Eitan’s face has tipped squarely to concern. “Yeah, of course, but?—”
“Thank you.” I cut through the crowded bar, grab my purse, and rush outside. I lean against the brick wall and put my head between my legs as I call an Uber. This way, when I start crying, my tears drip straight onto the sidewalk.
chapter
ten
It was a bad night.One of those nights that feels like the world is crumbling around you, like you’ll never experience joy again because you don’t deserve it. Yes, I’m aware of how dramatic it sounds. I’ve already figured it out though: the blame rests squarely on Eitan’s shoulders. If he didn’t insist on pushing, I wouldn’t always be my worst around him. My persona would be perfectly intact. Ruby, cancer survivor, winning at life-er.
I usually think of crying like a cleanse. The bad thoughts pile up until there’s nowhere to go but be physically expelled from your body. Then you’re renewed. Birthed by tears and sadness, redfaced, ready to take on the world. But today, I feel worse. My eyes are swollen and dry, and I’m bloated from a late night gorge on popcorn. I got approximately three hours of sleep, and the light is making my head pound. I hiss at my windows and close the blinds so that I may cocoon in my depressive episode in peace.
I brush the used tissues off my couch and wrap myself in a blanket. I’ll just spend another day rotting on the couch, and then I’ll do something productive. Like work on my query letter or attempt to open the manuscript again. Even the thought of itrings false in the echo chamber of my mind, like me, myself, and I are already aware that no writing progress is being made this weekend.
I turn on the TV and it is, conveniently, ready to resume13 Going On 30. Why can’t life be more like a Jennifer Garner movie? At this point I’d take any of them. EvenElektra.
I press play and shove a fistful of stale popcorn into my mouth. Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner are eating razzles on a playground in their pajamas. I wonder if anyone ever actually feels like life is a movie from the 2000s. A world where mental health issues don’t exist, everyone is dripping in Calvin Klein, and all it takes is one kiss on the Manhattan Bridge to secure a happily ever after, despite the two main characters knowing fundamentally very little about each other.
A knock on the door rings through the entire apartment. Who could that be? No one knocks on my door. The building manager lets himself in (I’ve asked himmanytimes to knock). It could be a delivery? My mother has been known to send an edible arrangement now and then.
I walk slowly toward it, leaving a trail of popcorn crumbs, not convinced there’snotan axe murderer on the other side of the door. I open it slowly, pulling my fluffy pink robe tighter around me.
The first thing I see is a crisp white hat sitting on dark curls.
The next thing I see are seaglass eyes.
It’s Eitan.
But then again, who else could it be? The Universe wants him to see me at my worst.
“We’ve got to go,” he says, not even blinking at my hit-by-a-truck appearance.
I blink, slowly. “Come again?”
“Get dressed.” He checks his watch. “We need to be on a train in ten minutes or we will be late.”
“I think I’m missing the part of this conversation where you explain what you’re talking about?” I scan him, drifting from Reeboks to well-tailored dark wash jeans to a pale blue crewneck that only makes his eyes glow brighter. “And why you’re at my door?”
He sighs, likeI’mcausing the inconvenience of not knowing what he’s talking about. “Florist. Lincoln Square. The appointment is in forty-five minutes.”
“Florist,” I repeat back to him, still trying to make sense of it.
“I’m guessing you haven’t checked your phone yet?”
I step out of the doorframe and rub my forehead, leaving a silent invitation for Eitan to join my cocoon of sadness. “It died.”Similar to my sense of self worth.
I hear the familiar creak of the floorboard near the door and I know a threshold has been crossed: Eitan Moreno has entered my apartment.
“Well, Pen scheduled an appointment with the florist and didn’t tell any of us until midnight that we needed to be there at ten a.m.,” he says with a tinge of annoyance. “I was given the honor of doing a welfare check on you.”
I sit back down on a couch littered with used tissues, in a robe I’ve had since I was eleven, bristling at the implication that I am in need of a welfare check. “How did you get my address?” I ask, shoving another fistful of stale popcorn into my mouth.
He stares at me for a moment. “I broke into the DMV database.”
I’m just out of it enough that I believe this.
“Pen gave it to me.”
“Right.” Yes, that makes more sense.
