Anatomy of a Single Girl (10 page)

Maybe he
wants
me to see it.

Or maybe he’s not thinking about me at all. I hate how you can feel broken up with someone without ever having dated.

In a fit of self-pity, I switch to Guy’s page. His latest post shows that he’ll be going to the Midsummer Night’s Rockfest, a free concert 101 FM is throwing this Friday. I bet he’s going to have
so
much fun. That it’s my choice not to join him won’t make me less lonely. It’s hard to believe, though,
that we were dating just last weekend. It was all over so rapidly that Guy feels like a phantom. I decided not to unfriend him because it seemed mean to cut him off completely when he didn’t do anything wrong. And like I told Amy, I didn’t love him yet, so what I’m experiencing isn’t exactly
heartbreak
. I don’t loathe myself for not being loved by him, and thinking about him doesn’t leave me in excruciating physical pain. I’m just disappointed. And disillusioned. Guy and I fit on so many levels, and given the chance, maybe it
could’ve
been love, and maybe it could’ve been for forever.

It all begs the question, though: Was my not loving Guy really because we knew each other for only a few days?

My parents claim they fell in love on the
first
day.…

Or was my not loving Guy because you can’t fall for someone if you’re still hung up on someone else?

Now devolving into full-out masochism, I run a Facebook search for the NYU track and field page so I can see my high school boyfriend’s face among the team photos.
He
was a total heartbreak situation, which is why I keep his personal page blocked. I realize that’s immature of me, considering we went through so much more together than Guy and I did—my ex and I were each other’s first everything. But loving him had become like an addiction, so I figured the best way to beat it was to make a clean break. That’s why I’m not tagging along with Amy to their high school track reunion this Friday. Even though she told me that
he
RSVP’d no to the Evite because he’s in Manhattan working a summer job, I don’t want to subject myself to the possibility of his old friends grilling me like Brie did, or hearing them talk about how he’s doing better than I am. At least, I
presume
he’s doing better. From his mile-wide smile in
the pictures, it’s doubtful he’s home alone cyber-stalking
me
. That’s the thing about exes—for eternity you feel like rivals in a kind of happiness contest, and losing would be the epitome of tragedy.

I switch off my monitor and crawl under the covers, knowing full well this will be another sleep-deficient night. Then I remember another thing
Cosmo
said. It typically takes half the time you’re dating a guy to fall out of love with him. My ex and I were together almost ten months before he admitted over the holidays that he’d fallen out of love with me, so by that measure I should’ve been cured weeks ago. But once you’ve anticipated spending forever with someone, I’m not convinced you can ever feel complete after being uncoupled. I think you just learn to live without the person. Like when someone dies, you don’t stop loving them just because they’re not around to love you back anymore. Breakups truly are a kind of death. All year I plodded through the stages of mourning that I was just tested on in Biomedical Ethics—shock, anger, depression, and acceptance. The hitch, though, is that even when you’ve reached acceptance, you can sometimes regress so quickly, it’s scary.

Like I did at the Braffs’ barbecue.

Like I’m doing now.

I sit up and clutch my head in my hands. I have two options: I can distract myself from my ex—by reading, packing, or working out—or I can feed my addiction. It’s obvious which one’s right, and most of the time I go with it. Tonight, though, I trudge toward my linen closet, where I keep the big, bulky garbage bag that I filled with all my reminders of
him
on the night he dumped me.

I strew the bag’s contents over my bathroom floor—movie ticket stubs, a mood ring he gave me, dozens of framed photos. The inventory goes on. Sure, seeing this stuff again is torture. But it’s soothing, too, because it’s familiar. The only difference is that now everything’s coated with the crumbled remains of my rose prom corsage, making it all appear as if it’s been dug up from a grave, which I guess it has.

I study the pictures taken last summer, which are mostly of our graduations, the Braffs’ Independence Day barbecue, and our joint going-away dinner before we left for college in August—the beginning of the end. My eyes then land on another August shot of us at his grandparents’ fifty-ninth wedding anniversary. It took place in their Captiva Island vacation home, which lies vacant most of the year, and I wince recalling all the times my ex and I would sneak away there to get it on. I can’t believe I wasn’t more bothered then by how disrespectful that was. I guess I was too busy thinking about how his grandparents also met during their senior year in high school, which in my mind meant that their grandson and I were fated to follow in their footsteps. Serves me right, for me, a wannabe doctor, to have relied on something as unscientific as destiny.

I continue foraging through the pile, and as I catch sight of our half-empty condom box, I wonder about whether I should bring all these things to Gainesville. It seems stupid to, since, as far as I’m concerned, the sole benefit of moving is making a fresh start in a new place. I can’t trash this, though. It’s the only concrete evidence left that we were once a
we—

“Just quit it!”
I shout at myself.

I toss everything into the bag and hoist it back into the recesses of my linen closet.

All that’s happening now is another “step back,” which is normal, absolutely normal. But by wallowing, I’m flat-out
ensuring
he’s doing better than me.

In an effort to clear my head, I strip off my pajamas, lie down in the bathtub, spread my knees, turn on the water, and position my hips so the stream lands on just the right spot. Then I close my eyes and sift through my mental catalog of hot men like Matt and Mr. Chesnoff, before settling on Guy. Next I’m visualizing us back at Bantam Beach, except now we’re not avoiding
any
bases, and all the while Guy’s raving that I’m the only girl for him. Soon I’m grasping the sides of the tub as spasms ripple through me. But it’s all over seconds later. And when I open my eyes to turn off the faucet, the first thing I see is the ugly image of my three-day unshaven legs spread-eagle under a calcified waterspout. I begin bawling uncontrollably.

My main motive for coming back here this summer wasn’t just to vacation or be with Amy. It was to enjoy living at home again despite its being the site where I was rejected. It was to stamp out hurtful memories by making happy and empowering ones. Meanwhile, Fort Myers isn’t even
home
for much longer. I’m unwanted by every guy in my life. And now here I am, more than half a year post-breakup, and my latest “memory” is of trying to jolt myself out of my funk by getting off with the aid of modern plumbing. That’s not
empowering
. It’s
pitiful
.

I don’t bother changing back into my pajamas before hurling my soaked, naked body into bed and sobbing myself to sleep.

12

I
should’ve just called in sick. All Thursday, I’m so addled, I mess up the simplest tasks, like distributing the incoming mail and taking down the nurses’ lunch orders. Bratsitting that night doesn’t fare much better. With all my trembling,
I’m
the one spilling apple juice on my pants, which the five-year-old I’m watching thinks is hilarious because it looks like I peed myself.

But my crowning moment occurs Friday when I accidentally wheel the hospital library book cart into a loaded gurney, causing heavy hardcovers to fly off and thwack the patient on his suspended leg cast. I end up spending lunch hiding out in a janitor’s closet, having another meltdown.
On top of feeling loveless and rootless, I’m incompetent, too. And to think I was wondering why my supervisor hasn’t let me shadow doctors yet.

When I finally get home that evening, my parents are already on their way to Chez Jacques with their friends to celebrate moving to Gainesville. Mom left me my favorite grilled bass dinner to reheat, along with a congratulatory cupcake for getting good grades, but as is common in the depression stage of grief, I can’t eat. Instead, I go straight to bed and close my eyes despite the fact that it’s still light out and I’m wide-awake. I’m just biding my time until Amy comes over, which she texted should be around nine. But then she phones at seven.

“Hey,” I answer sullenly. “Isn’t your track reunion thing going on?”

“Yeah, but I skipped out early ’cause it was lame, so I’m heading to your place now.” I hear her car engine start. “And you can stop freaking, because the answer is
no
, I didn’t find out anything there about Mr. NYU.”

“Good. I couldn’t take it tonight if you heard he had a new girlfriend. This has been my shittiest week in a while. I didn’t tell you before, but … a couple days ago I looked through the ex bag.”

“Ugh, Dom!” she heaves. “You are
so
beyond this. It’s time you get rid of that junk!”

“That’s easier said than done. And I don’t
like
being this screwed up, Ames. I’m as tired of it as you are. But with so much not going my way, I can’t help it.”

“Well, enough feeling bad about him.
All
hims. Feel bad for
me
. I just wasted an hour of my life!”

“Bummer the party wasn’t fun. I thought you were tight with a lot of those trackies.”

“Emphasis on ‘were.’ And what blows is that I was so psyched about seeing everyone again, but with the few people who did show, none of us meshed anymore. I mentioned Rauschenberg, and not one of them expressed interest in coming to any shows, and that’s after I rooted for all their asses at every single meet in high school. I just had to get outta there.”

I’m usually a homebody, but as Amy rattles on about how everything’s changing, I’m now dreading staying in for another of our tween-style sleepovers. Inevitably it’ll make me more nostalgic for our pre-college days, which will further put me over the edge. If I’m ever going to pull myself out of this, I have to do something different.
Feel
something different.

Then, as if my body were acting on its own, I go to my desk and bring up Guy’s Facebook page. Just minutes ago Bruce “checked in” himself, Guy, and three other boys—whose names I recognize from Guy’s stories as Betas—at the Midsummer Night’s Rockfest, that free concert Guy posted about earlier.…

Why
am I not there with him, again?

Around Guy, I felt energized and stimulated and
happy
, and now I’m denying myself him and getting nothing in return. And no one can blame Guy for steering clear of commitments. I’ve tried the love thing, and if it implodes, you’re damaged for life. In the meantime, I’ve been so caught up with mapping out a picture-perfect “forever” that I’m completely neglecting my present, which I have far more control over anyway.

Suddenly I flash back to more than a decade ago, when I started going to sleepaway camp. Each summer there was invariably one girl I became inseparable with, but after our families picked us up and school resumed, we almost always lost touch. I’m still glad those friendships happened even though nothing came from them. Summer would’ve been a lot less fun otherwise. And Amy’s right. Everything ends eventually, including our bodies. I’d never tell a terminally ill patient to commit suicide just because death was imminent. I’d advise the patient to live it up in whatever time was left.

The Midsummer Night’s Rockfest is being held at Seminole Field. That’s just south of Ford and not far by car. As I click back to Guy’s page and admire his handsome head shot, I sense stirring inside me that same spontaneous desire that prompted me to ask Guy out in the first place—that drive to take action instead of waiting for something to happen. And it makes me feel alive.

“… I know that it’s been a while since I hung out with the trackies, so I guess it was dumb to think we’d just pick up where we left off. Maybe I’m really not the same person I was back in high school. Or maybe
they’re
not the same people—”

“Forget about them.” I cut Amy short before running to the bathroom and laying out a new razor in my shower. “How do you feel about meeting some
new
people tonight?”

13

D
espite heavy Friday-night traffic, Amy and I arrive at Seminole Field with ten minutes to spare before showtime. It’s almost dark, and I can barely see any grass, there’re so many people and picnic blankets. I had planned to text Guy that I’m here, but Amy claims I’ll lose my courage to see him if he writes back something unenthusiastic or doesn’t answer at all. She’s probably right, so we begin weaving through the crowd to hunt him down. Then, as we’re speeding by the concessions stands, I hear his voice. “Dom Baylor?”