“How are you guys at work?”
“It’s like nothing happened. She’s the consummate professional…as always.” She’d expressed her feelings and shed her tears, but then she picked herself up and carried on. I admired her so much for it, because I wished I could do the same.
“As much as I love Sicily, you’re right. The timing isn’t right, and you aren’t ready. I never should have pressured you into it. I think she was the right person, just at the wrong time. You were only together for a couple weeks, not enough time for serious feelings to form. So while it’s shitty, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe when you’re in a better place, you could try again.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know when or if that will ever happen, and she shouldn’t wait around for me. She deserves a stellar guy…someone better than me.”
I was on the couch with my feet on the coffee table, mindlessly staring at the TV as the bluish glow filled the living room of my apartment. I was anxious to have more than one beer, but it would be irresponsible to do so, so I didn’t. But I wished I could take something to drown out my thoughts, my misery.
A week had passed, and now that Sicily and I were officially done, people had stopped mentioning her. Other than the subtle awkwardness between us whenever we interacted, it was like it had never happened. She didn’t seem angry with me, and she obviously didn’t bring it up again.
Time to move on…I guess.
My phone vibrated on my thigh and lit up.
At this time of night, it was usually Sicily, still working because she was a bigger workaholic than I was.
But it wasn’t her.
It was the last person in the world I’d ever expect.
Catherine.
Can we talk?
I stared at the message for a minute straight, reading her words over and over, unable to believe she’d sent that. It wasn’t a different Catherine because there had always been just one Catherine in my life.
It was her.
The Catherine.
Her words paralyzed me, and all I could do was stare, feel the adrenaline rush in my veins, feel my heart pound like I was about to bench three hundred pounds. It was the same rush of anxiety I felt every time a patient flatlined.
I’d pictured this moment so many times over this last year, how I would respond if she ever reached out to me, and my reaction was always different, depending on how long it’d been since she left me.
I didn’t expect the reaction that hit me.
I was fucking pissed. Now you wanna talk? Over a year later? Is this a joke? I probably shouldn’t have texted her back at all, but once she’d dropped her line, I got hooked and couldn’t let go.
The dots didn’t pop up.
I continued to stare at the screen, wondering what she would say to that.
Clearly, she had nothing to say.
Now, I regretted my reaction, because I wanted to know what would drive her to text me after all this time, on a Tuesday night, completely at random. I almost texted her again, but I refused to. Ball was in her court.
You don’t owe me anything, Dex. But I’d really like to talk to you…
Why?
The dots stopped.
“Goddammit, why?” I screamed at the phone as if I were screaming at her.
Her message came a few moments later. Because I need to apologize to you.
There I sat, in an empty café, almost nine in the evening, with a cup of coffee in front of me that I hadn’t touched.
Felt rude not to buy something.
I had just as much adrenaline in my body now as I had in the apartment. I couldn’t believe I’d actually come, agreed to meet her on a whim, to look her in the eye, when I hadn’t seen her in the flesh in over a year.
Then she walked in.
Same long brown hair.
Same bright eyes.
She carried herself the same way, like she was in court, ready to win her case. It was easy for her to find me since I was literally the only person in there. Unlike me, she didn’t bother to buy anything before she walked over, wearing a thick gray pea coat and a dark blue scarf. Her movements slowed more and more as she approached me with apprehension.
The closer she came, the harder my heart began to pound.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Then she took a seat—and the pounding stopped.
My heart slowed down dramatically, the drums in my head going quiet, the moment finally arriving.
She sat across from me, her eyes shifting back and forth slightly as she took in my expression, as she studied how much I had changed since the last time she saw me. Her hands came together on the surface of the table, her back straight and poised, her fingers interlocking like this was a deposition rather than a clandestine meeting of two people who once promised to love each other forever.
I didn’t say a word because I couldn’t believe this was real. There were so many days I woke up in bed alone and wondered if she’d done the same. There were times I didn’t wake up alone, and when I considered if she’d done the same, it made me feel like shit. Months and months had gone by, and I kept glancing at my phone even when it didn’t vibrate, when the screen remained black, so I had to tap it to brighten it and look for a text that I knew wasn’t there. I’d been living in the dark, wondering if she had any regrets, wondering if life as a single person had been easier for her than it’d been for me. Her silence made me reevaluate every single interaction we had, made me look for meaning in moments that meant nothing. Had she never loved me, but I loved her too much to notice?
She gave a slight clearing of her throat, just the way she used to, and her eyes dropped for a moment before she spoke, all of her mannerisms and movements exactly the same as they used to be.
I noticed she didn’t wear an engagement ring.
She finally said something. “Thank you…for meeting me.”
I was speechless. Had no idea what to say. I was angry, so angry that I wanted to storm out of there without looking back, but I lingered, waiting for an apology that I’d needed for a year, the closure I’d never gotten.
“I’m sorry…” She dropped her gaze. “I asked you to come down here, and now that we’re together…it’s hard. It’s hard to say everything that I’ve said to myself a hundred times, to say what’s been in my heart for so long.”
My hands were in my lap under the table, and I sat there with stillness, the only movement I made through my slight breathing. But every time I drew breath, it hurt a little bit. And a little more…and a little bit more.
She stared at the table for a while before she cleared her throat again.
“It’s getting late and I have shit to do tomorrow, so…” My voice was low, masked by the obnoxious coffee house music coming through the speakers, and I did my best not to yell in a public place.
She lifted her chin and looked at me. “Right…of course.” She gave a nod before she continued, her eyes glancing out the window beside us for a moment before she went on. “I want you to know how sorry I am…about everything. I’m not sure what happened, but I was so grief-stricken by my father’s death that I just couldn’t think logically anymore—”
“Is this an apology or an excuse?”
Her entire body tensed when I cut her off.