30 First Dates (40 page)

She laughed weakly. "You're a funny guy, Max."

"That's what I hear," he said. "The nurses on my wing are always telling me I should do stand-up." He paused, stroking the stubble on his chin. "They might just be flirting with me, though. They all want to get with the hot, rich doctor." He tapped one thumb against his chest and winked, a gesture so off-putting Erin managed to find humor in the situation.

"And you're modest, too."

For a half-second he seemed to accept the compliment, and then his smile faded. "Touché," he said, and Erin winked back at him.

Her cell phone buzzed beside her right elbow. She reached over to turn it off, but then noticed it was Ben's name on the screen. She glanced at Max, who was glugging back a Scotch and water, and decided in this instance it was worth it to be rude. "Excuse me," she said, removing his hand from her thigh as she took the call. She stood up and walked quickly to the vestibule outside the ladies' room.

"What's up?" she asked when Ben answered.

"I have bad news," he said, and her heart lurched. Was it his dad again…or was it Catherine? She held her breath. He'd confronted Cat about Ryan and she'd sworn she wasn't cheating on him, which meant Catherine remained in all their lives. Erin bit her lip, forcing herself to keep her voice level.

"What's up?" she asked again.

"We can't come to the party tomorrow night," Ben said.

"Why?" Erin asked, her voice sharp as she noted the plural. This was her big night, her celebration of the past year, of which Ben had been a huge part. She couldn't imagine the night without him, Catherine or no Catherine. Her eyes stung with the betrayal.

"Cat's cousin is getting married," he said. "It's her second cousin, in Rockwall. We weren't going to go. We were coming to your party instead, but she said her mother's insisting. Something about wanting family members to return the favor one day…or whatever."

Erin's heart seized up in her chest—for several seconds it seemed to stop beating altogether. Had Ben really just alluded to his future wedding? Her mouth went dry, and she licked her lips. "And
you
definitely have to go?" she asked, trying to keep her voice level.

"Yeah, um, I said the same thing. It did not go over well."

At this, a combination of anger, sadness, and desperation churned in Erin's mind. She wanted to scream at Ben right now.
Catherine is not right for you! She is controlling you! You don't belong with her!
But something—everything—stopped her. She'd lost all perspective when it came to Ben. All perspective, and all influence over his life. She'd lost it the night they'd slept together, the night they'd become the cheat
ers
instead of the cheat
ees
.

A feeling like hatred burned through her all at once, not at Catherine, not at Ben, but at herself. She hated her weakness in that moment, on that night. Why had she let it happen? Why had
Ben
let it happen, if he hadn't really meant it? Did it really mean nothing? And the question that bothered her the most: What did
she
want it to mean?

Her heart had woken up from its momentary lull and was now slamming against her ribcage as she forced back all the things she wanted to say.
Why didn't you break up with Catherine after the night you spent with me? Did you really not mean what you said in the park? Do you love Catherine, really love her? Why is this so hard? Why is every damned thing about our friendship now so hard?

Erin sank back against the wood plank wall as a blonde in her early twenties tottered past her in spike heels. The girl turned toward her as she pulled the fake wood handle on a door marked "cowgirls" with a cutesy silhouette of a figure in high heels holding a lasso.

"You okay?" the girl mouthed, and Erin wondered how she must look—like she'd just been gut-punched, or was about to pass out. For the first time she realized tears were streaking down her cheeks. She nodded slightly and turned up the corners of her lips, and the girl nodded, too, and disappeared through the doorway.

"You still there, E?" He sounded worried, like he was afraid she'd hung up on him. Erin blew out a breath into the phone.

"Yeah, I'm here. I understand." She felt wooden, her voice lifeless. She understood that by trying to fix her life, to change her luck with love, she'd somehow ruined
everything
. "We can celebrate some other time."
If Catherine will allow it.
A new tear rolled over her lower lashes.

"You're the best, E," Ben said. "I know I should be at your party. I know it's a big deal. It's been a very big year for you."

She thought about the potential Hulu show—she planned to tell her friends about it at the party, even though it wasn't a done deal. Erin waited, but he didn't say any more.

"But you're not coming."

"I'm sorry." He paused for a couple of breaths. "I'll make it up to you."

"I know. You keep saying that."

Ben was silent for a couple of seconds, and then he sighed. "I just accused her of cheating on me. Things are…she wants to introduce me to her grandmother." He paused again. "I just think I'd better be there tomorrow night."

And that was that. The line in the sand was drawn, and Erin was on the wrong side of it.

"You really do owe me." She tried to go for a joking tone, but her voice sounded dull, deflated. Another few seconds passed in silence.

"I know, and I'll make it up, Erin." His voice was worried, earnest. "I promise."

When they hung up, Erin thought nothing much seemed promising about that conversation, or about the remainder of her night. She thought about Dr. McCreepy waiting for her at the bar and fought the strong urge to ditch, to slip out the exit door six feet away from her. Instead she trudged slowly back to the bar to finish out her mission, to complete her thirtieth and final date.

*  *  *

The next morning, Erin awoke with a fluttering in her stomach, and for a few seconds she wasn't sure why. Then she remembered and glanced at the clock.

In about three hours, she was jumping out of an airplane.

"Holy shit," she said out loud, rubbing her eyes and scrambling out of bed so fast her right foot got tangled up in the sheets. She picked up her phone from her dresser and saw that her mom had tried to call twice. Her parents would be on the ground when she jumped, along with Sherri, Hilary, and Mark.

Witnesses.

Which meant she couldn't chicken out.

She called her mother back to confirm the time and address of the skydiving center and then stepped into the shower, lingering to let the stinging hot spray massage away some of her tension. Despite her best effort not to think about him, her mind strayed to the person she most wanted to witness her triumph today, but who wouldn't be there. She hadn't even told him about her jump.

Sadness formed a hard lump in her stomach, and she hated it. She should be happy today—so, so blissfully happy. She'd completed her thirty dates, she'd accomplished every goal on her Thirty by Thirty List (at least every goal she
could
accomplish), and she'd changed her entire livelihood, her life. She'd built a career she loved with her head and her own two hands, and she had exciting things to look forward to.
Happy.
But Ben was in the way of that. Why was that, exactly?

Erin's mind wandered over their tumultuous past few months. He'd professed his love, and she'd pushed him away. He'd come to her apartment as a friend, and she'd allowed them to become lovers. He'd acted like it never happened, and she'd realized she was in love with him.

Erin was so startled by her last thought that the conditioner bottle she was holding slipped from her hands and hit the floor of the tub with a dull thud. It bounced off her big toe first, but she didn't feel it. Shampoo ran in rivulets down her face, onto her shoulders and stomach and back, but she stood stock still, her arms limp at her sides.

Had she really just thought that?

Was she really in love with Ben?

Erin shook her head slowly as the idea sank in.

No. I'm not…it's not. We're friends.

Best friends. She was in love with her best friend.

Erin collapsed against the wall of the tub enclosure, feeling as winded as if she'd just finished a race. More scenes from the past year flitted through her mind…that night in college, Ben's lips on her hair…Ben at her party, his confusing jealousy…dancing with him at Hilary's wedding, her nerve endings on fire…confiding in him about Devon, the sucker punch of his confession in the park. And feeling so, inexplicably jealous of Cat, from the first moment she saw her.

And then she thought of their night together—their beautiful, horrible night together when she should have known but was so, so blind and stupid. She thought of how the tension between them had built—how they'd done everything wrong, done it in the worst way possible, hurting others and hurting themselves.

She thought about the blog, about the distractions that had kept her from seeing what was right in front of her all along.

I'm in love with Ben, and I've been an idiot, and he's in love with someone else.

He was going to marry someone else. Someone controlling, someone who might not be trustworthy, someone who wouldn't let him be friends with her anymore.
As she shouldn't
, Erin thought, knowing as she thought it that she couldn't see Ben ever again. A few months earlier she wouldn't have thought that was possible, but now she saw no other way.

Tears flowed off her cheeks and blended with the hot pinpricks of water cascading down her body. She felt like the room couldn't contain all her emotion, and for a brief moment she felt panicked, almost claustrophobic, in the tiny shower enclosure.

It was a long time, so long that the water spurting from the shower head began to grow cool, before she straightened herself up, swiping her wet hands over the tears on her cheeks.

"Let's do this," she said out loud, picking up the dropped bottle and twisting the faucet to its maximum warmth. She squirted conditioner into her palm and then scrubbed at her scalp with fury.

After the shower, she dressed in sturdy jeans and an old concert tee, pulling her long waves back into a tight ponytail. Focusing all her energy on the next few hours, she decided she was ready. Ready to face the open door of the airplane, ready to face her family's reception and tonight's party and the long, uncertain journey into her future.

Ready to face anything but her misplaced feelings for a best friend who no longer seemed to care what she did or who she did it with. It was as much as she deserved.

*  *  *

Erin arrived at the skydiving center thirty minutes before her appointed time. She signed a waiver stating she wouldn't sue the company if she was injured and her family wouldn't sue them if she died, and then she watched a safety video with a small group of fellow divers—some skittish first-timers like her, others seasoned and glowing with excited energy.

She sat near the experienced divers, hoping to absorb their confidence. She watched closely as the clip showed her how to position her body during the freefall, how to soar in tandem with the instructor as he controlled the descent and deployed the parachute.

She felt more numb than nervous, and she knew it wasn't entirely because of the dive. When her partner and instructor introduced himself as Stu, Erin shook his hand and cast an oddly cursory glance over the person who would soon hold her life in his hands. Or against his chest, as it were.

She'd chosen not to have anyone ride to the skydiving center with her because she was afraid it might make her more nervous. So while other people on her dive gave hugs to loved ones remaining on the ground, Erin trailed Stu to the equipment area and followed his lead in putting on a huge tan jumpsuit and clear diving goggles.

He strapped her into a bulky harness, and more quickly than seemed possible, she was boarding the plane.

It was a low-ceilinged, cylindrical, cavernous space, and soon Erin found herself surrounded by eleven others, including Stu. Most divers were jumping tandem, like her, but two were diving alone. She watched these two, envying the controlled excitement in their eyes. Her mind flitted between exhilaration, fear, and some mixture of anguish and confusion over her earlier realization—she worked to channel all of it into something she could use, something that would let her let go when the moment came, still not knowing how or if she'd be able to do it but acknowledging that at this point she had no choice. She imagined telling her blog readers and her friends and family that she'd gotten all the way up and then backed out, forcing Stu to hang back with her as the only losers left on the plane.
No freaking way.

The divers were lined up in order of descent. She and Stu were in the middle of the pack—which was pretty much perfect, Erin thought. She needed to see a display of others' courage before she found her own, but she also needed the peer pressure of other divers behind her, waiting for her to get out of the way of their own adventure.

She was on the floor, Stu leaning back against her, and she exchanged nervous pleasantries with the people on either side of her—a woman in her forties and a guy about her age who kept using words like "pumped" and "stoked." But she mostly tuned out the other passengers' chatter about the weather and the diving conditions and the fears or ambitions that had led them up here, gathered dubiously into a cargo hold gearing up to let go of every lesson life had ever taught them. She did hear a man named Chad, one of the two solo divers, tell a tear-streaked woman, "Don't worry. This will be the most awesome thing you've ever done." She repeated his words to herself over and over as the plane lifted up and up.

The door was still closed and Erin strained to see out the single window, making meaningless calculations about the plane's height as the ground grew farther away. Surprisingly, she no longer felt afraid, just impatient, like she was running in a meet and willing the distance between herself and the finish line to wither up and disappear.