But they don’t come. The only words that would keep me from leaving. He doesn’t object when I remove his hand from my waist and walk past him. He doesn’t come after me when I put the coffee cups on the table besides the entrance and open the front door.
So I walk out, without a word or a look back.
Parker unhitches himself from the wall when he sees me. “That didn’t go too well, huh?”
“I just want to get out of here,” I whisper, and run toward the elevator, fighting hard to hold back my tears. To my relief, the doors open the second I press the button and I slide in. So does Parker.
“I meant what I said about that breakfast.”
“No offense, but I want to be alone right now.”
“You don’t look like you should be on your own,” he says softly.
“Parker, please… I…” A sob escapes my lips and I look away from him.
“Fine, I’ll drive you home.”
“But-”
“No argument accepted. Give me your car keys.” I hesitate for a second, then retrieve the keys from my purse and hand them to him, because I don’t feel capable of driving. I barely have enough energy to keep from bursting into tears.
“How will you come back?” I ask once we’re in the Prius.
“Cab. Can you enter your address in the navigation system?” he says, pointing at the navigation system.
“Sure.” I enter the address, then lean back, staring out the window as the car starts moving.
“He’s not a bad person, you know.”
“Don’t start defending him.”
“I’m not. I just want you to know that-”
“I don’t get why he bothered getting involved with me at all,” I spit. “He has an army of… women… who happily climb in his bed at the snap of his fingers. He didn’t need one more meaningless name to that list.”
“You were anything but meaningless, Serena,” Parker says.
I turn to him furiously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He looks at me shortly then focuses on the road again. “The way he talks about you… he admires you.”
I snort.
“I mean it. He thinks you’re smart and-”
“Are you making this stuff up?” I ask, the muscles of my neck quivering violently. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and discover there are no tears on my cheeks. Something about acute anger seems to be keeping them back.
“I’m not. He went on and on about your hospital thing last night.”
“It didn’t keep him from jumping in bed with Sophie.”
This earns me a few minutes of silence. I don’t want to know any of this. What he said or what he thinks. What purpose will it serve except making it that much harder to piece myself together again?
“James went through some rough stuff a few years ago.”
And I finally do snap. “Everyone does, Parker. That’s life. And honestly, his high school girlfriend leaving him isn’t the roughest stuff.”
Parker turns white. This time the silence lasts longer. We park the car in front of my block and wait for his cab when he says quietly, “Lara didn’t leave him; she died. On our graduation day.”
A sudden coldness chills my insides, and a lump in my throat makes breathing a chore. I gape at Parker in shock but he doesn’t say one more word. His cab arrives and before sliding in it he mutters a quick, “See you,” that I don’t manage to return.
I don’t find the solitude I was hoping for when I enter the apartment. Jess is on the phone, pacing like mad between the couch and the kitchen, speaking in a very formal tone. Her interview, of course. Jess stops dead in her tracks at the sight of me and raises her shoulders questioningly. I shake my head and walk directly to my room, where I finally find silence.
Where I’m finally alone.
One tear rolls down my cheek. I don’t bother to brush it away. More will come anyway. I slide down the door, biting my arm to stop the sobs from escaping because I don’t want Jess to hear me. The anger’s gone and I miss it so. It was invigorating and satisfying, fulfilling even. The pain isn’t. It’s raw and devastating.
Unbearable.
And at the end of anger lies nothing but pain.
A thousand tears fall on my blue dress-shreds of my shattering heart. They fall for him and for me; for all the kisses and the words we had. They fall harder for all those we will never have again. I hug my knees, and dig my nails deep into my ankles. To no avail. The shudders don’t stop. The gasping breaths keep choking me. How can this hurt so much?
A scratching, muffled sound resonates from somewhere and I think that that’s it; I finally cracked and am hallucinating, then realize it’s my cell phone vibrating. I search for it in my bag, praying it’s not one of the HR schmucks who received my resume last week, calling to schedule an interview. I have a hard enough time making a good impression when I’m at my best. I glance at the screen through the blinding tears and almost wish it was an HR schmuck.
It’s the source of my misery. For a fraction of a second, I actually contemplate answering, because no matter what, I’d get angry, and maybe, just maybe, the stinging torture in my chest would go away. But then I throw the darned thing on my bed, as James’s words echo in my head and I sink to a whole new depth of agony. “The pain will never really go away.” How well he knew that. Yet as I lay there, wrapped in his arms, for a blissful moment, it did. For once, the thought of Kate brought a smile, not just regret and despair. I wonder if he was thinking of his blue-eyed angel. He probably was.
The cell stops vibrating and starts again the next second. I clutch my knees tighter and rest my chin on them, wiping away my tears. I never want to see him or hear his voice again: the man with the power to mend my deepest wounds. And slash open so many others.
Fresh, burning tears form behind my eyelids and I smile sadly as the cruelest realization of all hits.
I’m in love with him.
“You’ve been up all night again,” Jess accuses, hopping through the stacks of paper and clothes lying on the floor. I’m sitting upright in my bed, holding on to my laptop for dear life.
“Yep. I was really productive, too. I sent twenty-six CVs and completed three of the crappiest online application forms ever for some investment banks in New York. If these don’t lead to at least one offer I’ll officially be the world’s biggest loser.”
“You’re on the verge of a mental breakdown,” she says, watching me wearily.
“No, I’m not,” I protest. “That’s what seniors do, apply for jobs.”
They get offers too, is what I don’t say out loud. Everyone around me seems to already have three offers. Everyone but me. The very top of my class and already a failure in the outside world. I thought there was something wrong with my CV or cover letter in the beginning. But after everyone from the head of the Career Development Center, to Dean Kramer, and an online professional CV service checked it, I figured my CV was all right, I just hadn’t sent out enough. Everyone told me I had nothing to worry about. Now, 200 applications later (which now include every major corporation that has an opening, after exhausting the banks), I’m not worried anymore. Now I’m just desperate.
“Not three nights in a row after a breakup.”
“This wasn’t a breakup, Jess. We were never together.”
“You haven’t watched one movie,” she exclaims as if she doesn’t need further proof that I’m losing my marbles.
“Had more important things to do,” I mumble.
The truth is, I didn’t dare. Just perusing my DVD shelves brought memories of the hours and hours spent in the cinema room that threatened to cripple the last shreds of sanity I had and send me into an abyss of desperation.
“How many times did he call today?” Jess asks, sitting next to me.
I have a total of two dozen missed calls from James in a span of two days, and had almost as many messages. I deleted them all without reading even one. I know what they say anyway. Propose some kind of arrangement that would be nothing more than the same crap as before, only disguised with fancy words. But I didn’t delete the messages because I was afraid I’d get angry reading about his arrangement. I deleted them because I was afraid I’d fall for it right away. That the gaping chasm in my heart would make me cling to whatever delusional hope his words might offer just so I could lose myself in his arms again. For a little while.