Chapter Three
Dela
I didn’t remember much about getting home.
Everything was a blur as I struggled to process what had happened.
I sat on the edge of my couch, my boots still on, still looking as cute as when I’d set out.
Well, except for the tear stains down my cheeks.
I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror in my second-story walkup entryway.
It wasn’t pretty.
“Chelsea?” I whispered into the phone held to my ear after my friend picked up my call.
“Dela? What’s wrong?”
Chelsea Richards was my absolute best friend in the entire world. She was my rock when the world went sideways. Like now.
“Dela?”
I shook myself. “Hey,” I said. “Uh, how are you?”
“I’m fine,” Chelsea said slowly. “What about you? You, um, sound …”
“Awful?” I supplied.
“I was going to say ‘off,’ but since you brought it up, yes, you sound horrible. What the hell is going on? Are you okay?”
“Like, physically, yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Nobody died. Something did, I guess, but not a person.”
“Nemo?” she asked after a minute.
I glanced over at the empty fish tank on the side table. “That was two days ago. It was his time. They don’t live long anyway.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Dela. Nemo was a good fish.”
“Yeah, he was,” I said. I’d had a glass of wine or two in his honor, but Nemo wasn’t my reason for calling. “Also, Paulo dumped me.”
“What?” Chelsea coughed, then spoke again in a quieter tone. She was still at work. “He dumped you? Are you sure?”
I think we both cringed at the question. It was born of surprise, the mouth working before the brain caught up.
“Yeah,” I said, not making fun of her. “Just now. Well, like an hour ago. I walked home first.”
“Good. Bawling in public isn’t good for the soul,” she said.
I declined to mention that I’d cried the entire way. Everyone had looked at me. Some people had stopped and asked if I needed help. Bless their souls. Others had looked at me like I was crazy.
And maybe I was.
“I was so sure things with him would be different, Chels,” I said, fresh tears springing from the corners of my eyes. “It was all so new, so unlike any of the others. He treated me right, had his life figured out. Where did I go wrong?”
Chelsea made a rude noise. “You didn’t go wrong. Unless you started dropping wedding hints or baby hints or anything like that. Did you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, my braid bouncing side to side from the vigor of the movement. Not that it mattered; she couldn’t see me. “No, none of that this time, I swear.”
It was a valid question, though. Over the past few years, I’d experienced more than a little heartache.
Chels had been there for each one, encouraging me not to give up, to try again, to give love another shot.
She also coached me into restraining myself from saying such things, as I had a habit of doing.
So with Paolo, I’d worked extra hard not to.
And it still hadn’t worked.
“What an idiot,” she said. “Paolo, I mean.”
“I’m an idiot, too,” I said heavily, flopping back onto the couch, tired of sitting upright. My will to give “effort” was fading fast.
“What for?” Chelsea asked, momentarily distracted. I could hear the clacking of keys on the other side as she responded to some email or chat.
“Believing that things were going well. That this time, things would work out differently. Perhaps I’m just cursed, Chels. Wasn’t there a book about that? Some guy gets cursed so that every woman he dates dumps him and ends up finding their soulmate right after they break up with him?”
“Book or movie?” she asked. “I feel like I watched this.”
“Maybe both,” I replied. “‘Cause I feel like I read it.”
Chelsea was big into movies. I, on the other hand, had a house full of books. Like, overflowing with books. They were stacked on bookshelves, on top of bookshelves, on tables, in large stacks on the floor next to my bookshelves. They were everywhere. It was a bit of a problem.
Not the books, of course, but my lack of a filing system. I needed more bookshelves. When I had the spare money, I would pick up another one. That would help. Maybe I could find a used one online.
Maybe a trip to the bookstore is in order, I mused, thinking about my favorite used bookstore a few blocks over. The one with the cushy chairs at the back, where only the real fans would find them.
“Dela? Hello, Dela. Are you there?”
“Shit, sorry,” I said. “Space cadet over here.”
“How are you doing?” she asked.
I started to tell her that I was doing okay. That I would be fine in the end. As always.
“Not good,” I ended up saying. “I’m feeling pretty down this time, Chels. He called me clingy. Clingy. I went over because he asked me to. I wasn’t even going to see him today. Why is it such a bad thing to want a future? To think about life more than a week or month ahead?”
“It’s not,” Chelsea said. “It’s a good thing. And men who want that are out there.”
“Just ‘cause you got lucky with Mark doesn’t mean there are others,” I grumbled, trying to fight back the twinge of jealousy.
Chelsea’s husband, Mark, was an amazing man, and I was ecstatic to help her marry him. He’d been a great boyfriend and was an even better husband. Supportive, caring, family-oriented. He wanted it all and was willing to give it to her.
I wanted that. Was that so crazy?
“Maybe you should stop looking on Tinder, then,” Chelsea said. “Unless you want to start using it for its intended purpose.”
“I just might tonight,” I said.
We both knew I wouldn’t. Random hookups were not my thing. I had to know somebody at least a little bit before I let them in my pants.
I was briefly reminded of Power-Man and wondered what would have happened if he’d come across me as I left Paolo’s. Would I have needed more than a jerk of his head to let him use my body however he wanted? Even then, I grew warm at the memory of our meeting.
A meeting in which he was distinctly impolite to me. Lording his power over me, like I was nothing to him. So, why the hell did I crave his hands on my inner thighs and his mouth on my neck?
“Just don’t do anything stupid until I get there, okay?” Chelsea said, interrupting my daydream. “I’ll come drink a bottle with you, or you can come over here, and we can drink a few together. Mark will drive you home if you don’t want to stay.”
I thought about it. The idea didn’t sound horrible.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll let you know, okay? Give me some time to think about it.”
“I’m at the office for another two hours,” she said. “I can swing by on my way home and get you, so just let me know by then?”
“I can do that,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Not like I’m going anywhere else.”
“Good.” She hesitated.
“Just say it,” I pushed, not wanting Chelsea to have to work up to whatever else she had to say.
“Will you promise me something?”
“No,” I said. “But I will listen to whatever you ask me to promise you and then decide if I want to agree to it.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
We both heard the unspoken “this time” at the end.
“Like what?” I grumped, knowing full well she had a point.
With one ex, I’d gone to his place to seduce him after he said he wasn’t getting enough sex from me. Looking back at it, I cringed. What a fucking embarrassing moment I’d have to live with for the rest of my life.
Then there was the ex who I’d written a song about—while having wine—then gone to his bar to perform it at karaoke night. In front of everyone. A grand gesture I’d hoped would show him I could be more spontaneous and outgoing.
And then there was the time I …
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I think we can do without any of that this time.”
“Me, too,” Chels said, not bothering to hide her relief. “Just … get yourself some ice cream or something, sit on the couch, watch, like, Sex and the City or The Office or something, and cry a lot. Normal things.”
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“Hey, listen, I gotta go,” she said, someone calling her name in the background. “But you be good, okay? Fuck Paolo. You don’t need his sorry ass. I’ll see you in a couple hours. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I said, dropping the phone onto the couch as she hung up.
I stared at the TV, too numb to even turn it on.
I hated how this kept happening to me. Always, somehow, I managed to screw it up.
I think the last time I’d dumped someone was college, and that was a world and a lifetime ago.
Since then, there’d been a string of short-term relationships that had never gone anywhere, despite my best intentions.
“I just want a husband and a family,” I moaned with a mixture of self-pity and self-loathing. “Gimme a ring, a wedding to party at, and babies. Please!”
I looked skyward, seeing past the ceiling as I imagined the cloudless expanse beyond.
Was it really me? Am I the problem here? Or is it my choice in men?
Everyone had told me that Paolo was different, though.
And he had been. He appreciated my body, which several exes hadn’t.
Growing up, I was a gymnast and a competitive cheerleader in college.
But since then, the training had gone out, and the curves had come in.
I had hips and a butt that could fill out jeans.
Not to mention boobs. Boy, were those a fun surprise when I turned twenty-two and had a second growth spurt!
No, he’d loved my body. We’d laughed together. He had a steady job. Sure, maybe he played a few too many video games, but was that any different than losing myself in a book for hours or binge-watching the same TV show for the tenth time? No, not really. A hobby was good anyway.
“So, what the hell went wrong?” I mumbled. “I wasn’t too clingy.”
Unless … my eyes opened suddenly.
What if it had been a test? What if I was supposed to fight for the relationship? To tell him that I could change, that I would give him the space he needed. Paolo wasn’t good with his words. Perhaps he’d been trying to tell me that he needed more time for himself and had just been terrible at it.
I sat up slowly, swiping away at the last of the tears.
Of course. How could I have been so blind?
Things had been too good up until then. Too easy-going.
Nobody would want that to end. He simply needed us to take things slower.
I could do slower. That was fine. Yeah, I could give him some time and space.
And I would tell him that.
Feeling buoyed by my new self, I shook off the last vestiges of my darkness and marched to the bathroom, cleaning my face up. I wasn’t going to be a mess when I showed up.
“Look out, Paolo,” I said, grinning at my reflection. “I’m coming for you. This time, I’ll make sure the relationship works. Whatever you need. I can do that for you.”
Turning away, I grabbed my stuff and went out the door, feeling much better.
Never once did it occur to me that I wasn’t heeding Chelsea’s advice. In my mind, I’d figured out the puzzle to making the relationship work, and I’d do whatever I had to, to keep my boyfriend.
Whatever I had to.