“Yeah, and he’s perfect for you. And you wouldn’t be if you had found that piece of paper.”
I stop in my tracks. I feel my blood run cold. Because I hadn’t considered that part, hadn’t thought about it until right now, right this very instant. “Wait. Was there another note?”
Hugo inhales. I feel his eyes trace my face. “I was in your neighborhood, and I dropped by. I saw it tucked under your door.” He pauses, he squints up at the sky. “It said three weeks.”
Three weeks. Less than a month. Less than Hugo.
“Jesus, Hugo. Three weeks? He could have been a serial killer!”
“But he wasn’t! I knew Kendra was introducing you. And you’re not an idiot. You wouldn’t have fallen for a serial killer. You wouldn’t have committed to him.” He blows out an exhale. “Maybe I just wanted you to feel what it felt like to choose.”
“Yeah, well, mission accomplished. Feels great right now. Why don’t we go try on some wedding dresses!”
I can feel the rage spark through my hands and up through my veins and into my chest. I start walking. Murphy trots beside me, his head forward, as if to say,I will now behave perfectly in orderto make whole my bad behavior.In other words:I know what I’ve done.
“Where are you going?” Hugo asks.
“Away from here. Right now.”
“Daph, please, stop. It doesn’t mean anything. You fell in love.”
I whirl around. I face him. “Did I?”
I see Hugo’s chest rise and not fall. I feel my own breath hover, too.
The moment stretches, then: “No one hates to say this more than me,” he says. “But, yeah. You did. And now if you want to be with him it’s your decision. Not fate’s. Not some piece of paper’s. Yours. No one stood a chance, Daph. Not if you couldn’t really choose. And now someone does.”
I can feel the water rising in my throat. I can feel it sting my eyes. I shut them tight. When I open them, my vision is blurred around the edges.
“I wanted it to be you,” I say. Softly, so softly I hope that maybe he cannot even hear me. “I wanted more time.”
Hugo’s face doesn’t change. He keeps his eyes locked on me. “But you got it,” he says. He smiles. I see the lines of water down his face like the trails of fingertips. “I’m still here.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
When I get home I have no idea what to do. I feel wild, enraged, on fire. I do not know in which direction to burn.
Three weeks.
I think about my third date with Jake, about our first kiss in his apartment, in this apartment, when he cooked me dinner and we gazed out at Los Angeles. Was there an exit point then? Did I just not see one because I wasn’t looking? It all felt like open freeway. What would have been our end, otherwise? And then: What would I have made our end?
I sit down on his tan couch. Jake has been wonderful about trying to make this place mine. He’s asked me which of my things I might want to take out of storage, if there’s any furniture I hate that I’d rather him give away. But I’ve just said it’s fine, I have enough here, which I can tell bothers him a little. I understand it. If this place isn’t mine, if I don’t make it mine, then it’s still only his. Then I don’t really live here.
Murphy wanders over to his daybed by the glass doors and plops down into the sunshine. Saber thumps his tail on the couch but stays put. I go into the kitchen and fill a glass with tap water.
Three weeks.
For as long as I can remember I’ve had an all-or-nothing narrative around love. The movies pitch marriage as some magical undertaking, where you meet a person who is physically molded for you. The feeling of certainty is impenetrable. Everyone is so damn definitive. They know instantly; they say yes without hesitation. But I’d have something better. It wouldn’t be a feeling, it would be evidentiary proof.
Even with the air-conditioning the sun is beating through the glass doors. I strip off my T-shirt and leave it tossed down on the counter.
I’m messy, I think. And I hide that from him. Not because I think Jake wouldn’t love me but because he deserves better. He deserves better than a woman who leaves her T-shirt on the counter. He deserves someone with baskets and drawers and labels, too. Someone who can adult and understand order. Someone who can provide it.
I peel off my yoga pants next and head into the bathroom. There are mirrors lining the entire wall above the sink, and I catch my reflection. I look brazen, sweaty, wild.
I want to turn away. I normally would. I want to peel off my bra and underwear and get into the shower, let the steam dissolve the mirror, any possible reflection. Fill up this bathroom with liquid smoke.
But instead I stay put, and I stare.
