I don’t start really crying until I get to my car with my small, paltry box of possessions.
The only few pieces of my life that had remained at Nicole’s place.
I’m pretty certain there’s nothing of Nicole’s at my house for her to take.
God, no, we weren’t right for each other.
But I’d cared so much for her, and I’d wanted her to care for me, too.
But it’s over, now.
Nicole has Mikaylah, and I know that in a few days, I’m going to hope that they’re happy together.
I’m not exactly at that point right now.
And me?
Well, I don’t have anyone.
I know I’m feeling very sorry for myself right now, but it’s the truth.
I’m going to go home, and I don’t have the strength to tell Virago how I feel about her tonight.
I’m going to make myself a cup of tea, I’m going to crawl into bed, and I’m going to have myself a very good cry.
And I’m going to fall asleep alone.
I feel a little stupid.
Maybe I should have told Virago sooner, maybe I should have flirted with her, or maybe I should have kissed her when I wanted to.
I didn’t because of Nicole, but now I feel like I’ve been naive.
An entire year Nicole and Mikaylah were sleeping together, and I didn’t even notice anything between them?
A couple of months ago, I went down to Nicole’s office to see her, and Mikaylah greeted me as brightly and nicely as she always does…as she did today.
There was nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing that told me that Nicole and I were much, much worse off than I’d imagined at that point.
But we
were
much worse off.
And we’d been worse off for so long, that maybe I just thought that’s how relationships
should
be.
God, how did I make such a mess of things?
How did it come to this?
I feel so used and sad and small.
I start the engine to my car, take a tissue out of my purse and dab at my eyes, crumpling the soaked thing into a ball.
Somehow, miraculously, I make it back home in one piece, even with my blurred-from-tears vision.
I park the car, get out of it, stop when I shut the door, because Virago is sitting on the porch, on the swing, rocking it back and forth with the tips of her toes as she reads her book, her head bent, her brow smooth, but her eyes narrowed in concentration.
She glances up only as I start up the walkway from the sidewalk and she hears my feet on the concrete.
Virago glances up at the sound and she smiles at me, but that smile vanishes almost instantly as she rises to her feet, as her brows narrow when she sees my expression.
“What happened?” she asks, moving toward the steps as I ascend them.
I shake my head, sniffle as I jingle my keys, aiming for my front door, but Virago stops me, puts her warm hand over mine.
Tears begin to fall down my face quickly, one after the other, tracing hot, wet patterns down my cheeks as I glance up at her.
“Oh, God, Virago, I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I tell her, then.
Virago says nothing, only wraps an arm around me and my shoulders, and gently urges me to come sit beside her on the swing.
The swing shifts out from beneath us as we sit down, but then I’m pushing with my feet flat on the floor, and the swing moves back and forth, back and forth, the soothing rocking motion that I love as I shift my weight on the seat with a long sigh.
Virago, I note somewhere in the back of my head, still has her arm around my shoulders as she sits down next to me.
Her arm is warm against me,
she
is warm against me.
“Virago,” I tell her, taking a deep breath.
“I had a girlfriend, too.
Or I did.
Until tonight.”
She doesn’t say anything, and my eyes are too tear-filled to see her very clearly, so I just keep going.
“I knew I was supposed to break up with her for a very long time, but I just…didn’t.
And I found out tonight that she’s been sleeping with her
assistant
for over a year.
A
year
.
And I never saw it, never thought she was capable of it…”
I trail off, because the tears are coming too thickly now, and my heart hurts so much, twisting inside of me.
Virago breathes out softly, slowly, squeezing her arm around my shoulders.
“Did you love this woman?”
I don’t even think before I answer, and my answer is this:
“No,” I tell her, and my voice is soft, but certain.
“I mean, I thought I did.
But I didn’t really know what that meant, and I just…didn’t.
And she didn’t love me.”
I breathe out, gaze down at my hands clutching my car keys and another damp tissue.
“I’ve wasted four years of my life because I wanted what I didn’t have but I should have broken up with her years ago, and I…I’ve been really stupid,” I say, taking a deep breath.
Virago shakes her head, and then with a gentle strength, she’s drawing me close to her, so that my head is resting on her shoulder.
I stiffen in this position, because it’s so intimate, the most intimate action that Virago has ever done.
But surely she doesn’t mean it that way.
“Holly, of all people I have ever known, you are one of the smartest,” Virago tells me quietly.
“You are not stupid.
I read today a book in the library.
And it said something that I think is very good.
It said ‘the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.’”
“Blaise Pascal said that,” I tell her quietly.
“Well, it’s very true,” she says gently.
“Do not worry yourself so much.
You cared for this woman, and that is important.
That is good.
And it is over now.
But it was important that it happened.
It was not wasted time.”
“Are you sure, Virago?” I ask her, sitting up as the tears run down my face.
“Because what if I’m never…”
I choke on my words, swallow them.
What if I’m never going to be brave enough to tell you how I feel?
You’ll leave, and this will all be over, and you will never have known that I cared about
you
.
Virago shakes her head again, smiles gently at me.
“Holly, all will be well,” she tells me with such surety and conviction that it
must
be true.
I sit back heavily against the swing, and then, as if drawn by a gravity, I drift down until I’m softly pillowing my head on Virago’s shoulder again.
I concentrate on taking deep breaths, on trying not to think about wasted time.
I try to concentrate on the muscle of Virago’s shoulder, how her body conforms to hold mine so gently and thoughtfully.
I try to memorize this moment.
Out on my lawn, a firefly drifts gently along the shorn grass, glowing brightly every few heartbeats as it tries to find a mate.
But there are no other fireflies on my lawn, and I sit there wondering if, like me, that firefly is meant to be alone forever.
I wake up to the fine, pungent aroma of espresso right under my nose.
I open my eyes, blink at the scene greeting me.
“Howdy,” says Carly, shoving the to-go coffee cup even more under my nose, waggling it back and forth.
“Wake up!”
I sit up groggily, stare at my best friend who’s sitting on the edge of my bed with a latte in her hand like it’s the most normal thing in the world on a weekday morning.
“Carly?” I manage, taking the coffee cup from her and taking a sip from it.
It’s filled with my favorite vanilla latte, complete with two extra shots of espresso.
I take another sip, frown at her.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, but…what the hell are you doing here?”
“Good morning to you, too,” she says with a brow up as she gets up off my bed with a shrug.
“I came by because I took the day off, and Virago let me in.
I figured you’d need some help finding the beast before tonight, and I thought maybe we could rent a tour boat or something this afternoon, go out on the big blue sea, or—”
“Sure,” I tell her tiredly, taking another sip of latte.
“Hey, thanks for getting this for me…it’s just what I needed.”
I rub at my grimy eyes, stuck shut at the corners from the excess tears I cried last night.
God, last night.
What a train wreck last night was, complete with Nicole telling me she’d been sleeping with
Mikaylah
, who’s probably not even twenty-one yet, a baby, and Nicole had been sleeping with her for one
year
.
God…
“Oh, I didn’t get that latte for you,” says Carly with wide eyes.
“Virago did.”
I stare at my best friend, my mouth open.
I swear I hear a distant record-scratch as my eyes widen.
“
What
?”
“Virago walked up to the drive-through.
It’s only a couple of blocks,” she admonishes me and my stricken face.
“She found a five-dollar bill on the sidewalk, and she took Shelley for a walk this morning and wanted to get you something, and I quote ‘after the night you had,’ which, of course, made me think you guys had slept together, but you look like hell, so I’m guessing you probably didn’t, and—”
I set the latte on my bedside table, push the covers off me.
“Virago walked to the drive-through to get me a latte,” I repeat.
“
Did
you guys sleep together?” asks Carly suspiciously.
I sort of deflate at that.
“No,” I tell her quietly.
“I broke up with Nicole last night.
That’s what Virago was talking about when she said I had a rough night.”
Carly stares at me with her mouth open for a full minute.
I actually made her speechless—what I thought was an impossible feat.
“You…you actually did it,” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I tell her, flopping back on my elbows on the bed with a sigh.
“I guess I really did.”
“But that’s
amazing
!
Oh, my God, Holly, you
actually did it!
”
Carly claps her hands over her mouth as she realizes the volume of decibels her voice is at.
“But that means,” she says, lowering her voice to a whisper again, “that you’re perfectly free to move forward with Virago—”
“No,” I tell Carly, shaking my head as I feel the sadness begin to descend again.
“Virago’s going back to her world today.
Why would I tell her?
It would just complicate…”
I take a deep breath.
“Well, it would complicate everything.”
Carly reaches forward, takes my shoulders again and gives them a little shake, her brows furrowed.
“Holly,” she whispers, her eyes round and very, very serious.
“This is your
life
.
If you don’t tell her, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your
life
.
Please—”
“Good morrow!” says Virago, who happens to be leaning on my doorframe again, her hip pressed against the wooden frame, and her arms folded in front of her.
Her shirt sleeves (freshly laundered last night while she took a long shower, and I tried not to think about her taking a shower, and failing utterly, even though I was perfectly miserable) are rolled up to the elbows, and her shirt is unbuttoned on the bottom until it’s half-way up her navel.
She looks comfortable and happy, the smile spreading across her face so bright that, inside, I can feel my heart melting.
“Good morrow…I mean morning,” I tell her, and then I pick up the coffee cup, point to it.
“Did you get me a latte?”
“But of course,” she says, her lips twitching at the corners as she tries to suppress her mischievous smirk.
“You have been very kind to me, m’lady Holly, and I wanted to do some small kindness for you.
I hope it meets your expectations?”
God, yes, you do
, I think, but I nod, try not to think about that.
“Yes, thank you,” I tell her in a small voice, and Virago pushes off from the doorframe.
For half a heartbeat, I think she’ll saunter into the bedroom, continue the conversation, but she turns away (did I imagine that she turns regretfully?), and shuts the door behind her.
Carly looks at me with very wide eyes.
“Are you guys
sure
you didn’t sleep together last night?”
“Oh, my God, get your mind out of the gutter,” I tell her, trying not to smile myself as I crawl out of bed.
My eyes may be gritty from tears, but hell, Virago walked through a drive-through and got me a latte.
I stand up, stretch a little.
“I asked my supervisor if I could take today off yesterday because I knew we’d need all day for the beast, and—”