Burning Moon (19 page)

I wondered how they were feeling. Happy? Miserable? Maybe some of them had just left therapists, too? Had some of them had their hearts broken, had some just gotten back from their honeymoons in love? Had some just gotten divorced?

As I watched each and every one of them walk past, some to their parked cars, some to coffee shops, and some to meetings and maybe even home—it struck me that I had to start walking, too. Really walking. I'd been showing up for life every day, but not really living it. It was time for my life to go on. I could do this. I would be okay. I would get over this and move on, even if it was one small step at a time.

So in that moment of clarity, standing there on the street corner, I picked my head up, pulled my shoulders back, and started with one foot in front of the other, albeit rather shakily. I knew what I needed to do to get on with my life. I needed to cut off all contact with Damien, because as long as the two of us were sending each other messages on Facebook and I was looking at his profile every two minutes, the longer it would take to move on. But doing this would prove even harder than leaving Thailand. It was the severing of the last cord that held us together. The messages kept me tied to him. Kept me desperately, hopelessly, and devotedly in love with the guy that was a million miles away and totally out of my reach. So that evening, after a glass of wine (or six) to calm my shaking nerves, I sent him one last message.

I pressed enter and watched the message pop onto the screen with that familiar pinging noise and then I unfriended and blocked him. I sat and stared at my screen in absolute horror. There was no way of taking it back. I momentarily panicked and started pressing buttons frantically in an attempt to undo it all. But I couldn't. I had actually done it. This was not something that the old Lilly would have done, and underneath the stomach-churning pain, somewhere buried deeply under the emotional mush of my brain, I felt a little twinge of pride. I couldn't believe I had done this.

I never heard back from Damien again. Not once. That was it. He was officially out of my life, and now I had to systematically pick up the pieces of my shattered heart—yes, it was
that
dramatic—and try to glue or tape or sew them back together somehow, even if it was a temporary patch-up job, until I could find something that would fix it more permanently.

So I threw myself into work, I redecorated my apartment, twice, and I even joined a gym and got a personal trainer—a scary-looking bodybuilder named Leonard who was an evil torturer. I sold my engagement ring and went out with Annie and splurged on an entirely new wardrobe and then spent the rest of the day at the spa getting mud wraps.

I systematically went through all the usual breakup steps; I read self-help books about healing my heart in a matter of minutes, I watched reruns of old romantic movies and sobbed, I went on a bizarre diet of kale and cardboard soup that promised to detoxify all my trapped negativity, and finally, I cut my hair. I
really
cut it. Pixie cut it.

I cried for the first two days after doing it, wishing I could find a time machine and go back and slap sense into the
Lilly
that had walked into the hairdresser so brazenly and said, “Cut it all off. And dye it too.”

But after two or three days, I started to like it. It made me feel more energetic, if that makes sense? And with this newfound energy I started doing more and more things on my own. I went to movies a few times and even sat in a restaurant and ate dinner by myself. I also started going on dates again after about six months. Well, at the time I didn't actually know it was a date, thanks to the underhanded machinations of Val. It was supposed to be a simple dinner.

Brad was his name. And he was perfect. He was a med student, and he was ridiculously good-looking—blond, green eyes, big broad shoulders, a great smile. He should have been exactly my type—but I wasn't attracted to him in the slightest. And to top it all off, he was polite and funny and really interesting and intelligent. He wasn't the problem. The problem was that clearly my taste in men had changed.

I was confused. I barely knew what I liked anymore, and I definitely had no idea what I wanted. Six months ago I'd wanted marriage and kids. But now…I wasn't sure. I went on a few dates with Brad, we ended up kissing a few times, but it was nothing like it had been with Damien. I knew I had to stop comparing, but I simply couldn't help myself. That's human nature, though—it's the way we understand everything around us, by comparing it to what we know and placing it in a little labeled compartment.

After Brad, I went on a few dates with a guy Stormy introduced me to. Maxwell. He was an intense creative type who had directed a short black-and-white film about a lonely computer who fell in love with the telephone on the desk next to him. The whole thing made no sense. He made no sense. We made no sense.

Annie forced me to go on one more date—the third time's lucky, she'd said. This time it was with her new boyfriend's best buddy. Annie had recently fallen head over heels for a man named Trev (we all assumed it was short for Trevor, but that was currently still unconfirmed). Trev was rich, successful, had model good looks and the kind of face you wanted to slam into a brick wall. No one liked him, especially Stormy, who had been very vocal about it.

But it was hopeless; no matter what I did, no matter how many dates I went on, how many aerobics classes I attended, how many hours I put in at work, or how many times I cut and dyed my hair (it was now platinum blond thanks to Annie insisting it was the latest color trend), it was still the same—I missed Damien. I missed him so much that it felt like a little piece of myself was gone. We hadn't spoken for six months, and it had been excruciating.

But if I looked at it holistically, some good had come out of it. I was much more independent now, not as reliant on my friends and family for support. I often went to movies on my own and even went away for the weekend alone once. I was fending for myself in the world for the first time ever, and I wasn't doing too badly, either.

Christmas came and went and the calendar ticked over into the New Year. I'd heard that Michael had shacked up with someone else, a girl that I had gone to school with. Actually, she had been a mutual acquaintance of ours, which of course sent Stormy straight into conspiratorial mode. She was convinced they'd had a little “thing-thang” during our relationship—but then she was naturally suspicious and believed that the government was filming us and that ancient aliens walked among us. It didn't bother me in the slightest, though. In fact, I wished him well.

February approached and Valentine's Day loomed and suddenly I was staring at the one-year anniversary of my failed marriage and painful breakup with Damien. I thought that after a whole year I would be over him, or I'd have at least moved on a bit to the point that I didn't look up at the moon every night wondering where on earth he was and if he had forgotten all about me.

It was clear now—if ever I was in doubt about it—Damien was true love. He was my one.

And the closer I got to the anniversary, the worse it got, until I was seeing him everywhere: on the street, at work, in restaurants. The last straw was when the prime cut of sirloin steak I had made for myself one evening also looked like him, in the right light. He was everywhere, and I couldn't stop myself from wondering when he was coming back to South Africa. He'd said a year, and that would mean now.

And then, as if the universe had been reading my mind, I walked into a coffee shop that I'd never been into before and immediately caught sight of someone familiar. Someone I hadn't seen in a whole year.

My heart jumped into my throat and then into my ears where it started beating so hard and fast that I could no longer hear the clang of spoons against coffee cups and the idle chatter of the people around me. I felt positively nauseous from the panic-ment (excitement and panic) that had just gripped me.

I scanned the room frantically, looking, hoping, praying, wanting to see Damien. But I didn't. Instead what I saw was Jess, sitting at a coffee table with her blunt bangs and faded pink T-shirt, sipping on a tall latte and eating a giant piece of red velvet cake. How was she so thin? If I ate that, Leonard would have to tie me to a treadmill, weigh me down with ten-pound weights, and beat me for the next week while I ran nonstop without sleep.

Lucky bitch.

I eyed the back of her; she had a cute star tattoo on the base of her neck, and I wanted nothing more than to go over and talk to her, but a part of me was frightened.
No
,
frightened
wasn't the right word. Terrified.

What if she told me that Damien was great? Happy? That he'd settled down with some hot girl and they were going at it like porn stars all night long and spending all their other moments clutching on to each other like lovesick teenagers. I felt sick just thinking about it. I was so wrapped up in this torturous whirlwind of thoughts that I suddenly realized I was standing next to her table with no idea, or vague recollection, of how I got there; my legs must have done the walking on their own accord without consulting with my brain.
Crap!

Jess looked up from the red velvet calorie hell and a huge smile lit up her face. She put her spoon down and jumped up immediately.

“Oh my God! Lilly!” She shouted so loudly that I'm sure not only the whole restaurant heard, but the entire block, too. She hugged me hard and then pulled back and looked me up and down.

“You look amazing. Wow.”

I felt slightly self-conscious and instinctively ran my hand through my new, shorter hair. “Thanks, I got my hair cut. And the color is a little weird.”

Jess looked me up and down again and then shook her head. “No, it's not that at all. It's something else.” She paused for a moment and I could see she was thinking. “It's your whole vibe, I can't explain it, but you just look great. Sit! Sit, babes!”

I sat down with her and realized I'd forgotten how much I liked her. She was probably one of the most straight-talking people I'd ever met. There was no bullshit with her, ever. “So how've you been? It's been a year, right?”

“Um…” I was wringing my hands under the table in a desperate attempt not to bleat out the following:

“So how's Damien? Is he seeing someone else? Is he in love? Where is he? When is he coming home? Does he know how much I love him and want to have thousands of babies with him and change my surname to his and live happily ever after and have amazing sex all night long and spend the rest of the time cuddling? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

So I mustered all of the cool, calm nonchalance I could find and simply said, “I'm fine,” but then straight afterward felt like screaming,
“NOT!”

Miraculously, my talented attempts at feigning nonchalance didn't stop there, “Mmm, great. Yeah. Just…fine. Totally,
so
fine.” I nodded and tried to smile, but failed dismally when it felt like my face was made of putty and had a mind of its own. God knows what weird expressions it was contorting into right now.

We sat in silence for a second or two, as Jess stared at me with a suspicious look plastered across her face. And then she leaned toward me, slowly and deliberately. “Okay, I'm just going to say it for you then.”

“What?”

“How's Damien?” The second the words were out of her mouth my sigh of relief was audible and my whole body relaxed.

“So…” All my pseudo nonchalance had left me and I didn't care. “How is he? How's he been? What's he been doing?”

“Honestly…” She hesitated for a moment and I could see she looked very conflicted. Oh God. He'd gotten married. He was lost to me forever. “What the hell, I'm just going to tell you the truth. I'm not going to lie to you or mince my words.”

My poor little heart did some funny acrobatic maneuvering in my chest before it settled into the rhythm of a galloping racehorse.

I didn't want to hear this.

“He's terrible,” Jess finally said. “I haven't seen him for about four months, and truthfully I'm a little bit glad. He's so fucking miserable, he's become unbearable to be around!”

It took a second to switch gears in my brain. “Really?” The word came flying out, and I mentally kicked myself for seeming so happy and enthusiastic about his misery. “I mean, really?” I tried to sound casual this time, but the giant smile plastered across my face was not helping to convey that sentiment in the slightest.

“Yep. Since you left he's just been moping around. To be honest, I love him, to bits. He's my best friend in the world, but if I have to endure another night of ‘Lilly this' and ‘Lilly that' and ‘Lilly the next thing,' I might beat him.”

This was the best thing I'd heard in almost 356 bloody long, depressing, painful days.

“And I'm not saying this to try and make you feel bad or anything. I mean I know you've got on with your life and started dating again—”

I cut her off immediately. “I'm not dating anyone!”

Jess looked genuinely confused. “Really?”

“Absolutely not. What gave you that idea?” I felt angry with her for even making that assumption.

“Okay, I'll be honest again. I've been stalking you on Facebook…on Damien's behalf, though. If I don't voluntarily go to your profile and scan your wall, he steals my phone and does it himself, since you blocked him. And we saw those pictures of you with that guy, that good-looking blond one that had his arm around you. We just assumed you were a couple, you looked like one.”

I mentally ran through my Facebook photo album in an attempt to figure out what she was talking about. And then I remembered it. That “surprise” blind date, when Jane had taken those pictures and shouted out, in a very not-so-subtle fashion, “Put your arm around her, Brad.”

I was mortified then, and I was mortified now.

“I…I wasn't dating him, well, sort of…just a little…” Great! My nervous stutter made an untimely return. “I mean, we were kind of, but…not really, we only went on a few dates, but I didn't really like him.”

“Well Damien thought you did. In fact, it couldn't have come at a worse time for him. About five months ago he was planning on coming back to South Africa and then he saw those pictures, and, well…”

I gasped. I couldn't believe it; Damien had been planning to come to South Africa. I mentally cursed Val for her new obsession with Instagram and this uncontrollable urge she now possessed to take photos of everyone and then post them on Facebook with over ten dozen hashtags.

I could only imagine what Damien must have thought when he saw those pictures, and if the roles had been reversed, I'm not sure how I would have responded.

“Why…why was he coming to South Africa?” I finally managed to ask.

I looked at Jess as she moved a piece of red velvet cake around her plate, which left a thick snaillike trail of icing behind it.

“He wanted to get you back.”

“Shit!” I put my head in my hands. “But he's coming back soon, isn't he?”

Jess shook her head. “He's decided not to come back for a while.”

Her words stung me. “What? Why?”

“He doesn't think he has anything to come back to at the moment. I think that at the back of his mind he was hoping you guys would get back together.”

Everyone and everything in the coffee shop disappeared. Suddenly I was in the Matrix. The world around me was now just a series of numbers and flashing green dots, blurry images, monotonous droning sounds, and slow-motion movements. I took in the full implications of those words.

Damien was not coming back to South Africa.

I would never see him again.

There was no chance for us.

It's amazing what an impact social media can have on our lives. One photo of me—taken at the wrong time, and with bad hair—goes viral for the world to see; a few innocent photos of me with some guy I didn't even like has the power to stop Damien dead in his tracks. “So where's he now?” I asked Jess while waving the waiter down. I needed cake.

“He's in Japan, but he's going to Thailand tomorrow, it's Burning Moon again.”

FLICK!

The sound of a light bulb turning on.

The sound of clarity.

Brilliant, shiny clarity.

The same kind of clarity I'd had when I decided to go on my honeymoon alone.

“Where…where is it going to be?” I was getting fired up now and got up from my chair.

“Not sure. The map hasn't gone out yet.”

“How do I get a ticket?”

Jess looked at me for a moment before her face lit up. “That's a brilliant idea. Please, please save me from the torture of having a miserable best friend and, for God's sake, go and get him.
Please.
I beg you.”

“I need a ticket. Can I come with you?”

“Sharon and I aren't going this year. But I can get you one.” Jess jumped up and grabbed me by the shoulders. “And please, when you get there, have sex with him as soon as possible—”

“Jess!” I hissed at her, looking around to see if anyone had heard.

“Sorry,” Jess said. “But I think if a man goes without sex for a whole year it makes him mad. So go and do something about it! For all of our sakes. Please.”

“He hasn't been with anyone this whole time?” My heart melted at the thought.

“Not that I know of. And we tell each other everything. And I mean
everything
.”

I smiled at Jess. “Fine! I'll do something about it then.”

“Oohhh.” She playfully slapped me on the arm. “The new and improved, nonprudish Lilly. I like it. You're a nasty girl.”

And then her face changed and her expression became serious for the first time ever. I'd never seen her like this before.

“He's crazy about you, Lilly. Completely head over heels. I've known Damien since we were kids riding our bicycles up and down the street. We've been through a lot together and I know him better than anyone on this planet—and that's why I know you guys are perfect for each other. So go and get him, hot stuff!”