gummy, Celie. Not heroin.”
She was only supposed to eat half.
She ate the whole thing.
I should’ve been supervising,
but I was too busy staring at my damn phone.
“It tasted like purple promises,” she whispers.
“Celie, focus. You’re getting your man back.”
She glances over her shoulder.
“I should go over there right now and wait, right? Like—boom—here's my heart back.”
I shake my head. “Nope. You are not a sad bitch waiting on a man.
“He waits on you.”
She fidgets. “I’m gonna do something stupid.”
I don’t assure her. Because never, in my life, have I successfully stopped Celie from doing something stupid. Once the idea's trapped in her frontal lobe, it owns her. Same way this Andrew owns me right now.
His hands.
His mouth.
His body pressed against mine.
The way I feel him
even though he’s not fucking here.
The way he hasn’t texted.
And I hate how much I care.
“Yo, he’s here. Oh my God,” Celie says,
all nerves.
Drake’s walking up,
wearing swag-full confidence.
A beautiful disaster in denim.
I snap into mission mode,
shove the earpiece in,
and clip the mic to her collar.
“Alright, Hoodrat,” I say, maternal and loving. The tone you use when you’re sending your bestie into battle. “Don’t take off your coat. Don’t talk back to me through the mic. Don’t repeat me word for word. Make it sound human. Be… casual.”
She processes the instructions.
“Casual,” she repeats,
eyes unblinking, glassy—high.
“Be the casual version of myself.”
I sigh.
Kiss her forehead.
And push her into war.
“Exactly. Now go.”
And then she’s walking in his direction.
I sink into the bench,
anxiety crawling up my throat,
I flip my phone over.
Again.
Nothing.
Guess twenty-eight days was all it took for the fantasy to crack.
A couple of hours of real conversation and
ta-da—
he realized what everyone eventually does:
The dream girl’s an idiot.
She’s all mouth, no mind.
Good for a few orgasms, that’s it.
I set the phone face-down on my thigh
and tell myself I don’t care.
This is good. It’s for the best.
The healthiest route for everyone.
A crackle comes through the earpiece.
Then Celie’s voice slams into my eardrums:
“He wore the blue shirt. Lord, take me now, I love the blue shirt.”
Her breath catches, all dreamy and doomed.
“What you think that means?”
I rub my temples.
“Don’t overanalyze everything. Just breathe.”
Superb advice, coming from someone who’s building an entire conspiracy theory on why Andrew hasn’t texted.
Maybe I talked too much.
Maybe I laughed too hard.
Maybe I fucking farted without realizing it?
Yeah. Maybe I blacked out mid-conversation
and ripped one.
“Drake!” she says,
all cracked-out Christmas cheer.
“You’re here. Breathing. Alive.
“Still handsome. Good job.”
Drake’s voice cuts through.
“So. We doing this, or…?”
A shrug wrapped in syllables.
I can hear Celie's smile through the static—
“Yeah. We’re doing this.”
Drake runs a palm over his head,
shoves both hands into his jacket,
and sits down like—
fine, let’s get this shit over with.
Celie then melts into her spine, smiling at him.
Just smiling.
For three seconds straight.
I press the mic again.
“Tell him he looks good.”
Celie beams. Very hard.
“You look good. Like, annoyingly good.”
Drake glances at his shoes. “Thanks. You too.”
The pigeon moves in closer,
here to negotiate terms.
He hops onto the bench without asking.
“Ask him what he’s been up to,” I whisper.
She clears her throat.
“So… what you been up to?”
Drake picks something off his jeans.
“You know. Work. Gym. Therapy.”
Celie gasps. “Yo, I fuckin’ love therapy.”
I slam the mic. “Don’t say that.
“No one loves therapy. Not even therapists.”
“Not,” Celie says low, leaned in.
"Therapy fuckin' suuhhhcks.”
Drake laughs, empty enough to echo.
“Look, Celie, I don’t know what you want from me. We’ve been over this. What’s there left to say?”
But she’s not listening.
Her heart's pounding through the earpiece.
Not literally,
but figuratively enough to want to sedate her.
I’ve seen this look before.
It’s the same one she had right before she proposed to a bartender in Vegas. She’s seconds away from throwing herself at him.
The pigeon closes in, slow and smug.
He turns his beady little head away,
as if I’m beneath him now.
I ignore him back, type into Google:
what to say to your ex to win him back.
The results populate instantly.
I skim until I find something low-risk and idiot-proof. “Tell him your just checking in on him. Ask about his weekend.”
But dead silence.
She’s staring,
her eyes wide and expression blank.
Shit.
She’s so fucking high.
Higher than gas prices in Manhattan.
“Hoodrat!” I hiss.
“Tuck your hair behind your ear if you know where you are.”
A second passes.
Then she lets out this weird, glitchy-ass giggle.
Okay wi-fi's back.
“Ask about his weekend,”
I say again through gritted teeth.
She clears her throat,
diving headfirst into monotone.
“So. How was your weekend?
“Did you do anything enjoyable?”
Enjoyable.
I roll my eyes to the trees,
hoping one’ll snap and mercy-kill me.
“Nah—loosen up, Hoodrat.
“You sound like fucking Siri.”
Her breath hitches, offended.
“I am loose,” she says. Out loud.
I sit up so fast my phone flies off my thigh and lands on concrete.
Mr. Pigeon doesn’t react, still perched and now staring down at my phone.
“You serious right now?” I whisper-shout.
Drake tilts his head. “Are you… talking to yourself?”
Celie laughs, panicked and high-pitched.
“Nah, I ain’t talkin’ to Allie.”
I close my eyes, disappointed.
“Don’t say my name.”
It comes out through clenched teeth
as I bend down,
reaching for my phone, hover—
Please don’t be cracked.
Please don’t be cracked.
Then I swipe it off the pavement.
Flip it over.
Not cracked.
My breath leaves me slow,
dragged from the bottom of my lungs,
deep and tired.
Celie leans over
and lays a hand on his fucking thigh,
her tone serious.
“Sorry, sorry. I forgot how high I was.”
My eyes fall shut.
“I’m sorry?” Drake asks,
confusion written across his voice.
“Nothing!” Celie chirps, waving him off.
“Ignore me. I’m just anxious.
“You know how I get—
“All awkward-cute.”
Drake pauses, processing,
probably regretting the last few years with her.
“…Okay,” he finally mutters.
“So what’d you wanna talk about?”
To my left,
Two-winged Tony side-steps closer to me.
His head ticks to my phone.
Even he knows Andrew hasn’t texted.
Like he’d text me if he were Andrew.
He deserves a bite for the honesty in his eyes.
“Hooligan,” Celie whispers into the mic.
She’s turned away from Drake,
a fist pressed to her mouth, fake-coughing.
“He’s givin’ me that look,” she breathes.
“The daydream one.”
She coughs again, loud and fake.
“Yo, he smilin’. He doin’ it. It’s happenin’.
“I think he wants to kiss me.”
“He wants to kiss everyone, Celie. He’s a Pisces,” I hiss. “Stick to the script.”
I scroll Google again,
desperate for something usable,
but find myself checking my messages again.
In case the notification didn’t pop up.
“Still no text,” I mutter. To myself.
To the pigeon.
To God.
Cobain.
Heath Ledger.
Anyone up there.
The pigeon blinks slowly like—
Boy’s got two thumbs and no balls? Shame.
You deserve better.
A male with feathers and hollow bones.
Not a hollow heart.
“I know, Tony. Deadass.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
I mutter into the mic again,
“Tell him you been focusing on personal growth. Positive changes. That crap.”
The mic scratches against her coat.
Then robot Celie returns.
“I’ve been working on personal growth and positive self-reflection.”
Drake chuckles uncomfortably.
“That’s… real specific, Celie.”
Are we chuckling with her, or at the situation?
It doesn’t matter. It’s a great transitional piece.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Say something funny. Lighten the mood.
“Humor is hot.
“Laugh, then drop an inside joke.”
Celie laughs in broken coughs,
like an old muffler spitting out smoke.
I wince.
“Sorry,” she says, stalling.
“Just remembered this inside joke.”
Drake tilts his head with a smirk.
“Inside joke, huh?” he asks.
“You gonna let me in?”
I can hear the sweat sliding down Celie’s neck.
I rush to type: inside jokes for exes who might still love you but think you’re insane and you’re high right now—pls help,
but even Google taps out.
“Hoodrat,” I whisper, "an inside joke means you two are the only ones inside it.”
She whimpers, pitiful.
I scramble, “If you don’t have one, make it up.
“Say something dumb.
“Say it with your whole chest.”
She clears her throat.
“Um…
“What did the fish say when it swam into a wall?”
Drake waits for the punchline,
then says, “I don’t know, Celie.”
A heavy, world-ending pause.
Then—
“Dam.”
She says it straight-faced.
Fully committed.
Then silence.
The kind that eats sound.
Even Two-winged Tony seems disappointed.
Drake sighs loud.
“I think we should call it a night.”
Her voice crashes through the earpiece,
shaking with panic.
“I’m sorry, Drake. I’m mad high, tired, and...
“I miss you—”
Elbows to knees,
I drop my head into my hands.
Bohemian Rhapsody.
That's what sums up her entire love life.
That’s the genre, the mood, the curse.
Hopeful intro with—Is this the real life?
Then the crash-cymbal chaos
and electric-guitar havoc,
Bismillah,
answered with throwing stones
and a spit in the eyes,
before total collapse.
And finally, a depressing, haunting fade-out—
nothing really matters.
“High?” Drake’s voice drops. “No, you see—this is exactly why we never worked the first time around. Or the second. Or the third. You’re too—”
A shake of his head.
“...all over the fuckin’ place,
“without actually… goin’ anywhere.”
And
my
heart
breaks.
“But—” she blurts. “I want you back!”
Drake pauses. “What?”
He smiles as if it’s a joke.
Because it’s too late. He’s gone. It’s over.
Celie scrabbles, tripping over her own mouth.
“I mean—don’t want—
“Unless… you do want…?”
Drake folds. Tired. His arms cross.
“Tonight? This?
“It wasn’t goin’ to change anything.”
She swallows through the mic.
Her body’s gone stiff, waiting for the blow she believed wouldn’t come. “I know,” she says, quiet, barely getting the words out. “I still had hope…”
Her voice falls apart.
The rest of the sentence dies in her throat.
Drake levels a gaze on her, over it.
“I came because you asked,” he says. “Not because I thought this would be anything more than what it is.”
She nods. A lie she tells with her neck.
“I just need to say a few things,” she says.
But the word few snaps right in the middle.
He exhales.
“It’s not fair for you to say them when you know I don’t feel the same.”
Her eyes fall to the pants she bought earlier today for him.
She thought she could change his mind this time. Thought if her hair fell perfectly, if she picked the right shade of lipstick, smiled the way he used to love, it’d trigger something old and warm in him. That he’d remember what they had. That he’d come back.
But he isn’t coming back. He never was.
“I’m not tryna hurt you,” Drake says.
The statement’s a classic.
People only say ‘I’m not tryin’ to hurt you’
while they’re hurting you.
The intention’s supposed to dull the blade,
but never does.
Celie laughs, defeated,
the kind of laugh that escapes when you can’t cry fast enough.
“I know,” she whispers.
“You already did that.”
Drake doesn’t comfort her,
doesn’t apologize.
Because this is the part
where sorry only makes it worse.
She wipes under one eye.
Then the other.
“I didn’t want it to end like this,” she says.
“It ended a long time ago,” he replies.
I sink deeper into my hoodie,
feeling the cold shiver up my spine
and settle in my chest.
A chill I’m going to carry home with me.
Celie doesn’t speak.
Not when he stands.
Not when he says her name.
Not when he walks away.
And when he disappears into the curve of the dark path
where streetlights don’t reach,
she stays, frozen—
one hand limp in her lap,
the other gripping the bench
trying not outlive him walking away.
She doesn’t chase him or beg or scream.
She sits there,
staring at the absence he left behind,
still hoping he might change his mind
and fill it again.
And I—
I can’t move.
My heart’s reaching for Celie
with bloody knuckles, like—
Take me. Yours cracked. You can have me.
And I have to pin Heart down with both hands to keep her from giving her entire self away again.
The pigeon's head twitches, looking at me.
Then back at my phone,
like he’s ready to fly a hit.
Like he’s saying—
You want both of ‘em face-down in the Hudson?
I’m just askin’.
Might be easier than feeling this shit.
A little splash. A little closure.
I drag in a breath, and it fucking burns.
God. She wanted another chance so badly.
She wanted him—believed in what they had—
and look where it got her:
broken in public, under a streetlamp,
mascara dripping, tears bleeding out slow.
The heartache,
the grief,
the gamble,
the way your chest caves in,
none of it is worth it.
Mom loved me, she died.
Dad loved me, he died.
Brandon loved me, he left.
Raymond scarred me, he stays.
Life’s a sick fuck and Love's not the fairy tale people believe it is.
I think it’s another word for deal.
And someone always gets the worst end of it.
Usually the one who gave more.
Usually the one still sitting on the bench.
Alone.
Celie’s curled into herself now, quietly crying,
the streetlight hitting the tears on her cheeks.
And all I can think is—this.
This is why I keep my heart in a coffin.
This is why I don’t do pillow talk
or promises
or playlists that make you feel pain.
Celie drives herself into love,
at a hundred miles per hour—
all heart, no brakes, no seatbelt.
But I’m not going to be that stupid.
(Except when I am. Which is always.
But shut up, I’m trying.)
This Andrew-thing dies here
before it takes its next breath.
Love always has a loser, and it’s Love.
The pigeon waddles up
like we’ve been through some shit together.
Then he snatches the last bite of pretzel from my hand, taking what he wants and disappearing into the dark.
I watch him go.
“Makes sense. Textbook male.”
I stand, start toward Celie,
ready to wrap my arms around her.
Then—
Buzz.
I freeze.
My eyes drop.
Phone screen lights up.
One notification...
(551) 233-1980:
I wanna see you