Page 77 of The Perfect Rom-Com

Love lost. (But can I really call Parker love? No. Whatever that was cannot compare to this. This. THIS.)

Betrayal. (Gutting, of course. But more importantly, how selfish of him. How selfish of him to hide his new relationship for so long, to deny me from moving on.)

And then, of course, Jack.

The date.

The waiter.

The bread.

The walk.

The kiss.

The revelation.

The . . . well, the everything.

I am in love.

Because of course, this is love.

And I’ve been in love for quite some time.

I just didn’t know it was with him.

* * *

The bus is pitch black at 3:00 a.m., all but for the glow of my laptop and the dim running lights. My typing is still going strong. I don’t know why, but my best work happens this way, when the world is silent. When the world is calm. It’s probably what Gloria dubs my “fear of missing out” syndrome. How I can’t turn down any activity during the day that looks remotely possible with other human beings. (Grocery store to get bananas? Absolutely. A post office trip to buy stamps? Immediate need. Christmas card time is only nine months away.)

I don’t think I could be like other writers, tucked away at a desk somewhere in their home, all alone but for their cats and the occasional mailman. Wanting to be alone.

Who wants to be alone?

No. This is why I teach.

I thrive amid busyness. I love the clamor of people and languages around me. I love to feel the whole world surrounding me. And at night, I love to write.

I love living with one foot in both worlds.

It’s the loss of Mom. Part of it, at least. I was an extroverted child to begin with—I would always end up turning strangers into playmates when we went to parks and libraries in my early years. Gran said it wouldn’t take but ten minutes in a new place before I was parading around with my new friends—and then when Mom passed, it was earth-shattering. My heart split in two right there in the hospital room. The grief felt so big that the floor seemed to open up and swallow me whole.

In that moment Gran went to take Gloria to the hospital room’s bathroom. I think it was an excuse, really, because I could hear Gran’s stifled sobbing through the bathroom door. Gloria was only four then.

Besides that one deeply sorrowful moment, Gran never cried, at least not that intensely, in front of us again.

But then a janitor accidentally came in, loaded down with buckets and mops, clearly thinking this was another room. I remember how particularly bouncy her backside was as she backed into the room, wheeling in her mop bucket, humming to herself a little song.

And when she turned, the shock registered on her face when she saw my face. And the tears streaming down my cheeks. And Mom’s body. Still there.

She plucked those earbuds off her ears and dropped down to her knees. And opened her arms.

And I don’t know who she was or her name, but I’ll never forget stepping forward. Running forward really. And the smell of jasmine perfume on her neck and the total envelopment of her arms around me. How her arms seemed to be trying to keep me in, protected from the brokenness outside.

And I don’t remember her words, but I do remember the tone of her words. The soft hush of them. The way her soul reached out and wrapped around mine for just a moment in hopes of easing my pain. Telling me I was not alone.

She was an angel in a critical moment for me. My gran, of course, too. Of course.