55. Chapter 47
Dashiell
Two Weeks post “breakup"
Grief decides that it’s running the show for the foreseeable future. The first day after my “breakup” with Lorenzo, I cry in the shower for long enough that the water runs cold. Feels right.
The next day, I’m just angry. Furious, actually. And I spend the raging energy cleaning the apartment I’m once again sharing with Kenny. He comes home from a filming gig to find me with rubber gloves, a bottle of bleach, and a lot to say about leaving dildos out in the living room.
The day after that, back to crying.
Next day, nothing really. Just emptiness, which is worse than the sobbing or the angry cleaning. I don’t want to get out of bed. Just want to stay in the flat, gray nothing that is both so terrible and oddly comforting.
By the time I hit the fifth day out of the breakup, I land on an emotion that feels like it’s going to stick around: shame.
I feel like an idiot.
Not a heartbroken idiot, though there’s some of that, too. But, I mean, come on. I was in a fake relationship, built on danger and adrenaline, and I let myself believe that it was real because the sex was good and the man was delicious and dangerous and forbidden.
I’ve replayed every single moment of my month with Lorenzo, and keep landing on the same humiliating conclusion: I saw only what I wanted to see.
All the signs were there for me to see who he really was. Honestly, I saw them. And I ignored them.
Like an idiot.
I fell for a mafia underboss. Then he dropped me the second it was convenient for him to do that. We’re not a tragic love story. We’re not even a tragedy.
We’re a farce. A joke. And I’m the punchline.
Kenny has been an absolute saint about it all. And he keeps telling me that he’s being a saint about it, loudly, while making me chicken noodle soup even when I don’t ask for it, or renting heartbreaking romance movies from the 90s, or blasting increasingly unhinged breakup playlists.
“This one is called ‘Girl, Fuck That Guy,’” he announces proudly a week after the breakup, connecting his phone to the tiny bathroom speaker while I brush my teeth.
We’re both wearing only our underwear, but there’s nothing sexual about it.
We’ve seen each other in far less and know exactly how uninterested in each other we are sexually.
“It’s three hours long and it might be my best work yet. ”
I spit in the sink. “Might be the best gift someone’s ever made for me.”
“I know. You can thank me later. It’ll take you on an emotional journey.”
“I don’t know if I’m in a place to go on an emotional journey.” I splash water on my face and make eye contact with him in the mirror. His face shifts into something more sympathetic.
“You’ll be okay, Dash. It’s just a heartbreak—which, I know, sucks—but our hearts are pretty strong muscles. You know what I learned from my personal trainer?”
“You have a personal trainer?”
He shrugs and then flexes his muscles. “Yeah, dude. Gotta stay in shape for filming.”
Kenny’s career as an indie porn star and dancer has been taking off even more. The performances at Lo Scandalo have helped. I still haven’t gone to see him. I know I need to. And, really, I want to. But I’m terrified of the idea of running into Lorenzo there. I don’t know what I’d say.
I sigh, turning to face him and leaning against the bathroom counter. “What did you learn from your personal trainer? How to flex your pecs to the beat of a song?”
“No, smart-ass. I learned that muscles have to be broken down to get stronger. That’s what we’re doing when we’re lifting weights, right? The heart’s a muscle, isn’t it? So, when it breaks, or gets hurt like this, it’s only going to get stronger in the long run.”
He reaches out and grasps my shoulder. “I know it hurts right now, bud. And I really am sorry that it hurts. But you’re going to be okay. Actually, you’re going to be better than okay at the end of it.”
I pull him in for a hug. “Thanks, Kenny. You’re a good friend.”
He squeezes me extra hard. “Oh, I know. You’re lucky to have me.”
Though I’ve been going into work for all my scheduled shifts, it isn’t until the second week after leaving Lorenzo’s apartment for the last time that things start to feel normal and solid.
Maybe unexpectedly, working as a firefighter is an incredibly stabilizing job. There’s something about the constant need to be ready for a crisis that just makes me push aside all my personal shit for the twenty-four hours I’m on the clock.
That day, we run two calls before lunch.
Neither of them is anything dramatic. First there’s a kitchen fire in an apartment, and we get it under control quickly.
Second, we’re called to a medical emergency in a nursing home.
By the time we’re back at the station after the second call, I realize that I’ve gone almost the entire day without thinking about Lorenzo.
Almost.
“Okay, so, I’ve gotta ask,” Vinnie says, dropping into the seat across from me at the kitchen table and unwrapping his sandwich with the precision of a surgeon.
“What’s going on? You’ve had an unusually glum look on your face for two weeks now.
And that fancy car isn’t dropping you off anymore. Did you and the mafia guy break up?”
Charlie, from by the coffee pot, lets out a groan. “Aw, no, I was rooting for y’all.”
“No more mafia guy,” I confirm.
“Ah.” Vinnie winces, sympathetic and blunt at the same time. “He dump you?”
“Vinnie,” Charlie says, coming to join us at the table. “Be sensitive.”
“What? I’m asking supportive questions.”
Charlie elbows him.
“Sorry,” Vinnie says. “Do you want to talk about it, Dash?”
“He dumped me,” I confirm, staring at my salad without any desire to eat it.
“Out of nowhere. Well…not completely out of nowhere, I guess. But it felt like it was out of nowhere. One day, everything was…good. The next he’s telling me that it was never real and he’d have his bodyguard drop my stuff off at my apartment. ”
“Jesus, that’s cold,” Vinnie says.
“Want us to fuck him up?” Charlie offers.
That draws a reluctant laugh from me. “As thoughtful as that is, I don’t know if you guys could take him.”
They both look offended. “Really?” Vinnie asks, pushing his sleeves up and flexing his biceps. “Have you seen these muscles?”
“Yes, and I’ve seen his. He’d destroy you.”
“Eh,” Vinnie says. “We’d still do it. For you.”
“Who are you fighting this time?” Nick asks, joining us in the kitchen and pouring some coffee.
“They want to fight my ex-boyfriend.”
“The mobster?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, shit,” he says, and joins us at the table. “Are we having a little therapy session?”
“Give us your wisdom, Cap,” Vinnie says.
“Wisdom might be a lot to ask for. How are you feeling about it all, Dash?”
I glance at each of them, at these older guys who have become like a little family to me, like a group of older brothers I can always count on, even when they tease me.
I know that I can admit to them how I’m feeling.
“I’m ashamed. I feel stupid. Like I should’ve never let myself get in that situation to begin with. ”
Nick frowns. “You’re not stupid, and you have nothing to be ashamed of.
Whatever he did, it’s on him. Not on you.
Don’t take the mistakes he made, the things he said, whatever they are, and make them your problem.
It won’t make you feel any better, and it isn’t going to take the hurt away. It’ll just make it worse.”
“Sounds like wisdom to me,” Charlie says.
Nick gives a small, sympathetic smile. “Feel what you need to feel, but don’t take those feelings and assign blame to them. Don’t force yourself into a deeper position of hurt.”
“I’ll try, Captain.”
The next morning, I’m still thinking about their words while Kenny’s three-hour playlist rattles my car’s speakers.
Truth is, I don’t know why Lorenzo did what he did.
I’ve spent two weeks assuming the worst, that he really meant none of it was real, and that I was a fool for believing otherwise. But maybe Nick’s right. I don’t know Lorenzo’s actual thoughts. All I know is what he said, in that dark, cold voice. I know how much it hurts.
And neither of those things is my fault.
Maybe it doesn’t matter what he was thinking in those moments.
Maybe there’s a different lesson here. Not a lesson to never trust a mafia underboss (though that generally feels like it could be good advice), but something more specific and life-giving: some things end, and you don’t always get an explanation, and you have to build your life anyway, regardless of whether that painful ending made any sense.
I pull into the parking lot of my building and sit for a minute in my car, engine off, watching my own breath fog the inside of the window.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m over it. I’m definitely not over it—not even close. Pretending otherwise would just be trading shame for dishonesty.
But I can decide that I’m going to try. I won’t try to forget him—I don’t think that would even be possible, not after he fundamentally rearranged my understanding of what I’m able to feel—but I’m going to stop letting that ending define every hour of every day.
Kenny texted me on my way home, but I haven’t answered.
He wants to know if I want to go out tonight, to celebrate a long-term gig he just got at Lo Scandalo, which came with a promotion.
I wasn’t going to go—what if I see Lorenzo?
—but I can’t let that fear control me. Can’t let the shame decide for me.
Grief, fear, and shame have decided how the last two weeks of my life have gone, but I’m done letting them drive.
Starting now, I’m taking the wheel back.
I get out of the car, take my phone from my pocket, and text Kenny that, hell yeah, I’m in.