Love Nouveau (30 page)

THREE QUICK RAPS BEAT THROUGH the door and echo down the hallway to the kitchen where Rachel and I stand hugging each other. I’ve just told her about my decision and she is unbelievably supportive of me moving, even though I know it’s killing her inside. She is, hands down, my rock through all of life’s dramas.

“Ivy! Rachel? Open up. I know you’re in there!” My heart crumbles at the panic in Phoenix’s voice. He beats on the door again with such force that we can hear the chain on the back of the door rattle. “Come on, Ivy. We need to talk.”

Yes, we need to talk, but I can’t talk right now. If I see him, I will slap him so hard that we’ll both go back in time so he can have the opportunity to make all of this right. I want to hurt him like he hurt me. I want to open him up and tear apart his insides so he knows how it feels to be violated. But more importantly, if I see him now I know I’ll cry. And Phoenix is not worthy of seeing me in tears.

Rachel releases me. “Do you want me to get rid of him?”

I choke back the tears as I nod. The weight in my chest is heavier than a loaded gun. I sit down on the wooden chair at our kitchen table and fold myself in half. I need to be small. Invisible. I want to disappear completely and forget about him. This is all just too much to take in right now.

In the background, I hear Rachel crack the door open and say something to Phoenix—what, I’m not sure.

“I’m not leaving until she talks to me!” he shouts as he tries to assert himself through the doorway.

“Hey! Back off, jackass. She needs some space right now!” Rachel throws her shoulder into the door with a grunt, slamming it shut. That is sure to leave a mark. “I mean it. Leave her the hell alone.”

I have never heard such an acidic tone from her before. She massages her shoulder gingerly as she returns back to the table.

A string of obscenities floats through the air from the hallway. A low thud makes me question if he’s starting to kick the floorboards. Perhaps Rachel should offer him a plate to break and send him on his way.

Returning to the kitchen, my best friend’s eyes look haunted. She doesn’t say anything but shakes her head and slides into the seat across from me.

“You know what we need right now?”

More plates? A restraining order? A time machine so I can go back and be fourteen years old eternally before all of the drama began? Any of these would be welcomed right now.

“Pancakes,” she says with a small, sympathetic smile.

Yes, I do believe that breakfast food would help. While it won’t solve my problems, it will at the very least help make my stomach stop growling.

“Go in the other room and relax. I’ll grab you in a bit when it’s ready.”

I do as I’m told and retreat back to my temporary bedroom. The mouthwatering scent of the batter sizzling on the griddle fills the apartment as Phoenix’s assault on our door continues. This incessant ruckus has got to stop. I grab my iPod and crank the volume up to eleven, but even the melodic wails of Trent Reznor aren’t enough to drown him out.

WHILE RACHEL BUSIES HERSELF IN the kitchen, curiosity gets the best of me and I stupidly decide I need to see Phoenix one final time. I creep quietly into the living room and glance through the peephole, convincing myself that all I need is one quick peek. I can hear him, but he’s hidden from my view so I crack the door, keeping the chain latched to the lock so he can’t force his way through. Upon seeing me, his jaw softens and he appears lighter. His beautiful face is anguished, like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

I divert my eyes quickly to the floor. Am I okay? No, I am most definitely not okay. Frankly I don’t know if I ever will be okay again.

“I’m fine,” I say, the lie becoming easier each time I say it. I’m not fine. I’m anything but fine. But I’ve learned that other people need to hear those reassuring words more than I do.

A bewildered laugh escapes his throat.

“Fine. Fine. Fine. You’re always just
fine
, Ivy!” I can’t tell if he’s angry or annoyed, but the sound crescendos from his soul as his voice raises.
“But you know what? Sometimes it’s okay to not be fine. Sometimes it’s okay to bleed, and be shattered. Show the world you’re vulnerable and be really fucking pissed off. And it’s okay tell people how you really feel. Anyone who has suffered through what you have this past week, hell, through the past twenty-two years of existence with that family of yours, is certainly not what I’d call fine.”

I flinch as his fist meets the doorjamb in a jolting thud.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell…” He trails off in thought. My eyes catch his and his chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath. His jaw is square as he grinds his teeth, calculating his next move.

Minutes pass and Phoenix’s voice turns softer as he begins again. “From what I’ve gathered, you get involved in relationships—if you can even call them that—for all the wrong reasons. They’re empty. Meaningless. A distraction from how shitty you
think
your life really is.”

How very true this is.

“But this…” His voice cracks as he waves his finger in the space between us. “
This
wasn’t meaningless. Not to me, anyway. You completely turned my world upside. And I don’t know what to do. I know I’ve only just met you and it’s so damn hard not being around you. This distance is killing me.”

Slowly, gently, he starts pounding his forehead against the doorframe.

I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart just shattered a little more. I want to push the door shut and unlocked the chain so I can throw myself into his arms. Tell him that it will be all right. That I forgive him. That this—that
us
—can work.

But I can’t.

I don’t.

He looks at me expectantly. Yet all I can do is stare at him as words fail me.

My body fails me.

I’m paralyzed.

Phoenix’s soft tone escalates and he’s practically shouting at me now. “Open your eyes, Ivy! Your life isn’t terrible. Sure, your family is messed up, but whose isn’t? You have been dealt some shitty cards, especially as of late, but you’ve got a lot of really great things going for you, including me, which you’re rejecting because all of your past relationships didn’t work.”

His fingers wrap around the side of the door and he presses his forehead against the trim, like he’s capable of liquefying and slipping inside. I notice the dust dancing in the hall amid the glow of the sunshine the pours in from the window. It’s mesmerizing and I try to numb myself so his words wash right over me. I want to tell him that he’s right—that I’m not fine. That I’m devastatingly hurt. That ever since he told me what Sully did to me I’ve been having nightmares so bad that I’m terrified to close my eyes, which is infuriating because all I want to do is sleep away the pain. I want to strip him down and expose him and make him defenseless like he’s made me. I want to rattle every ounce of his confidence and rip away his security.

But I know I need him gone.

If I don’t let him go now, I never will. The time has come to cut him loose.

It has become painfully obvious that no matter how much you may be drawn to a person, sometimes two individuals were simply not meant to be together. Harold once told me that everyone we meet serves a purpose in our life for that particular place and time. And I realize that Phoenix walked into mine that fateful night to push me to the edge of living my own life.

But there is no longer a place for him.

“I … I think you should go. This … us … we were a mistake.”

“Ivy! Wait…”

I freeze momentarily and my eyes meet his through the crack in the door. I know exactly what I need to say to drive the dagger into his heart and him free, so I focus on the painful truth. The truth he deserves to know.

“I slept with Matt last week,” I say, my voice void of emotion.

I say it
to come clean with myself and own my shit because the old Ivy would never confess her sins.

I say it
to push him as far away from me as possible because the old Ivy would have just strung him along.

I say it
to fulfill my preceding reputation because even on their deepest level some things will never change.

My confession visibly guts him and I watch the man before me crumble and cave in on himself. When I can no longer bear to see the agony in his eyes, I quietly push the door shut and lock the deadbolt. I stand there for a moment, forehead pressed against the door, fingertips touching the knob, silently saying my goodbyes inside my head while he continues to knock and beg from the other side.

“I don’t care about your mistakes, Ivy. I don’t care how you’ve fucked up. We all have fucked up—believe me, but it’s how you come back from the fall that counts. Just don’t self-destruct on me.”

I try to stay strong, but my tears betray me.

“This is what you do, Ivy—you run!” he shouts through the door as anger takes over. “You ran away to Italy when things with Matt and your family got too shitty to deal with. And you’re running away from me right now. You have this need to keep everyone, even Rachel, at a distance. Is that why you liked me so much, or rather the idea of me? Because you could finally have a relationship that you could keep at a safe distance? I know deep down you don’t want to hurt me. But you are so consumed with your own pain that you are blind to the fact that your actions are hurting others.”

I close my eyes absorbing his painful words. It hurts so much because it’s true. Minutes of silence drift between us. I press my hand against the door and imagine his hand mirroring mine on the other side. So close, but so very far apart from physically touching.

“You have a choice here,” he starts talking again. “You can run away or
we
can try harder.”

The way he emphasizes we gives me a flicker of hope, but my mind does everything to extinguish the thought.

“I’ll tell you what, Ivy. You can try to push me away. You can try to run and build up walls around you. But each and every wall you put up, I’m going to tear it down brick by fucking brick. I’ll give you some space, just know that this isn’t the last of me.”

I pull back and look through the peephole in time to see him run his hands through his hair and take off down the hall.

I can’t do this.

He needs to just walk away and be done with me. I need to learn to stand on my own two feet. I will always love the man I made him out to be in my mind, but I don’t need him in my life.

I turn around to find Rachel’s pitying eyes sizing me up, debating whether or not I’m going to cry again. She makes her way to me in three steps and wraps me up in the biggest bear hug she can muster.

“I’m okay,” I whisper hoarsely to her, everything in my eyesight a smeared, wet blur. “I’m fine.”

But this time the lie is for me. I need the lie because lies are truths that you convince yourself are real.

THE FIRST BATCH OF PANCAKES burned. The scent of charred batter will surely linger for days.

Rachel’s second batch of pancakes fed my broken heart.

The third batch feeds my soul and offers a glimmer of hope that one day I will be whole again.

We eat the pancakes off of paper towels because, as my best friend so candidly put it, “I’d offer you a plate, but you broke all of mine.” Leave it to Rachel to find humor on a day like this.

We spend the rest of the afternoon wrapped in an oversized fleece blanket, shades pulled down, curtains drawn, shutting out the rest of the world. She is the glue holding me together. I fear the minute we come out from under this blanket I will unravel into an inconsolable heap.

This is our farewell party.

In my best friend’s solace, I know that one day I will be all right. Definitely not today. And probably not tomorrow. But one day I will recover from this and truly be fine.

With the help of lots of therapy.

And lots of pancakes and waffles.

And probably lots of alcohol.

Whoever said love hurts had it entirely wrong. The act of loving someone is never what hurts. That part of love is beautiful and amazing and liberating. It makes life electric and vibrant. It makes you the best possible version of yourself. It’s when the person you love falls short of your expectations that drive the stake relentlessly through your heart.

That
is the part that hurts the most.

AIRPORTS ARE A MOSAIC OF emotions. There are people constantly coming and going. Saying goodbyes. Being reunited. Stoic businessmen crunching numbers to meet that bottom line. Vacationers in anticipation, or disappointment, of being home. And, of course, the dreaded assholes who are convinced that their oversized carry-on is the exception to the rule.

And somewhere in between, there’s me.

I’m completely and totally lost. But at least I’m lost heading in the right direction, which is anywhere but here. For me, there are no sayonaras, there will be no greetings on the other end, and there certainly are no expressions of affection.

Airports: they are equal parts overwhelming loneliness and overflowing love.