Chapter Nineteen
Chelsea
Challenge: Start a gratitude journal
On Monday morning, I called my manager at the coffee shop and asked if they could use an extra hand in the morning. I might as well make money if I had to be in hell. As it happened, they were short-staffed.
I dragged myself in to work where, for the next several hours, I lost myself in taking orders and foaming milk. I tried to find a way to numb the grief that threatened to swamp me.
Around noon, Elizabeth showed up on her way to the university, looking exhausted. I got her a mocha latte and took my break. We grabbed a table in the corner.
“You look like hell.” She was one to talk. She wore makeup that couldn’t cover up the dark skin under her eyes, like she’d slept in her mascara. Or hadn’t slept at all.
“Like looking in a mirror, huh?” I hadn’t even bothered with makeup. What was the point?
“What’s going on with Bas?” She held her coffee up to take a sip but leaned past the mug. “Have you called him?”
I gave her an incredulous look. “Why would he want to talk to me?”
I’d beaten myself up all weekend for allowing my parents’ horrible decisions to impact my relationship with Bas. And after such a nice day when he’d put his heart into that meal. No surprise, I hadn’t heard from him once.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, then Elizabeth said, “So, vacation? We’ve racked up a lot of points. Where are we going this year?”
Funny. As much as I loved to travel, I hadn’t even thought about our annual trip all weekend. Maybe because we never went anywhere exciting anymore. Islands, beaches, cruises.
I wanted to go somewhere new. “Can we make it to Bali?”
She set her phone down and pulled up our map. “Not yet. Too far.”
“Not Bermuda.” We’d been so bored there in our isolated resort.
She winced. “Agreed.”
I dragged the map around to better see our options. “What about Iceland?”
Her nose curled, like she smelled something burned. “Jamaica was fun.”
“Yeah.” Jamaica was fun. But we’d already been there. I wanted to put pins in the world map. I wanted to get as far away from myself as possible. “How far away can we go?”
“Greece?”
And Bas. As far from Bas as possible. “No way.”
“You’ve always wanted to go there.” She raised her eyebrows, like she was coaxing me with a van full of candy. “I bet we could do a tour of the islands by boat.”
“No.” My stomach curdled, and I was a beat away from standing up and going back to work.
She smiled. “Okay. We can figure it out.”
Relieved, I settled back against my chair. “Just somewhere we’ve never gone before, okay? I don’t care where. Except not Greece.”
“Wyoming it is.” She cocked an eyebrow, my cue to crack wise.
“Whatever,” I huffed.
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so cavalier if we could swing a trip to France.”
“I thought you wanted to go to a beach.”
“There are beaches in France.” She ran a search and said, “It might be a stretch, but what about Saint-Tropez?”
Hmm. For Elizabeth, that was an inspired vacation destination. She just wanted a beach. I wanted to explore the world. “In January? Won’t it be cold?”
“It would be temperate,” she said. “And probably cheaper in the off-season.”
I shrugged. “Okay. Whatever.”
“Jesus, Chelsea.” She leaned forward, over her coffee cup, and touched my hand.
“What?”
“Do I need to keep giving you the same advice?” Her voice was soft but held an edge of concern. “Call him.”
As it turned out, I didn’t need to take her advice. When I came home, I found Bas sitting on my front porch. He must have been freezing. He looked like a romantic hero, all beautiful features and dark, brooding expressions. A part of me wanted to drop down beside him, let him wrap me in his strong arms and make me feel safe and loved, but he deserved better than me. I was a hot mess.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.” He stood. “I know you wanted space, and I’ll leave if you ask, but I wanted to talk first if that’s okay.”
Had he been radio silent because he thought it was what I needed?
“Come on in.” I opened the door, tense with nerves. Had he come to tell me all the ways I’d mistreated him? Or worse, did he think we could kiss and go right back to where we were last week?
Before he could say anything, I said, “I owe you an apology.”
He shook his head. “You’re good. You had a bad night. We all do.”
Why was he always so exactly pitch-perfect?
“Thank you, but it wasn’t just that night.”
“Right.” He gestured to the sofa. “May I?”
“Of course.” I sat on the love seat facing him.
“I’ve thought a lot about what you said, and the thing that keeps spinning in my head, the reason I’m here, is that maybe I didn’t get to know the real you.”
“Yeah.”
“And maybe you didn’t know the real me, either.” He breathed in. “I sort of wanted to jump straight to the happy-ever-after. It’s a thing my sister reminded me I tend to do.”
“You talked to your sister?”
“Yeah, Zoe. My uncles wanted me to barrage you with flowers and jewelry, but I remembered your scorn for apology flowers.”
I grimaced. “Send me flowers in good times, not as a peace offering. I’d much rather talk if things need saying.”
“This is why I listen to my sisters.”
“Bas.” I thought about the letter I’d written to him. I’d never sent it, but the words sat on the tip of my tongue. “I really do like you, but I need to apologize to you for starting our friendship in bad faith.”
His brows drew together, and I wanted to open a bottle of wine to get through this. “Truth serum?”
I laughed at the throwback to the night we met. “Yeah. I want to be totally honest with you.”
“Go on.” He settled back against the sofa like he was waiting for me to tell him a funny story instead of baring my soul.
“This isn’t easy.” I squared my shoulders. “I used you as a distraction at first.”
He laughed. “No kidding. I kind of took advantage of that fact. Your list worked both ways.”
One hurdle cleared. If only that were the worst of my sins. “Then you were so easy to hang out with, I thought maybe I could pretend to be the person you seemed to be into. I was using you to practice on, and I didn’t even realize how far from solid ground I’d drifted until I came crashing down last week.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry if I just keep saying hurtful things, but I wanted to come clean and apologize.”
Bas rubbed his chin, sucking his teeth. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he got up and left. But as always, he surprised me.
“I owe you an apology, then. I think I saw you as a challenge, and I got a dopamine hit every time you capitulated. I really like you, too, but I was acting like this was a game. I never expected either of us would get hurt.”
“But we did.”
He sighed. “Can we offer each other a little grace? We’re both works in progress.” He leaned forward, reaching his hand forward. What did it mean? “Chelsea, take my hand. I’m still not going to propose.”
I took his hand, relaxing at the warmth of his skin against mine. I hadn’t expected to ever be here again. “Will you forgive me?”
“I don’t think there’s anything to forgive.” His thumb rubbed the back of mine. “But yes, if you need me to say I do. Will you forgive me?”
I didn’t think there was anything to forgive, either, but I nodded. “So what now?”
“The thing is I still want to get to know you. The real you.” He licked his lips. “Would you be interested in getting to know me?”
“As friends?” What madness was I suggesting? When he looked like that, all dark eyes and suckable lips, I wanted to revert to bad habits and use him all night long. “Or…?”
“Chelsea, you are the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, so please don’t take this the wrong way, but I wonder if both of us need to put sex and romance on the back burner. I just want to spend time with you.”
No sex? Why had I lost my shit last week? No, but he was right. We had something more valuable growing between us, and if I could only have one part of Bas, I wanted it to be this. Just sharing time together.
So I said, “I can offer references. Elizabeth will vouch for my killer friend skills.”
“I have observed.”
“But first, I have some questions for you.”
I finally did go crack a bottle of wine and dug out some cold leftover pizza that I should have been ashamed to serve a world-class chef. He didn’t mind.
As we ate, I prodded him, testing out a theory. “I’m curious why you dropped out of college.”
His shoulders slumped a beat, but then he rallied. “Like I told you, my parents were pushing me to study chemistry so I could go to med school like my brother, but I had more fun studying humanities. They didn’t want to waste their money and gave me an ultimatum—change majors or pay my own way. So I quit.”
“You didn’t give up?”
He exhaled, letting go a burst of buried frustration. “I just said I quit.”
“But you never wanted to study chemistry.” I kept my tone light, conversational, but still he stiffened.
“No.”
“Why did you stop fencing?” He’d spoken of the past in broad strokes of failures and abandonment, but I wanted to understand why. “Bas?”
He set his wineglass down. “I liked fencing. I liked soccer more. But when I started winning, my dad got involved. I loved his attention, his pride , so I worked hard at it, but every time I’d hit the next level, he’d raise the bar, like he’d never be satisfied until I won an Olympic gold. The thrill of winning never lasted, and I started to take on my dad’s dissatisfaction, working toward the next high. No success was going to be enough, and it stopped being fun. So I dropped out and joined the college fencing club.”
“Your dad must have been hella pissed.”
“He got over it. My older brother got a killer residency, and nobody cared much about my sports after that.” He coughed a bitter laugh.
Ouch. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” One shoulder shrugged, and I saw the child he used to be, pretending to love a sport to win the approval he craved. I could identify. “It was better he stopped giving a shit. I hated the pressure.”
“But you didn’t quit fencing entirely, right?”
“I quit competing. I stopped trying to be the best .” Sarcasm dripped from that one word, and I’d have wagered money he’d heard that phrase verbatim more than once. How awful.
I leaned into his line of sight to recapture the gaze that had drifted to the floor. “You found a way to keep it up and have fun at the same time.”
He lifted his chin, confusion in his eyes when he looked up. “I guess. I’ve never looked at it that way.”
“And you still play soccer sometimes.”
“With friends. For fun.”
Enough with the preamble. I went in for the kill. “Do you think you have to succeed at something entirely and right away or else you’re forever a failure?”
He just laughed. “You’ll have great conversations with my dad.”
“Your dad sounds pretty smart.” His answers confirmed a suspicion that had been growing. “You’re not a quitter, Bas.”
He scoffed. “I believe you just laid out all the evidence I am.”
“There’s a huge difference between quitting something and making it work for you in a way that doesn’t conform to someone else’s expectations. You’ve taken detours, but that’s the nature of a curious mind.”
“Flattering.” He scratched his neck.
“You’ve found a vocation you loved and stuck with it despite how it’s forced you into a specific job you hate. You’ve fought against your family’s coercion to carve a path as unique as you, and that takes conviction.”
“Wow.” He sat back with his wineglass, a smug grin forming. “That’s a much better story.”
“Dr. Rubin has tried to get me to flip things around to view them in a more positive light. I guess it’s easier to practice it on someone else.”
“Speaking of practice…” He narrowed his eyes, and I knew it was my turn in the spotlight. “Why do you consider it practice when you try new things?”
I gave a slight shrug. “I guess it makes it easier to face failure. Or rejection.”
“You know life doesn’t get a dress rehearsal, right? It’s all a live performance all the time.”
Damn. “Not terrifying or anything. Is that some Greek proverb?”
He laughed. “No, but actually, the phrase ‘The world’s a stage’ is originally Greek.” He said something I presumed to be Greek. It was too sexy when he spoke like that, and I made a note to get back to my Rosetta Stone lessons. He translated, “The world’s a stage, so learn your part, but don’t take it too seriously or risk a broken heart.”
“Aha!” I clapped my hands in glee over this revelation. “That must be your philosophy.”
“Why?” His eyes twinkled with mirth. “You just got through telling me I’m not as frivolous as everyone always claims.”
“You’re not, but you’re always ready with a joke and a smile.” He really was the antidote to my worst moods.
When we finished eating, I settled back into the love seat with a second glass of wine, ready for my own time in the hot seat. “If you want to really know me, I’m going to have to tell you all about my childhood. I need you to understand what the fuck you’re getting into.”
He nodded. “I want to hear it.”
“Where should I begin?”
“Start with a good memory.”
And so I let him ask me anything he wanted to know about my own internalized beliefs, about my parents, about my hopes and dreams. We talked well into the night until I started to yawn, and he checked the time on his phone.
“Shit. I have to work in the morning.” He stood to go. “Can I give you a hug?”
“God, yes.” I met him at the door and let him wrap those comfortable arms around me.
Before he left, I said, “Thank you, Bas.”
His face lit with that easy humor. “For what?”
“For being you.”
In unburdening myself, I’d let go another piece of my anger and shame. I might have lost both my parents, but now, between Elizabeth and Bas, I had two allies on my side.