I’m not fine. Now I’m thinking about what it will feel like to drive away from him. Sure, I’ll be able to sleep in a real bed and stop smelling of musty tortilla chip van, but who will wake me up with three knocks in the morning? I have another week to figure this out. I can spend and eat what I want, and develop a dangerous attachment to whomever I want, with wanton disregard for the future.
“I’m still here. I say we enjoy ourselves while we can, with wanton disregard for the future.” Yeah, that slipped out. I feel Joe’s rumbling chuckle beside me as his heavy arm drops around my shoulders.
“That sounds good for now, but what about a few weeks down the road? Are you going to regret this?”
I picture that future in my mind—one where I spend a few weeks with Joe, then go home to my condo and back to my real life. I won’t have Joe, but I’ll have a few fun weeks to look back on when life inevitably starts beating me up again. It’s not like we’re getting married. We’re only dating a little. No funny business. Better to have loved and lost, right? I will be fine.
“I’ll be fine.” I repeat out loud this time, sounding like I’m talking us both into it.
He exhales like he’s been holding his breath for ten minutes. “I’m not sure I will.”
Oh.
“We don’t have to do this. We can go back to… what we were doing before.” I feel a little queasy saying the words.Please don’t take me up on it, please don’t take me up on it…
“You mean, back to me pounding on your window every morning, and you throwing colored powder in your own face as payback?”
“Yes, that. Exactly.” We both laugh. “I mean, we can be friends. We don’t have to date or anything if that makes it too complicated.” Ugh, I hate these words even as I speak them.
“Hmm.” That crease deepens between his eyebrows. I want to wipe the frown lines off of his face with my fingertips.
His Adam's apple bobs. “Okay. Maybe that would be best.”
I scowl, and hear my mother’s voice in my head telling me that unless I’m ready for Botox I should smooth my expression. I know Joe’s eyes are on me, so I take my mother’s advice. My face is neutral, but my heart is like a deflated balloon.
“I’m sorry,” is his quiet reply. “I mean, you’re leaving, right? We’ve already gone from zero to sixty in a week. Where will we be in another week?” His voice is tender and I remember that there's a boy somewhere inside there who has been seriously hurt by a girl leaving.
“You’re right.” I know he is, but I still hate it. He’s already been left by one woman who couldn’t live in this small town and I don’t want to hurt him, too. Having this intimate knowledge about him and keeping it to myself is like having a rock in my shoe. “I have a confession to make.” I fidget with the hem of my t-shirt, rolling it and unrolling it. “Sunny told me about your ex-fiancée.”
I swear the temperature drops by ten degrees. “What did she tell you?” I don’t like this cool tone and the edge in his voice that I’ve never heard before.
“Just that you were engaged and she left.” I put a hand on his knee in what I think is a comforting gesture, but he is stone under my fingers.
“So, just everything?” He’s annoyed, understandably. It wasn’t Sunny’s story to tell.
“Are you mad that I know?”
“Not at all,” he says in that same cool tone I can’t stand. “Sunny should have let me tell you. I would have told you, eventually. That’s all. I’m sorry I’m being” — he gestures to himself vaguely — “like this. She just… Lindsie ghosted me when she left. We loved each other, or I thought we did, and she left without a word.”
The deep hurt in his voice makes my heart pinch in a way I don’t like. He loved her, and he clearly has unresolved feelings. I didn’t realize until now how unavailable Joe’s heart is.
“I’m sorry she did that to you.” What else can I say? He’s hurting and what she did is despicable. This isn’t about me, as much as I want it to be. “Sunny said she didn’t have a great relationship with your family?” I shouldn’t be pointing out his ex’s red flags, but I can’t help it. I don’t like her and I’m feeling petty.
He laughs, but it's the bitter sounding kind. “You could say that. My mom and sisters went to dinner to celebrate her leaving. They had warned me about her. They saw it. They knew what she was. Of course, I found out after the fact that they celebrated over Tex Mex without me.”
His tone is equal parts love and annoyance, like most siblings I’ve encountered. As an only child, it’s a relationship I have always envied. “What did you do after she left?” I'm nervously entering international waters with that aircraft carrier of a question.
“Sunny didn’t tell you?”
I don’t blame him for the snark, especially since I can tell his ire is directed at Sunny and not me. “She didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have pieced together—that you're charming and super hotand you haven’t been snatched up. There’s usually a story when that happens.” I bump him with my shoulder like,See? I can be half in love with you and still be cool.
“Well, that’s the truth.” There’s the hyper-confident guy who walks around shirtless, pounding on van windows. I missed him. “But seriously, after Lindsie left I focused on taking care of my family. I put my head down and went to work. Looking after my mom and our employees became my main concern, and it still is.”
Ouch. I can read between the lines: Romantic relationships aren’t his priority. Which I guess confirms what I already know—that we should slow things down, no matter the reason. Work and his family are his top priorities, and I’m leaving, anyway. We’re doing the right thing. This will be good for us, like drinking a shot of wheatgrass juice. I loathe wheatgrass juice, but when I’m home I choke it down often because it is good for me, supposedly. I can do this horrible thing, too.
“Keeping things casual will be good, then. So, we’re friends?” My voice sounds hollow, even to my own ears.
“Sure. We’re friends. Casual. That’s great. This will be… fun.” He sounds worse than I do, which is a relief, I guess. It doesn’t change anything, but at least my misery has some company. We’re doing the stupid, right thing together.
