“That’s the thing, though.” He exhaled, looking down. “I wasn’t trying to get what it was about him. I just felt that finally, maybe, I was starting to understand you.”
Oh, God,I thought, and just as suddenly felt a pang ofpure fear, a reaction to this idea of opening myself up again to all the things that could then hurt me. Lightning didn’t strike twice, except when it did. How could I allow myself back into that place of sunset walks and once and for all without expecting what had already followed? It was scarier than anything. Except maybe not doing it, at all.
“Excuse me—”
“Around back!” Ambrose hollered, turning to face the crowd making its way from the lot. “The reception is in the backyard!”
“You’re yelling at the guests,” I said quietly.
“Sorry!” he shouted. Then he looked at me again, his face serious. “I wish you had stayed there, in front of me, that night. That you hadn’t taken off.”
I wish for a lot of things, I wanted to say, and yet I’d told him otherwise, and now it seemed wrong to change my mind. “But I did. And now...”
I didn’t finish this sentence, and he didn’t either. We just stood there, guests streaming past, following the crowd ahead of them in, finally, the proper direction. In the night there would be dancing dogs, clowns, giddy toasts, and teary good-byes. All of this ahead, yet to unfold. Beginnings were always the best.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. “About not telling you. And leaving. And everything else.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he replied. He swallowed, looking across the lot. “Next time I’ll know to say how I feel first. Not bury the lead.”
“And I,” I added, “will be upfront about the things that really matter. No surprises.”
We looked at each other again. A man in a bow tie behind Ambrose paused, looking around him, then started to follow the path, going the right way.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “The good news is we will be really good to whomever we date next. You’re welcome.”
“Right back at you,” I said, then smiled. “Take care, Ambrose.”
“You, too,” he replied. “Bye, Louna.”
Then I walked away, across the lot to my car, and that was that. A proper good-bye. No one dashing away or leaving angry. No yelling or sudden, shattering disappearances, with everything left unfinished. It was new for me, as so much had been with Ambrose from the start, and it felt like this should make me feel better, more at peace. But as I climbed behind the wheel, I began to cry.
After all that, I needed something before seeing Ben. I decided it was coffee.
Jump Java was quieter in the evening, and luckily Leo wasn’t working. There wasn’t even a line. But Phone Lady was still there, at a table for one, talking away.
“Tall latte with extra foam,” I told the barista, an Asian girl with a cute pixie haircut. As she nodded, turning to start making it, I decided I’d have a doughnut, too. You want what you want, and sometimes, it’s sugar.
“That’s just the thing,” I could hear Phone Lady saying, her voice louder than ever in the less crowded space. “I neverthought I would be dealing with all this. I had everything worked out, down to the minute. Yeah. Best laid plans...”
I looked at the clock by the espresso machine: it was just after seven. I was supposed to go by Jumbo Smoothie, pick up Ben, and then we’d head to dinner with some of his friends before hitting yet another party. Normally I liked the idea of a whole night still ahead of me. But right at that moment, I felt tired. And Phone Lady was still talking.
“No, I’m thinking I need to focus on me. You know, self-care. Everything’s been so hard lately, and I just can’t devote time to another person. Right?”
The pixie barista turned back to me, sliding my cup across the counter. I was just about to ask for that doughnut when the door banged open. A group of women in workout wear carrying yoga mats came in, all talking at once.
“Anything else?” she asked me.
“Um, no,” I said, glancing behind me. Too many people in too small a space—the doughnut could wait. “Just this.”
As she rang me up, the door opened again and more women in spandex andNAMASTET-shirts entered, clearly from the same class. Distantly, I could still hear Phone Lady, which meant she had to be practically shouting.
I paid for my drink, grabbed a lid, and started to wind my way to the door through the ladies now lined up behind me, dodging flip-flopped feet and yoga bags. Despite my efforts, someone bumped me from behind just as I was passing Phone Lady’s table, sending me stumbling into the back of her chair. When I hit it, she jerked forward, her phone falling from her grip and clattering across the floor.
“Oh, God, sorry,” I said, putting down my drink on an adjacent table and going to fetch it. “That was all my fault.”
“It’s okay, I’ll get it,” she said quickly, right on my heels.
“No, let me,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”
