Chapter 42
I just can’t be a part of it. I just can’t be a part of it. I just can’t be a part of it. His words echoed through my mind as I ran up to my room. Tears were burning in my eyes. Tears of disappointment, of rage.
“Lou.”
I paused and turned to Kay who was standing at the foot of the stairs looking at me with a mixture of concern and uneasiness. She was wearing her robe and had put her hair up in a silk scarf. “What happened?”
Without answering I continued walking. I heard her following behind me and spun around.
“The thing with Vince took care of itself. You can go back to sleep without having to worry.”
“I haven’t gone to bed yet,” she replied in a soft voice. “What happened?”
“He ended things. That’s what. Having said that,” I said with a bitter snort, “you can’t end something that never really began.”
“I’m sorry, Lou.”
“Why? That’s what you wanted.”
“I certainly didn’t want to see you crying.”
I wiped the tears from my face. “Yeah, well, maybe I’m not as strong as all of you think.”
New tears were rolling down my cheeks. And suddenly I just couldn’t take standing there anymore.
On the stairs. With her. I was too sad. Too disappointed.
Too angry. My vision blurry, I turned and trudged up the remaining steps.
Once in my room, I just fell onto the bed, buried my face in the pillow, and let the tears run.
I sobbed so hard that it hurt my stomach.
So loudly that I winced when I felt Kay’s hand on my back.
Unnoticed by me, she had sat down on the bed and was whispering phrases like “Everything’s fine” and “You’ll be fine” in my ear.
Part of me didn’t want to hear her, didn’t want her here in the first place.
I wanted to blame her for everything that had happened today.
Another part of me knew better. Knew that Vince would have decided against me if I hadn’t argued with her anyway. Against us and a shared future.
“I was once in a very similar situation,” Kay said into the quiet.
I lifted my head from my pillow and blinked in her direction.
“Don’t look so surprised,” she said, equally amused and serious at the same time.
“His name was Joseph.” She said his name almost wistfully.
“We met at a sponsors’ party related to the Charleston Open.
It was my second year on the tour. I must’ve been in my early twenties.
Joseph was a few years older. A good-looking Princeton grad looking for a career in politics.
We were introduced to each other, and I think…
it was what they call love at first sight. ”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“Until then I’d had little experience with men.
You know, my mother kept me away from”—she made quotation marks in the air—“those kinds of distractions. But that night she wasn’t there.
” The right corner of Kay’s mouth twitched upward slightly.
“Joseph and I just got each other right away. We talked, laughed, danced.” She smiled as if dwelling on one memory in particular.
“That was nice.” After a brief pause, she continued.
“When the evening was over, we took a walk to the waterfront. Joseph held my hand the whole time. He only let go of it once.” An uncharacteristically sheepish smile flitted across her face. “To kiss me.”
I turned onto my side and put my head on my hand.
“We bought ice cream and sat down on a bench. He took my arm, and we looked out toward the ocean. And then he said something I’ve never forgotten.
” Her eyes grew distant. “He said, ‘If we were different people, and it was a different time, we could sit here every night, eating ice cream and staring out to sea.’”
My eyes grew damp again. “What happened to him? To Joseph?”
“No idea. After that evening, I never saw him again.”
“Didn’t you ever google him? Look on Facebook?”
“Why would I have done that?”
“Well, I don’t know. Curiosity? I’d want to know what he was up to. Whether he ever became a politician. Where he lives. Whether he’s married. Has kids.”
For a second I wondered whether in a few years’ time I’d want to know the same things about Vince. What happened to him. Without me. Without us.
“I think I prefer to remember him like this,” she said. “As that wonderful man I got to spend a night with in Charleston. Who, sadly, just did not fit that stage of my life.”
“Haven’t you ever wondered about what could have been? Ever regretted not following your heart?”
“Of course. Of course I’ve thought about it.
Whenever I’d get eliminated from a tournament and end up sitting around some hotel room or other.
Whenever I’d win a trophy but have no one to share my happiness with.
Whenever that hole of loneliness would open up inside my heart.
But I never regretted it. Because I did follow my heart.
” She smiled. “Just in a different way.”
For a moment everything was still.
“So, what are you trying to tell me? That Vince is my Joseph?”
Her expression grew remarkably soft. “That sometimes we meet the right people at the wrong time.”