Heartbreak for Dinner: It's Kind of a Long Story (18 page)

I studied him as he looked away, uncertain if he’d caught me
red-handed as I gathered what remained of my dignity and pulled out of the parking
lot, finally convincing myself that he hadn’t.

But he definitely had, guys. He definitely had.

Three years had passed since I’d broken things off with
Vincent,
somehow managing to emerge whole after a few months lost in a sea
of perpetual darkness. After navigating my lowest points, I realized there was nowhere
to go from there but up and that I’d made the right choice for the both of us. Life
swayed me to better days that gradually brought me back to the person I was before
meeting him. Once that was through, I came across beings so magical I began to believe
in fairy tales once again, and the possibility of actually grasping a love that
was real and eternally mine being completely within my reach if I simply allowed
myself to
fall
.

It was in moments like these I chose to let go of my cynicism, welcoming
the notion that there are multiple shots at happiness granted by the universe to
lonely people everywhere. I submerged myself in an ocean of optimism and let its
waves wash over me, despite the many times it ended in my almost drowning. Ironically,
it was also at times like these when life slapped me in the face with a curve ball,
usually in the shape of a lover who evaporated into thin air or apparently forgot
how to use the telephone in an effort to dial my number. Not one to be irrational
(shut up), I understood when someone I dated went back to their ex or contracted
bird flu and could no longer see me because he was concerned about my health. What
I did not understand, however, was the phenomenon of men who claimed to love me
one moment and absconded without so much as a goodbye the next, leaving me to wonder
if I called him someone else’s name during sex or if he was mauled by a pack of
polar bears at the nearest gas station.

It was after a scenario such as this – the disappearance of a man
I’d shared something with, not the polar bears – in which I went for drinks with
one of my best friends in an attempt to make sense of his behavior. I sat at the
bar that night with a feeling so heavy it seemed I’d swallowed a bag of rocks, as
I pondered what in the world I’d done wrong.

“Did you hear me?” Aria said with a look of concern on her face. “You
haven’t taken a sip of your wine and we’ve been here for hours.”

I held up the glass and examined its contents, no longer interested
in temporarily numbing my thoughts with pinot noir. A vibration to my left startled
me and my phone fell to the floor. When I lifted it to see his name, I immediately
perceived God was playing a cruel joke on me as I rubbed my eyes for focus. I’d
often wondered what I’d say if he ever reached out to me again, but despite a storm
of emotions emerging on my inner horizons, I let Jonah go to voicemail. Aria tapped
my glass suddenly and I lifted it to drink all its contents without hesitation.

I guess this means goodbye,
he’d told that afternoon in Vegas
and turned away, never bothering to say anything again for so long I really did
wonder if he was dead. The flashback gave me shivers and I attempted to catch the
waiter’s attention.

“We should order another round,” I told Aria and came back to the
present. “I think I’m tired of questioning men. They will always return if they
want to, right?”

“Of course they will,” she patted my hand and smiled, but when I looked
in her eyes there was no trace of reassurance in them.

I spent two weeks making love to a mountain of turmoil as I navigated
the waters of initiating contact with Jonah once again. Simultaneously, I rid myself
from all traces of Liam, the master manipulator who was also great at pulling an
impromptu Houdini act on what I thought was the beginning of something solid. Two
weeks later, I stumbled upon the reason he’d retreated so suddenly without explanation;
it had been sitting across the table from me that very night disguised as friendship,
under a cloak of betrayal and envy named Aria.

It was then I learned that when you keep your friends close and enemies
closer, you give them the capacity to comfort you just as they insert a knife in
your back and turn it. I inadvertently allowed her to stab me when I lay my trust
in her, screwing my guy in the process and also a friendship that’d lasted so long
I didn’t remember existing without it. Three months later life dealt her a stabbing
of its own when he left her for someone new, yet I wouldn’t be there to comfort
her as I’d done so many times before. Right around the same time, her ex-boyfriend
invited me out to “catch up” and discuss the fallout of a 20 year friendship. I
guess it should not have come as a surprise that revenge had promptly been handed
to me on a silver platter as he confessed over beers he’d always liked me.

“What are you talking about, Josh?” I said to him, incredulous.

“Just one date,” he quipped as I tried to close my mouth and failed,
finishing my entire beer in one gulp to keep from screaming. I guiltily toyed with
the idea of a victory so thick I could’ve sliced it with a knife and served it to
Aria for breakfast but, alas, I’m not that kind of girl. Excusing myself from Josh,
I told him I was going to the bathroom but instead carried my purse and dignity
back to my car and closed the door shut. After a few moments of bewildered introspection,
I grabbed my phone and resolved to call someone who’d tied my heart into so many
knots it bended at the mere mention of his existence. I saw the letters on my phone,
spelling his name in bright blue and carrying so many memories it was hard to contain
them to merely three inches of screen.

“Hello?” someone picked up after the fifth ring and I swallowed hard.

Yet it wasn’t Jonah’s voice that greeted me, but instead a female’s
I would later come to recognize as that of the girl he was marrying.

Sometimes you’re at a party drinking around a bonfire
and you’re tipsy and jolly and your married friends are telling anecdotes about
their kids and you think,
Man, I really wish I had babies.

Other times, they tell you stories like the following and you’re elated
to have that variety pack of Magnum condoms you bought at Costco on your nightstand,
along with a little thing called reason.