“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” I say, because that seems like a slightly better line than, “Shoot, I might actually be in love with you for real.”
“Ah, forgot I had these on,” Rory says, taking them off and wiping them carefully with the cleaning cloth before putting them in their case. “They’re not prescription. Just got ’em real cheap because one of the boys in my class recently had to start wearing glasses, and he’s feeling kinda self-conscious. Wanted to show him there’s nothing weird about it.”
My heart folds in some origami pattern, far more beautiful a shape than I could ever create on my own. And it’s confirmed in one horrifying, glorious sweep.
It wasn’t just that I was making everything up in my head. I wasn’t idealizing him because he was out of sight and out of reach.
I love this man in front of me.
I love him, in fact, for all the things I was disappointed about when we first spoke. For how he’s from my hometown and has that earthy Midwest twang. For the simple life he leads and how he doesn’t care about the flashy, fancy things. For his grounding energy and stability, so much rarer and more valuable than constant spontaneity. For how he views love as a choice as much as a feeling and believes that it can get better even after the corporal chemistry fades. For the way I don’t have to worry about being shiny and “on” around him.
I love Rory precisely because he isn’t Alexander. If itwereactually Alexander standing before me (presumably in a penthouse suite, not a school classroom), I know that whatever I’d feel—the rapture, the awe, the infatuation—would be so superficial, so ephemeral compared to this.
Unsettled by how settled this all makes me feel, I look away from Rory, down at my phone. Mindlessly, I check a few work emails to achieve a determinedly disinterested demeanor. No need for him to catch onto the untimely and inappropriate feelings churning within me.
I play out the scenario of what would happen if I just laid it all out there and told him how I felt. He’d be way too compassionate as he tells me he’s engaged to Emily, or about to get engaged. And his reaction would only make me love him more, which would not help the whole getting-over-him-ASAP endeavor.
The silence stretching between Rory and me isn’t awkward, but it has me wishing that it were because that would provide some welcome evidence that we’re not really compatible after all.
“How’ve you been?” he asks.
I look back up at him. He’s taken the glasses back out of the case and has resumed wiping them down. That’s when I notice he looks a bit nervous, jaw pulsing in uneven increments, and the thin veins at his temples more prominent than usual. He looks tired too, with crescent-shaped bags under his eyes, which look more wideset than ever and have taken on a forlorn puppy-dog quality. “Sorry I haven’t reached out,” he says, repeating what he said via text. “Just been a lot going on …” He trails off, like he knows that was a very lame excuse.
“No worries,” I say, eager to keep things normal. “I’ve been busy at work anyway,” I tack on. It’s nice to have the excuse to hide behind. Something that the world accepts as important and worthy of my full devotion.
Though I know that Rory doesn’t see it that way and never has. Still, he tries to show interest. “How’s it going leading the case?” he asks.
“Not too bad,” I say with a shrug, because that’s as good as work gets these days—not too bad. I could linger on the sad implications, but I’d rather not. So I tell Rory just the very shortest summary about how Harold apologized and we’re moving on.
Rory asks a slew of follow-up questions about whether Harold is being held accountable, and seems less than pleased when I tell him that the apology is the extent of it.
“It’s bullshit,” Rory says. “Excuse my language, but he can’t get away with it.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him curse. He has a big-brotherly posture, which makes me feel protected but also confused because I want to kiss him.
“So you had a good time with your family over Christmas?” I ask, to divert from the topic of Harold. And also to unearth the latest with him and Emily. Rip the Band-Aid off.
“Yeah,” he says, in a reluctant tone. “It was very … enlightening, I guess you’d say.”
“How’s Emily? Did you get engaged?” I blurt it out, trying to prepare my most believable happy-for-you-and-not-at-all-dying-on-the-inside expression.
But it turns out I don’t need to wear that expression after all.
“No,” Rory says, shuffling the folders on his desk. “We broke up. For good.” He doesn’t look at me when he says it, just focuses intently on organizing and reorganizing.
“What?” I expect to feel happy about this turn of events, and there’s a small, ugly part of me that does, but the rest of me—the better part of me—is devastated for Rory and with Rory. It’s the extra proof I didn’t need to confirm that my love for him is the real thing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Why didn’t you call me?” I ask Rory, feeling like the worst friend of all time. “I would’ve brought gelato over—every flavor of vanilla that exists—and we could’ve thrown darts at pictures of Emily’s face.”
I’m rambling on because I don’t know what to say, and I’m scared to stop talking because I’ll have to hear him explain the heartbreak, and I don’t want him to have to explain it or have to feel it. I just want to heal it.
“No dart throwing,” Rory says somberly. “I was the one who broke up with her.”
Now my head is really spinning. I thought this was the woman he wanted to marry. And she’d told him she wanted to get back together. It’s not adding up.
“Sorry I didn’t tell you,” he goes on. “I’ve just needed to process things alone.” He has an anxious look about him, like he’s been trying very hard to stick to a routine to provide some order since things have fallen out of place, but it hasn’t exactly worked.
