I wipe at my mouth and without thinking I grip my phone tight and capture a screenshot of them. Then another and another.
“I was pregnant. Me! Dex! Dex! Stop, please, Dex! Listen to me,” I sob. I try to pull my knees to my chest and scream out as a sharp cramp rips through my stomach.
At the other end of my apartment, in the kitchen, a pot clunks down hard on the stove. “Is everything okay?” My mother’s voice rushes up the hallway. Within seconds her fists bang wildly against my bedroom door.
In my shaking hands, Pippa’s face fills up the screen of the phone and her middle finger lifts up. “Fuck you,” she slurs into the phone and the call ends.
My mother continues to pound on my door, until it blasts open and slams against the dresser. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
With a jerky nod, I stare down at my phone, at the dozens of screenshots I just took. Dex and Pippa kissing. I’m never going to delete these. They’re going to be my reminder. That it’s really, truly over between us. That both of us somehow made a mess of things. We messed them up so much, I can’t see how we’d ever come back from this.
Chapter 4
After I block his phone number, I measure the passing of time in strange ways.
In the thickness of the dust that collects on my nightstand.
By the height of the pizza boxes stacked neatly by the door.
And from the gradual rise of wadded-up tissues that gather on the surface of the couch cushions that resemble a heavy layer of snow. I cry the entire first week, then stare at the wall the second. Wine helps me fall sleep but fails in helping me stay there. I walk my apartment at night, haunted by the image of a kiss, and the sharp painful stab of reckless words.
It’s thealmostof us, thecould have been,thewhat if,that torments me, because there was something there, something special between us. A spark. A small flicker that we let go out before it could turn into a fire intense enough to burn forever.
Now, I’m just left a bit singed, picking through the ashes, and trying to learn how to erase all the hopes and ideas I had of us.
I drift in and out of thought, and my writing, and consciousness.
I listen to the coming and goings of the neighbors, and ignore everyone who taps at my door.
I work from home, in a ratty old hoodie, paying a delivery fee for everything I need. I force myself to call my parents every other day and use all my energy to pretend that everything is fine.
On the first day of week three, I eat an entire gallon of Rocky Road ice cream for breakfast and Dex suddenly becomes just another guy I once dated, on the long, hard, winding road I’ve found myself trudging through in search of myHappily Ever After.
I’m beginning to believe there really is no such thing.
Julia says I have to work on finding Mr. Right Now and forget all about relationships and dating. “Dating is dead. Get with the program, you’re a millennial, Jane. Dating is too old fashioned. Too formal,” she says as we sit in a little dive bar on the Upper West Side. We’re perched on wooden stools, our heels leaning on the scuffed brass footrail near the floor, knocking back some strange sort of vodka-tequila mix Julia said I had to try. “People don’t go out on conventional dinner dates anymore. They text, they meet up, they fuck, they leave. Next.”
“Wow. Text, meet, fuck, leave? That’s been my mating pattern for the last eight years,” I say, sipping my drink. “And I thought that was just me having awful taste in men. I didnotknow what was happening to me was actually supposed to happen,” I laugh darkly.
“I’m being totally serious. Unlesssober,deliberatewords have been exchanged about exclusivity and commitment, you should keep your emotions in check and just enjoy the…ahem,” she clears her throat, “the ride.”
Dex and I had that exchange of words while we were on the opposite sides of the world. My chest gets a little achy.
“Do notsay his name,” she leans into me and shushes my mouth with a finger.
I didn’t think I did.I mean, I’m over him, but I’m definitely going to bring it up again after a couple of drinks.
“But there is a chance, you’re saying, throughsober, deliberatewords, that texting, followed by sex may eventually lead to a committed relationship?”
“Yes. But it’s thejourney,not the end game, that should be important. Don’t go into anything looking for that committed relationship.”
“But how do you know who to text? How is everyone meeting?”
“Jane. You belong to a society that downloads their sex life via app store. Get with technology, download some apps. Start reaching out to people and let them know you’re an option.”
“The last time I used one of those apps I got cheated out of dinner and some horse-furry-fetish guy had an orgasm while rubbing himself on my foot,” I say, grimacing.
“But, don’t you get it? You can’t just stop after one bad hook-up. Just think of that one as a charity-hump. Hashtag it regrettable, and move on.” She gulps back the rest of her drink and slams the glass down on the table and waves the bartender over for another round. “The best part is, you don’t have to settle on anything or anyone because there’salwayssomeone better you can meet up with right after. Even the same night.”
