I fold the T-shirt and leave it on the low stool next to the bathtub. When I come back into the bedroom, I try to avoid looking toward where he sits at the edge of the mattress with the heels of his hands pressing into his forehead.
I pick up my bag but fiddle with my phone before I turn toward the door, contemplating my next move. I can’t leave without an acknowledgment.
“I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I can come up with to say. “I really did think I could do better for you, but I...”
Reid looks up, and again I wish I could crawl back into the sheets and start this conversation over. But the distance between us has yawned open like a chasm.
“I’m sorry too,” he says. “I thought we would both be willing to fight for this. At least I have my answer now.”
The finality in his words breaks something in me.
I shut the door softly behind me and lean against it, trying to make sense of how quickly I just destroyed everything I might have had. I walk back down the beautiful, hushed hallway that, only hours ago, held so much promise. I press the button for the elevator. It dings hollowly in the empty space.
XVIII
I get home at almost one in the morning and feel simultaneously drained and wired. I crack open Emme’s door to find her asleep. I text her to let her know I’m back so she won’t worry when she wakes up. In my bedroom, I peel off my dress, slip into an old T-shirt and clean underwear, climb into bed, and stare at the ceiling. I try to quiet my mind. I pick up my phone and put it back down. Finally, I take a melatonin and fall into a fitful half-sleep, only to find myself awake after what seems like five minutes. I check my phone: It’s 5:30a.m.
My mind immediately flits to last night and replays my conversation with Reid in a torturous loop. I get out of bed and wash my face. I think about what my mother would say about the purplish half-moons under my eyes. I look at my single toothbrush in its narrow cup. I feel the press of tears. I text the only person who has any shot of freeing me from this cycle of self-pity.
Call me when you wake up, I write.
It’s two-thirty in Seattle, but Nisha texts me back immediately anyway.
Call me now.
I do her one better and FaceTime her. I’m startled by my appearance on the screen, wan and slack, and if this were anyone other than Nisha, I would hang up immediately and pull myself together. But this is the woman who squeezed my hand during the first few hours of my labor contractions, who wiped the sweat off my brow and fed me ice chips until my husband finished his twelve-hour shift and took over for her.
“Can’t sleep?” Nisha says when she picks up. She’s in her parents’ dimly lit kitchen, wearing her reading glasses and pajamas. A mug of tea hovers under her chin. I feel a surge of affection for my friend.
“I could say the same for you,” I say. “Your hour is even more ungodly than mine.”
“Menopause, baby. Because it’s not enough to sweat through your underwear every two hours, they take away our sleep too.”
“I’m sweating just looking at that tea.”
Nisha taps the mug. “It’s an ashwagandha-schisandra blend. You know it’s bad when I’m turning to holistic measures to knock myself out.”
“Why don’t you get an Ambien prescription?”
“My love, Ambien stopped working for me twenty years ago.”
We keep up like this for the next few minutes. Our small talk is a balm. Then I ask after Nisha’s father, who’s facing stage-four pancreatic cancer. He’s being kept comfortable with medication and is at peace with his prognosis, she shares, and his acceptance has put her at peace too. ButNisha’s mother is taking it much harder, she tells me. As is so often the case with the ones who will be left behind.
“Now that we’re off to a suitably morbid start to the day.” Nisha takes a sip of her tea and crinkles her nose. “Tell me why your face looks like that.”
I catch another glimpse of myself in the little square on my phone screen. As Nisha and I were talking, I slapped on a pair of sparkly gold undereye patches, and they’ve slid halfway down my face. I peel them off and squish the cushy gel material in my fist like a stress ball.
“Well,” I sigh. “You’re never going to guess who I ran into at the Jeff Buckley show this week.”
I start with the girls’ awkward meeting in the bathroom at Webster Hall and end with last night: How I’d had what very well might have been the best sex of my life, and how being with Reid was both new and familiar, like time had folded into itself. How I would forever be at a loss to explain the bizarre privilege of experiencing a decades-long dream come to fruition.
And then how I proceeded to destroy everything because my misplaced fear and self-doubt spiraled all the way out of my control. Because I’m too afraid to put myself out on the line and try this again.
Nisha is silent for a moment. “This is a lot to take in.” She bites her lip. “How does Emme feel about all of it?”
“Considering that she and Gracie not-so-subtly engineered this whole thing, I’d say she approves of the idea of me and Reid.” I pause for a beat. “The other day, she told me she doesn’t want to be the reason I don’t move on.”
Nisha pouts and puts a hand over her heart. “Sweet girl.”
