Chapter 13 Then #2
“Because from what I understand, going to therapy is paying someone to make me do my least favorite thing ever—deal with conflict, sadness, disappointment, fear; pick a negative emotion, I don’t want it.”
Alex pulls a Twizzler from the bag between us and bites into it. “I get that. I avoided it for years for the same reason.” He shoves his hand into the bag again, pulls out another Twizzler, and offers it to me.
I lift my head enough to bite into it and flop back down. “What eventually made you decide to go?”
“Mia,” he says. “She wasn’t born yet, but she was due soon, and one night, right in the middle of dinner service, I just lost it.
Full-on panic attack. Things weren’t good with Jen.
I’d been running myself into the ground, working obsessively at the restaurant.
I was constantly anxious about becoming a dad, because I wanted to be a good one, and I had no confidence I could do that.
Everything I’d relied on in life to avoid all the shit I never dealt with stopped working.
So I figured, if I had no choice but to deal with the shit, I might as well talk to someone who could help me actually deal with it.
“Full transparency,” he adds. “I did not happily skip off to therapy after the kitchen panic attack. It took me a couple weeks, and a couple more episodes, to finally schedule an appointment. I knew I needed help, but I was scared to admit it. Because my whole life, I’ve told myself ‘I can’—that’s how I got through things.
So when it finally hits you, when you realize ‘I can’t,’ it’s hard to wrap your head around it, let alone your heart.
When ‘I can’ is how you’ve always told yourself you’re ‘fine,’ or you will be, it’s terrifying to face ‘I can’t,’ because then how do you know you’re going to be fine?
When it’s never been okay to not be okay, admitting you’re not okay and you can’t make yourself okay like you always have is an existential fucking crisis.
” He bites into another Twizzler. “At least, it was for me.”
I sit up slowly and face him. “I think… the past few days have been… that for me.”
“I’m sorry, Ted. That you’re in that place.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “And I’m sorry I talked so much.”
“You talked deeply. You’re a philosophical drunk, and I like it.”
He boops my nose with a Twizzler. “Don’t be nice right now.”
I grab a Twizzler and boop him, too. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
He seems self-conscious, eyes down, his hand fiddling with the Twizzlers bag. “I really am sorry, if everything I said, if that wasn’t the vibe you needed. ’Cause if it wasn’t, I just brought a lot of that vibe. I talk too much when I’m drunk.”
I set my hand on his. “You didn’t talk too much. And that was exactly the vibe I needed. I’m an amplified drunk—whatever I’m feeling just feels bigger—and the past few days, I’ve been feeling really bleak. What you said,” I tell him, “it helped me. A lot. Thank you.”
Alex peers up at me, and there’s something so exposed, so vulnerable in his expression. “You sure?” he asks. “Because if it actually was too much, if I went too far, you can tell me that. I want you to tell me, Ted.”
I remember what he said the night we met, out on his stoop, what he called his fatal flaw. I do that a lot, dial myself up to an eleven.
And I remember telling him my fatal flaw, too. Mine is dialing myself down to a one.
“I’m sure,” I tell him. I take his hand in mine and hold his eyes. “Do you know why I asked you to come over tonight?”
A swallow works down his throat. “Because the other person here that you’d talk to is the person you’re really upset won’t be here in three weeks?”
“No. Even if this wasn’t about Lauren leaving, and I was this upset, I wouldn’t have texted her.
” I peer down at his hand, turning it so I can see his palm, his fingers, the lines and scars carved into them.
“Because I didn’t know how to deal with it.
And I want to. Which meant I needed to talk to someone who’d go there with me.
Lo and I, we love each other, and we are good friends to each other in many ways, but not in this.
We don’t talk about tough things,” I admit.
Alex says, “Sounds like she could use a therapist, too.”
A laugh jumps out of me.
“The wine,” he groans. “It obliterates my filter. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. That’s what I’m getting at. Even though I suck at it, I like that you talk about hard things, Alex.
That’s why I texted you tonight, I wanted your ‘dialed up to an eleven’ to put a fire under me.
Maybe the same way you’ve reached out to me because you wanted my ‘dialed down to a one’ to bring you some comfort. ”
I peer up at Alex and tell him, “I guess, what I’m trying to say is… I think we’re really good for each other. Flaws and all.”
Alex is quiet for a moment, his gaze fixed on mine. “You’re right. I have reached out to you, in part, because of that. But Ted, I never want you to dial yourself down to a one for me.”
My heart aches in my chest. “I haven’t.”
“Promise?” he says. “And promise you never will.”
“Promise. And I promise I never will—no lower than a three.”
“Six,” he counters.
“I’m not even dialed up to a six for myself, my dude. Don’t push it.”
He sighs. “I never want to dial up to an eleven on you, either.”
“You haven’t,” I tell him.
“I won’t,” he says. “I promise.”
I squeeze his hand in mine. “I trust you.”
He squeezes my hand back. “Thank you.” His mouth twists to the side. He looks away. “For saying that.”
I lean in, wrapping my arms around him. It is, I’m realizing, the first time I’ve hugged Alex. I’ve thrown myself into his arms before, initiated a hug. But I did that for me. I’ve never done it because I knew he needed it. Until now.
Alex sinks into my hug, and, unprepared for that, I fall sideways, bringing him down with me on a loud thump.
“Ouch,” he says into the floor.
“Alex!” He rolls toward me onto his side. I reach for his face, searching it for a bruise. “What hurts?” I ask. “Your nose?”
He shrugs. “It’s taken harder knocks before.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t braced for all your muscly manliness. You are not light.”
“That hug felt so good,” he says, “I kind of forgot about holding up my own body.”
I smile, my hands cradling his face, curved along his jaw. “I like that you forgot. Because that means you think I’m someone you can count on to catch you. Which I will,” I add. “Next time. Because I’ll be prepared.”
Alex smiles, and I feel his cheeks lift beneath my palms. “I’ll try not to go timber on you too often.”
Silence settles between us, and the air thickens—charged, humming.
I pull my hands away and sit up. Slowly, Alex sits up, too.
Diving into the Twizzlers again, I take in the room. “You know what this place needs?” I ask.
“A kitchen that isn’t frozen in 1963?”
I chuck a Twizzler at his head. “Yes, but not what I was thinking. It needs more empty wine bottles.”
Alex scrapes a hand through his hair. “Thing is, when I drink, I want a cigarette. And I’ve downed a bottle of wine, so… I really want a cigarette.”
“I want a gas station hot dog in the worst way,” I admit. “But we’re sticking to our resolutions. Which means no more drinking. We’ll do something else fun and escapist.”
Alex glances around my apartment.
I glance around, too.
“Okay,” I tell him, “I don’t have much to do here. Yet. I need to buy some board games, a deck of cards. A TV. Just haven’t gotten there.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “Let’s see what we can come up with.” He pulls out his phone and starts typing.
I shove another Twizzler in my mouth and lean in, peering over the top of his phone. “Whatcha doing?”
“Googling,” he says. “ ‘What to do for fun when you’re divorced.’ ”
“And with a friend,” I tell him. “Add that.”
“And. With. A. Friend,” he says, thumbs moving across the screen. He hits enter. A frown tugs down his face. “What the fuck, Google.”
“What?”
“Get on dating apps?” he hollers at the screen. “That’s your number one recommendation?”
He chucks his phone away, I think intending it for the nearby director’s chair. Instead, it threads the gap between the back and seat, which means his phone soars through the director’s chair, across the room. Miraculously, it lands on Argos’s dog bed.
“Phew,” Alex says. “I thought that phone was toast.”
“You do strike me as someone who should invest in a quality phone case.”
Alex gives me a scathing look as he eases upright, then crosses the room to scoop up his phone. “I’m going to take that as a compliment: you think I enjoy such a vigorous and active lifestyle, I need a phone case to see my phone safely through all my fearsome escapades.”
I snort. “You’re also a funny drunk.”
A smile spreads across his face. He bows theatrically. “Thank you.”
“Google really said we should get on the dating apps?” I ask.
His smile dissolves. “You had to bring that up.”
“It didn’t happen all that long ago. I thought I was just picking up where we left off before you launched your phone across the room.”
Alex flops down beside me again, flat onto his back, and sighs. “You’re right. I sidetracked us. Yes, Google said that. I just really don’t want to get on the apps.”
I peer over at him. “Ever or right now?”
Alex is quiet for a beat. “I don’t know, Ted. Sometimes I wonder if I wasn’t just bad at being married to Jen. Maybe I’m just bad at being married.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m intense, and historically, when I get passionate about something, it eclipses everything else.
From the moment I opened it, my restaurant was everything to me, and I couldn’t see that I’d sidelined my marriage until I was about to be a dad, and by then, it was too late.
” Alex glances at me. “I don’t work at the restaurant anymore.
That was my Hail Mary, to try to salvage things with Jen.
I quit, left it in the very capable hands of my former sous, Olu.
The only work I’ve done since then has been on my cookbooks.
I haven’t gone back to work at the restaurant since. ”
I turn on my side, elbow tucked under my head, and face him. “What’s your restaurant’s name?”
His brow furrows. “Everything I just said, and that’s your question?”
I nod.
He smiles faintly, his look quizzical, then tells me, “Squisito.”
“That’s Italian?” I ask. At his nod in response, I add, “Italian for…?”
His gaze travels over me. “Exquisite.”
Heat flushes through me. I know he wasn’t talking about me, when he said it, but he was looking at me when he did. My brain understands the difference. My body does not.
“I’d like to eat there sometime,” I tell him.
“You have, in a way. The lasagna I fed you, when we went to Luna’s—that’s one of my recipes, a favorite at Squisito.”
I smile.
“What about you?” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He turns to face me, too, elbow tucked under his head, mirroring me. “Do you want to get on the apps, at any point?”
I stare at him, my heart’s pace picking up. “I don’t know. I think, before I figure that out, I have to figure out myself better. Everything feels jumbled right now. I feel disoriented, and… bruised.”
A soft grunt leaves Alex. “Bruised is a good word.”
For a moment, we just look at each other, no sound but the hum of cicadas, the box fan whirring in my window.
“So that’s that,” I tell him. “We won’t get on the apps. Maybe one day, but not today. Today, we’ll… do the Wordle.”
He snaps upright. “Connections?”
“The Spelling Bee?”
“Strands!” we say at the same time.
He sighs. “My god, Ted. We were made for each other.”
Affection curls around my heart. Alex opens his arm wide, and I scooch in, resting my head on his shoulder. His arm comes around me snug, a comforting weight, and he brings his phone close so we can both see it. His head nestles against mine. We both sigh with contentment.
Alex opens up the New York Times Games app and asks, “What should we do first?”
I tap the Spelling Bee. “We’ll go in order.”
“Which would mean starting with the Crossword?”
I peer up at him, and my heart skips. Our mouths are very close. For the first time, I think about kissing Alex. And I wonder if maybe Alex is thinking about kissing me, too.
He drags a curl back from my temple and asks, voice soft, “Where’d you go?”
“I was just thinking…” A swallow works down my throat. “We’re way too drunk to do the Crossword.”
“Good point,” he says. “We can do it in the morning.”
A surprised laugh tumbles out of me. “Planning to stay the night?”
“Sure, sounds good.” He taps the Spelling Bee to open the game, slides his thumb across the letters, and spells S-A-G-E.
I poke his side. “I was asking if you were planning to.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” he says, “but then you invited me.” He nods toward the far end of the room. “Argos’s dog bed looks decadent.”
I glance over at the dog bed, which I can admit is ridiculously plush and oversized, a gratuitous splurge. “You might actually fit on it. Be my guest.”
“I’m teasing, Ted. Give me thirty to sober up, then I’ll head home.”
“Don’t,” I blurt. “I mean, don’t head home unless you want to.”
He peers down at me, searching my eyes. After a moment, he seems to find whatever he was looking for, because he settles back into place, resting his head against mine. “I’ll stay.”
I slide my finger across the letters on his phone and spell P-A-G-E. “Because you want to?”
“Because I want to,” he says. “And also, because that dog bed looks cozy as fuck.”