His words set off a little tremor in my soul and a burning behind my eyes as I try to fight back tears. “Oof, do I? I don’t feel it.”
“But this whole new adventure is so exciting.” He’s almost pleading, like he’s trying to convince himself, and, by extension, me.
“No, I know. It’s great. I am genuinely excited. I just feel…I don’t know.” I wave my hand, hoping to pull my meaning out of the ether. “Putting on my stupid, too-small interview pantsuit last week made me feel really dumpy and sad.”
Josh’s nostrils flare in annoyance and he purses his lips: It’s his Teacher Look. If I’m not careful, he’ll send me to detention. “I swear, if you start with the whole ‘Flabby Abby’ thing again, I’m hanging up.” Ah, Flabby Abby—a particularly low self-esteem moment from the mid-2010s. “We shoved her in the closet where she was supposed to die a horrible death, remember?”
“Yes, of course. And I’m not conveying it right.” I fiddle withmy bangs. “It’s not about how I look, honestly. My body carried me through some shit, you know? Plus, my boobs look amazing.”
“Pics or it didn’t happen.” He pumps his eyebrows up and down twice, because despite the fact we’ll always be just friends, heishuman.
“Dream on. But yeah, I don’t know, it’s not Flabby Abby, it’s more like…Shabby Abby. Mentally Drab-by Abby. I feel mired in inertia. Torpid. That’s a word, right?”
“Yeah, it means ‘lethargic.’ ”
“It’s very helpful to have an English teacher for a best friend,” I say. “But I spent the last, what, six months? Twelve? However long it was just kind of being a bump on a log, watching my relationship fall apart and not lifting a finger to prevent it because I didn’t want to rock the boat. It’s like I sank into power-save mode. I stopped caring about my job, I was a terrible friend—no, don’t give me that face: I know I was shitty.”
“You were depressed.”
“I’m not sure we’re ready to use the past tense there, but yeah. Even if we exempt the whole Steven situation from the conversation, I was just coasting. I mean, do you remember what my mom was like last Thanksgiving? Dropping Jupiter-sized hints about how maybe it was time for a change in my life and maybe wedding planning would be good for me because it would give me something important to focus on and maybe Kyle or Dustin could find me a new job, and on and on and on?”
“Well, you’re obviously the black sheep of the family, what with your high-pressure, award-winning media job with the most respected baseball team in America.” He rolls his eyes. “Could youbemore of a disappointment?”
I laugh. “I know, right? How do they even deign to sit with me?But, like, despite being about as subtle as a hand grenade, she had a point. I mean, when I told my boss at the Sox I was leaving, she almost seemed relieved. She told me she thought I’d been unhappy for a while but she never knew what to do about it because all the work was still getting done. So yeah, I took this job for a lot of reasons, not all of them related to ULTIMATE SHITWAD—DO NOT CALL. I’m on this new adventure and I feel like I want to do more to shake off the funk. This is my chance to really start over. Figure out whatIwant. What Ireallywant.”
“So—tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
I smile, even though he’s better than that joke. “Josh, even the Spice Girls knew that self-actualization takes more than a week.”
“Okay, okay, fair point. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Take a dance class, maybe. Or meditate. Or find a therapist. Get myself moving in one way or another, physically or mentally or emotionally.”
I can tell I’m chipping away at Josh’s skepticism. “Okay, I like this. Maybe you could train for a marathon.” He and Erica are both runners and have spent a solid decade trying to persuade me to go for jogs with them, as if my lungs could sustain more than thirty seconds of that torture. This train of thought must be derailed before they send me a care package of blister pads and protein bars and those tiny running shorts that immediately get wedged in your crack.
“Lower those expectations: I’ll be happy if I can commit to a weekly yoga class.”
“The team probably has a pretty good gym you can use, at least.”
“Sure, we’re allowed to use the, like, C-Team Auxiliary Gym Annex after 11:30p.m., provided there isn’t an actual footballer within a ten-mile radius of the building.”
“Well, they can’t have your germs getting all over the team’s machines—they might catch your enervation, your indolence, your hebetude.”
“Stop showing off, Merriam and/or Webster.”
“Now you’re just being Crabby Abby,” he says with a smirk.
“How many more you got?”
“Just ‘Gabby Abby,’ but I’ll save that for when I want to kick you off the phone.” His eyes go out of focus as he looks away from the camera, then back. “Which, conveniently, is right now. Call me later, or even better, come back to Boston for a bit so we can say goodbye—and maybe also so I can slash the tires on the moving truck or call in a bomb threat to the airport or have one of your sainted brothers issue a proclamation declaring you’re forbidden from leaving. Pip pip cheerio, Top of the Pops, tea and biscuits!” He blinks out of view.
I stare at my reflection in the black screen, somewhat obscured by smudges. I hadn’t expected to go into so much detail about my revitalization plan. When Josh tells Erica, she’ll put together a customized exercise routine, plus find me the best meditation coach in Liverpool and a private knitting tutor and cooking classes with a Michelin-starred chef and all manner of other incredibly kind and helpful things, and I won’t have the heart to tell her to stand down. Her enthusiasm is admirable but in this case misplaced. I love my friends and I love my family—emotional shrapnel notwithstanding—but I need to do this myself. I need to steer my own ship out of murky waters. The years of accumulated stress are weighing on my shoulders, seeping into my very marrow and making everything feel heavy, even my own pathetic bones. Bones that did nothing to prevent their body’s life from falling apart. Bones that couldn’t even be stirred to save a failing engagement.
I will make a plan. I will. I will reboot my life like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or at the very least like a…chicken emerging from a mound of dirt. But I can’t get started on any rebirth plans quite yet because there’s a knock on my office door. “Excuse me, do you know where I can find Charlotte Collins?” The man’s voice is lyrical and rich, a warm Scottish burr that ever so lightly trills theRin “Charlotte.”
Lachlan Ramsay is at my door.
Chapter Four
