Love doesn’t change you or make you better. It just reveals the goodness that’s already there.
In my pocket, my phone vibrates. I know it’s him before I even see the four-letter name on my screen.
There’s an initial lurch of hope, quickly superseded by fear. I’m terrified of picking up, but I don’t want it to go to voicemail either, in case he leaves a message and the rejection is recorded.
You can do this,I tell myself, akin to the pep talk I gave myself before I boarded that double-decker bus for the first time.You can pick up a bloody phone.
“Hello?” I eke out. My voice is thin and pinched, highly unattractive to my own ears.
“Kat?” Rory says, pronouncing my name with that earthy arc that makes me feel protected before I can remind my body that it’s not supposed to respond like that, that this person isn’t my safe place anymore. Never really was.
“Yep,” I say blandly, hoping that a blasé voice will correlate with a blasé heart. “It’s me.”
“How’s it going?” Rory asks.
The question feels cruel and callous with its nonchalance. Maybe the small talk is just a nervous tic, and I should give him some grace, but it’s tough to come by at the moment.
“I’m okay,” I say, keeping my answers short and generic so I don’t give him any more of myself than I already have. “How about you?” Immediately, I regret asking because I don’t really want to know.
There’s a pause, so long that I have to check to make sure the call didn’t drop. “I got your note,” Rory finally says.
“Oh,” I manage. “Right.” Unable to bear the silence and all of its suggestions, I prattle on. “You don’t need to say anything. We don’t have to talk about it. It’s fine, really. No hard feelings.”
I chide myself as the words fall out. Why do women always lie like that? Are we so accustomed to trying to please other people that we’ll say whatever they want to hear? Or do we actually lie for ourselves, so we don’t have to confront the consequences of the truth?
Rory’s voice preempts me from mulling over the question any more. “Would you have time to meet up for coffee tomorrow?” he asks.
My stomach scrunches like it’s been stepped on. Nothing says “friend zone” more than a coffee catch-up. It’s the same thing Rory suggested the very first time we hung out. Here we are, coming full circle, without much of a story in the middle. His feelings toward me haven’t changed this whole time. Only mine have, and I’ll just have to figure out how to change them back. Or release them altogether.
“Sure,” I hear myself say, because I aspire to be the type of emotionally mature woman who can have difficult conversations in person, not the kind who childishly hangs up the phone on her friend/could’ve-been-lover and promptly blocks his number forevermore, like I desperately want to do. “I could do coffee.”
“Sounds good,” Rory says. His tone sounds stiff and formal, and I’m already missing the way he used to say “cool beans,” though I used to find it goofy and uncouth.
“I’ll come by Gail’s?” he suggests. “Does eleven work?”
“Sure,” I say. “See you tomorrow.” The phrase feels sacred, like I may never be able to say it to him again. Because there’s no way I want to do the dreaded “just friends” thing, if that’s what he suggests.
I want all or nothing. And if he wanted to give me his all, he would’ve told me by now. He would’ve at least hinted that he was glad to read the card. But there’s been no kind of positive affirmation at all, which makes his answer obvious.
The only thing I can do is show up with dignity and poise tomorrow and hear him out as he lists out all the reasons he thinks I’m so great but just doesn’t see me likethat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Dignity and poise” is more than a little bit difficult to find the next morning.
I can’t help but compare the day to the first morning that I met up for coffee with Rory. How I woke up so hungover, feeling slimy and soiled and irredeemable after what had happened with Harold the night before. How I threw on the first clothes I could find and schlepped across the street to Gail’s out of a sense of duty.
Today I rise sober and alert, my body feeling clean even as my stomach writhes and ties itself in knots. I take a long time getting ready, putting in far more effort than I ever have with Rory (except when I thought he was Alexander). The trick is making it seem like I haven’t gone to special lengths at all, like I’ve just rolled out of bed like this, with beachy waves and dewy skin and a cobalt blue jumper dress that hits me in all the right spots and cleverly hides the wrong ones.
Rory is no longer someone I can let see my unfiltered self. And I’m not above a little spite either. I want to look extra good so he’llhave to see what he’ll be missing out on. So he’ll have fresh images to haunt him, rather than the last memories he has of me, sitting beside him in those cramped airplane seats, shoveling Biscoff cookies into my mouth as new zits popped out of my chin while my face simultaneously flaked with dryness because apparently it’s somehow possible to have parched skin and oily skin at the exact same time, even in your thirties.
Ten minutes before we’ve planned to meet, Rory texts me that he’s just gotten to Gail’s and is holding our spot in line. Peeking out my curtains, I see him there, at the back of the queue, which is winding all the way back to the St. Mary’s bus stop.
He’s wearing a different coat than usual—a forest-green down puffer that only reaches his waist and adds some bulk to his body. He’s not wearing his scarf either, and it makes me feel like something’s missing, like a stranger is standing there, rather than my friend.
Leaving Marlow House, I cross Upper Street, avoiding looking at Rory until I’m standing right in front of him.
“Hey,” he says quietly. His face is somber, with none of its typical levity. He’s looking at me intently, like he’s trying to apologize for not loving me, which is potentially the worst expression in the world to be on the receiving end of.
