Fairy Tale Fail (11 page)

And when fatigue caught up with me
again he told me about his lawyer parents. ("Both lawyers? I
wouldn't have guessed." "Because I'm not a lawyer?" "Because at
least one of them would have made you comb your hair properly.")
How he dabbled in sports (got tired of it), and writing (couldn't
finish anything), and film ("Just because I like it doesn't mean I
should do it forever") before discovering that economics just made
sense to him.

"Are you kidding me?
Economics was a
bitch
," I complained.

"Not to me. It just made sense. And it
sounded legit enough to other people. For once they stopped giving
me advice about what I should do and how I should live."

I yawned. "I totally get that," I
said. And then I noticed his tie.

And then I woke up.

I unwound the tie from my hand and
reached for my phone, although I didn't exactly move away from
where I was. There were five missed calls – all of them were Don.
That made me pull all my limbs from wherever they were wrapped
around Lucas, and the sudden movement surely jolted him
awake.

"Don? You called?" I wondered if this
was a work-related call and if I could have the roaming charge for
it reimbursed.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at… the lounge. Why did you
call?"

"I was looking for you. Dropped by
your room but Sandra said she last saw you before ten and she
hasn't seen you since. I didn't know where you were… didn't know
where to find you. Did you go out?"

Okay, so I probably wouldn't be able
to reimburse this. Don sounded concerned, something that he tended
to be with friends, but I couldn't really recall him ever being
that way with me.

"Don't worry about me," I said. "I
wasn't alone. I'm going back to my room, I'll see you
tomorrow."

Don insisted on picking me up at the
lounge, but I managed to convince him that I was seconds away from
my room. I ended the call and turned to see Lucas ninety-percent
awake, arms already retreated to his sides and away from
me.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "We
should be getting back to our rooms now."

"I hope you can get into
yours."

"I don't care what Anton's doing there
at this point. I need to sleep." Lucas reached up and undid the
knot on his tie. "So he's wondering where you were,
huh?"

"Don and I are having dinner tomorrow.
I mean, tonight, I guess," I said. "And you're not going to stop
me."

Lucas leaned his head back against the
sofa again and shook his head. "And you did such a good job being
the cool one."

"I was just kidding then. I was never
the cool one."

"I think we're both pathetic." He
yawned, and a split second later I caught it and did the same. "Is
this the long-awaited 'closure'?"

I didn't know what it was going to be,
but I wasn't expecting closure. I was expecting Don to declare that
he had made a mistake, that he still loved me, and that he couldn't
go on without me.

Maybe Lucas didn't
understand that, because it was his choice to leave his girlfriend.
But I
needed
this.

"Oh, it's definitely long-awaited," I
said. "Whatever it is."

"Fair enough," he said. He pushed
himself off the couch and pulled me up along with him. He did that
very well, and as he carefully dropped my hand I felt like we had
just ended a slow dance.

Chapter 15

To his credit, Don did surprise me. I
met him early that evening at the lobby and he brought me to the
hotel's signature Thai restaurant, which had a stunning view of the
river.

I wore my new dress, a green halter
that came down to my knees, paired with a knit jacket. The jacket
was a good call because our table was on the outdoor terrace and
there was a cool breeze. I looked great, felt good about the
just-concluded work stuff, and my shoes were perfectly broken
in.

So yeah, I was in the zone.

"You look great," Don said as we sat
down.

"Thanks," I said, accepting the
compliment, with something that hopefully came across as modesty
and grace.

He looked great too, but he always did
when he dressed up. I wasn't really overwhelmed.

Another thing I noticed – and
appreciated – was how attentive he was. As we went over the menu
(wow, expensive!) he suggested dishes I might like. He was probably
remembering the things I told him during those food trips I
planned. He asked for a glass of wine for us, and confirmed with me
if I still preferred red over white.

"Yeah, I guess," I said,
not so eloquently. But I
was
a little impressed.

I asked him about work, because that's
what came naturally to me. I knew he loved talking about it; his
career was something he really cared about. But to my surprise, he
didn't linger on that topic, and instead shifted to me.

"You were here in Bangkok recently,
right?" Don said.

"Last year, yeah," I said. I cleared
my throat. "After we broke up."

"I remember you talking about us going
here together."

"Well, you weren't too enthusiastic
about it."

"That was the wrong attitude, wasn't
it? I should have been more excited about it. Because you
were."

I liked where this was going. "It's
okay, Don. I had fun on my own here, and you didn't have to want
this, too. This was my thing, not yours."

"Yes, but I should have made more of
an effort."

I checked his glass of wine just to
make sure, and yes, Don wasn't intoxicated. He was completely sober
as he was saying this to me.

On the other side of the table, Don
leaned closer. "I guess the point is, I want to
apologize."

At this, I took a sip of my red wine
and smiled, feeling every inch a winner.

***

Don didn't just apologize,
by the way; he had a
monologue
prepared.

He started it when I was having my
salad, and was still at it while I was halfway into my green curry
Angus beef. Not that I was bored or anything; I was thoroughly
entertained by it. I had already said everything in my defense over
a year ago, so that night I just let him talk.

It started with how, at
first, he was so angry at me because of how some of our friends
treated him after we broke up. Not that they ostracized him or
anything (he
was
still friends with them after all) but how he felt that their
opinion of him changed. In subtle ways, like how they hesitated
when he asked for the phone number of someone they knew.

I remembered that Charisse
actually
told
her
friend of how Don had broken up with me, how that could
understandably make one wary of getting into a relationship with
him. Did that happen more than once? What else did people say about
him because of me?

Eventually Don started
dating people outside of our friends' friends. It wasn't the
easiest experience for him. He explained this in his own way, but I
interpreted it in mine. I knew that he was a guy who
wanted
to be liked and
respected by everyone. All his decisions in life and career were
built on this. Being the new guy in any group meant starting from
scratch every time, and I could see why it would be difficult for
him.

"I thought I was happy, but
something was missing. I couldn't figure it out then, but I
wasn't
enjoying
myself with anyone. I kept making new friends and going out,
but something about starting over with a new group all the time
made me feel that… I don't know, that they weren't really seeing
the real me. And then I remembered what we had."

We had fun, he said, because we were
already friends. We had a lot in common. I made him laugh, and his
friends liked me, and I liked them. He was wasting so much time
going around chasing something that he had already had, and let go
of.

"Because I was stupid and didn't
bother to work on my relationship with you."

Wow. Just… wow. I asked the waiter for
another glass of wine.

That was apparently the end of his
speech, and he sat quietly, waiting for me to respond.

I cleared my throat. "Well… what
exactly does this mean?"

"It means I want another chance with
you."

This was it. This was why I bought the
dress, accepted the dinner invite, spent so much time on my hair,
bothered to find the right shoes and the right shade of lipstick.
Validation of the decisions I made in the past year and a
half.

I knew this was rare. I felt happy,
like a kid in a theme park.

But something was also nagging at
me.

"What do you think, Ellie?" Don said,
after we ordered dessert. "I'm not sure what kind of relationship
you're in right now, but I just wanted to take my
chances."

I wasn't in one. That was
part of the fairy tale. The heroine didn't have
flings
on her way to winning back her
true love. But I needed to know something first.

"How many girlfriends did you have
after me, Don?" I asked.

He hesitated.

"I'm not going to be hurt or offended
or anything, I just really want to know."

"Three, I guess."

"And they all didn't last long?" That
was obvious. "What did you tell them when you broke up with
them?"

That was a hunch, by the
way. I wasn't sure if he would ever tell me if
they
had broken up with him, because
he was the kind of guy who'd be able to rationalize it to his
advantage.

"They were just too different," he
told me. "They all were."

"What exactly did you say?" I asked
again.

Don acted like he was
sitting on something really uncomfortable. "I don't want to go into
everything, but the common thread was that they were all just… of
different backgrounds. They weren't on the same
level
, like you and I
are."

If he wanted to shut me up at that, it
was the wrong thing to say. "What do you mean, same level? What
level are we both on?"

"We have… we have the same values. We
want the same things in our future. I know that because we talked
about it, Ellie. I'm just sorry I didn't appreciate it before, when
you told me that you wanted us to have those things
together."

"You actually
told
a girlfriend that
you wanted to break up with her because you
weren't on the same level?
"

Don lifted his hands in
surrender. "I don't know what to say. I could tell that they needed
me more than I needed them. But because of that I remembered
you.
And the future you
want us to have together. I thought you'd be happy to hear
that."

"Something about their
neediness reminded you of
me
?"

"I'm not explaining this right," Don
said. "It's… Back then, when you were telling me your plans and
what you wanted us to have, I wasn't ready for it. But now I know
that you had more character because you knew what you wanted. I've
been with people who don't know what they want, or are too willing
to change for me. And then I appreciated how you stood by your
principles to me."

Wait a second. Shouldn't I be happy? I
was happy, giddy, just a few moments ago. But that was an
adrenaline rush that was already starting to fade, like the
rollercoaster ride I was on screeched to a halt five seconds
ago.

Oh, shit. I wanted the rush back, I
wanted the feeling of having exactly what I wished for, but
something was still nagging at me.

"Did you love her?" I
asked.

"Who?" Don said, frustrated at the
interrogation.

"I don't know. Pick one."

"I guess I did. I was the boyfriend,
after all."

"Then why would you
do
that?" I demanded.
"You pretty much dumped me because I didn't want to change for you.
And then you dumped someone else because she changed for you too
quickly? You could have just said you didn't love her anymore. Why
didn't you just do that?
"

But I knew the answer already. It was
because good guys didn't dump you and tell you they just didn't
love you. Good guys broke up only for very good reasons, and gave
you the impression that everything can be fixed.

"Don," I said, and by doing
this I knew I had passed a point of no return. The rush from
getting what I had wished for was gone, and only the satisfaction
of telling him off remained. "When you tell a girl that you have to
break up because of her 'issues,' if she loves you, she will think
that all she has to do is change and you'll go back to her. But if
you weren't
brave
enough to just break up honestly, then you're just being
cruel."