Last-Minute Love (Year of the Chick series) (26 page)

All I wanted in that moment was to believe him; but could I?
 

***

Outside Erik’s apartment, the taxi engine hummed as we stood at the edge of the sidewalk. The wind had now become bitterly cold, which was disturbingly fitting for this moment.
I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my coat. “Why didn’t you bring a coat, dummy?”

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling with arms crossed and trying to be a man.

I stared out at the darkened sky, the corners of dawn now creeping their way into existence. We would say our goodbyes before sunrise, and that’s how I wanted it to be.
This day isn’t ours to have.

A cold gust of wind quickly slapped me out of “sombre city,” and suddenly my eyes lit up. “I almost forgot!” I frantically searched my bag, until I pulled out the folded-up letter. “Here you are, as promised.”

A big smile spread across his face, in what was
probably my last chance to really see those dimples in form. “I can’t wait to read it!” he said.

“You can read it AFTER I leave. Which by the way...is now.” I spread out my arms for a final time. “Okay, bring it in.”

He
wrapped me in his arms and hugged me so hard I was sure I heard a rib crack. He had no idea my face was wincing in pain.
That’s gonna leave a mark.

When he pulled away he
took my face in his hands. And then...our passionate final kiss began. As our lips finally parted both our eyes filled up with tears. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Bye,”
I quickly said, nearly running into the cab and slamming the door shut. The Indian cab driver didn’t seem impressed with the display he’d just witnessed.
Whatever.

“La Guardia,” I quickly said, grateful that my return flight wasn’t all the way in Jersey.
Get me out of here.

Suddenly I heard a knock on my passenger window, as Erik stood crouched over with an
urgent expression.

I rolled down the window quickly.

“Don’t give up,” he said.

A moment later my
cab drove away, as I took a last glance at the accidental love of my life, the one standing out there in the cold to read my letter...

---------------------------------------------

Dearest Erik,

By the time you read this, we would’ve just said our goodbyes, and I’m guessing it was a moment that truly sucked.

So I don’t want my written goodbye to suck.

There are a lot of reasons I need to thank you for this weekend, and here are a few: thank  you for kissing me, because I know I wouldn’t have made the first move, and I probably would’ve ended up hating you if you didn’t; thank you for showing me the ocean, which was the perfect start of my mission to see the world! Finally, thank you for joining me in blocking out reality this weekend; it ended up being the best time of my life.

Also, the New York Rangers suck.

Most importantly, I want to tell you that what feels like the end of “our” world as you’re reading this letter, actually isn’t at all.

Do you know what the end of our world would really be? It would be if we were living out “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and I found out you were aging backwards. In this disturbing scenario, the time would LITERALLY be running out, because before I’d know it, you’d be a confused little boy in an oversized baseball cap.

And I’d be fifty-five.

We both know the implications of that are gross, so just remember: as long as you or I don’t start aging backwards, we are spared the “no chance in Hell” scenario (hooray!).

Otherwise...well I guess you will do what you have to do, but just know that if any day comes when we aren’t talking but you realize I’m still important...take this letter and run to me. Bring it back to me (if you’ve burned it by then, you can bring back the memory of it at least), and use it to tell me I’m the one.

If you do this within seven days of having your realization, it will work. If you wait any longer than that or chicken out, this letter will turn into a venus fly-trap and rip your face off.

(I will not be held responsible for the face-ripping-off scenario).

So remember that and go on. I’ll go on too, always remembering our time, but trying not to hope too foolishly.

PS: my goal this weekend was to make sure we didn’t “do it,” and I was so focused on this silly little way of holding out (to try to make you come back), that I totally forgot to guard my heart, which you’ve now stolen. It’s probably in one of your pockets...don’t drop it please.

With love,

Romi

--------------------------------------

Chapter Twenty
-Five

I sat at my desk in a trance not unlike a zombie, as I slowly sunk into madness. Three days had passed since I’d last felt Erik’s touch, and even though he’d texted me to tell me his plane landed safely, from there he’d gone totally silent. I wasn’t yet ready to think the worst, especially not when he’d asked me to have a little faith.

So I waited, staring at my phone, almost w
illing it to ring as my work (plus my boss’s work) kept piling up. I didn’t even know how many books I’d sold since going to New York. Why even check? Only one thing mattered now.

RING dammit!

***

My alarm clock sprung to life, marking the fifth day since Erik hadn’t called me
. I immediately hit the snooze button, cutting the annoying dance tune short.

I remembered how Erik was in a different time zone;
maybe he’d left me a message while I was asleep?

I reached for my phone
feeling the tiniest sliver of hope.

Nothing.

***

Later that day, the
train bumped along as a woman held a book in one hand, and tweezers in the other. As she read, she plucked out her chin hairs one at a time. Normally I would’ve been horrified, but today my static phone screen was way more captivating.

Nothing.

***

By now, Erik had lived through an enti
re week back home without a word to me. This meant he’d either returned home and realized he loved his girlfriend more than me, or...she’d found out all about me and murdered him.

Amy, Eleanor and Laura seemed to
be on stand-by missions to console me, even though they kept encouraging me to stay positive. I was smart enough to sense their doom, so I’d been avoiding them at every opportunity.

For the moment I was trying not to shiver, as an early March
snowfall and blistering wind assaulted me over and over, while I trudged past looming skyscrapers on the way to catch the train. When I surrendered to the cold and pulled my mittens out of my pockets, my cell phone came out as well. The screen lit up with a missed call and a voicemail, from some long drawn out digits that had to be Erik’s new number.

I gasped and ran to the nearest bench, paying no mind to the inch of fresh snow upon it.

I hit “play” and awaited the voice I’d so desperately missed.

“Hey Romi, it’s Erik.
”  I instantly noticed an unfamiliar tone in his voice. It sounded distant and rehearsed. “I just called to tell you that Sandra and I have been having a great time this past week.” I had never heard the name Sandra before but my heart quickly sank. I knew exactly who she was. “I also wanted you to know that I told her everything about us, but nothing has changed between she and I. We are doing just fine.”

If it
was possible for a soul to leave someone’s body, with the person staying alive by the simplest mechanics...well that was me in this moment.

“So yeah, that’s it and...
uhh...have a nice time!” The message ended abruptly.

I could barely process any of it.
“
Nothing has changed between she and I? Have a nice time?!”

The only thing I could see was that either our entire time together had been a lie, or h
is new life now was the biggest lie of all.

I ha
d no idea which was which, so I sat there frozen on the bench, with the wind whipping hard at my face...

***

A few days later, I was still avoiding friends and humans in general, as my negative thoughts would be poisonous to them all. Coffee dates were ignored on the regular, and my parents, after observing my frantic then deadened behaviour, assumed my “business trip” to New York had gone horribly. They were afraid I was going to get fired, so they urged me to stay late at work for extra credit.

I stayed out late alright, but it had nothing to do with work. Instead I would wander the streets of Toronto aimlessly after d
ark, connecting only to symbols that reminded me of Erik.

On this particular night, freezing rain fell
fast on my uncovered head, as I stared into the window of a music shop. There was a shiny acoustic guitar front and centre. I gazed at it, remembering how embarrassed Erik had been to play that song for me. It made me smile.

The
shopkeeper, who saw me randomly smiling into the window, offered me a smile in return.

An awkward smile, to be exact.

***

Despite my emotional state
(which demanded I go back in time so I could be with Erik again), over two weeks had passed since our final goodbye, and a week since his heart-crushing voicemail. For today’s highlight, he’d removed me from Facebook as an extra stab. I could barely process this latest rejection, as I stood in my room with the song we made together playing loudly. After he’d played it for me over the phone, he’d added in the harmonies and sent me a professional recording. It was fantastic, though by the final verse, quite saddening.
Why did I have to write such depressing lyrics?!

I pulled out the
New York Rangers T-shirt I’d worn on our second day and held it out in front of me. Erik had snuggled the shit out of me in that T-shirt, and it still faintly smelled of his cologne.

I
inhaled the shirt deeply, and sighed out loud for no one to hear.

I held the shirt in front of me a final time, then
wrapped it in a ball and tossed it in the trash.

***

Three weeks, two days, and twenty-one hours after that wretched voicemail from Erik (and over a month after the last time I’d looked into his eyes), the sun shone brightly in a clear blue sky. For the first time in a while, I actually welcomed that warming sun.

With confident strides I walked up
the main street of glitzy Yorkville, wearing big sunglasses, a bright pink sparkly scarf and a cute yellow blouse beneath a light jacket.

I was back.

I went right past the restaurant where Laura and I used to hang out (I still didn’t dare set foot in there after my outburst), and headed to an Italian espresso bar instead.

As I walked down the steps to go inside, a scruffy old man smoking a cigarette signalled for my attention. When I turned to him, he coughed up some phlegm and finally spoke. “Do you know where
your boyfriend is?”

Uhh...back in Denmark
super-busy getting laid every night? Oh wait...he was never even my boyfriend.

“He’s at a strip club
getting lap dances!” He coughed again, as I wondered why he’d chosen me of all people.

“It’s because you can’t fulfill his needs!” he finally added.

This guy didn’t know anything about being subtle, so I nodded sarcastically and went inside. I found Laura at one of several neat white tables in this small café, a table that was far from the window and that lunatic.

L
aura stood out against the black and white backdrop in an emerald green sweater, as she waved at me excitedly. I’d only answered her calls twice in the last month, and she carefully hadn’t mentioned Erik even once. Today though, as we finally met each others’ eyes once again, I knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

I ordered a cappuccino
from the counter and approached her table.

She stood to maul me in a hug, which was funny since I was five inches taller than her. “Hi!” she said.

I smiled as she hugged me tightly, and her smile stayed on as we sat back down.

“
Sorry I haven’t been around,” I said. “I missed you though!”

“I missed you too!”

We both looked around the café.

“This place is cute,” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah...”

She looked at me nervously.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I know we’re going to talk about it. Might as well get it over with, so I’ll start first: did he ever contact you or Dave about any of this?” I was hoping for some sideline excuse for his cold goodbye.

“He didn’t, I swear. Dave even e-mailed him to ask wha
t had happened, and all he did was ask not to bring it up anymore. He gave Dave his new contact info and that was it.”

I shook my head. “That r
eally gets me, you know. I mean...when I wrote him that hate message wishing for him to die a day after he sent me that voicemail, it was a totally normal reaction.”

She nodded encouragingly. “Of course!”

“And when I wrote him a few days later to take it all back and wish him well...that was a normal reaction too. But nowhere in-between did I get anything! Not even a ‘hey, sorry about that asshole voicemail but my girlfriend was standing in the room’...which she obviously was!”

The very Italian
-looking waiter placed my drink on the table and clucked his tongue. “Any man who does not appreciate your beauty deserves a lifetime of infinite sadness!”

I stared in shock as Laura s
tarted laughing.

“Uhh...thanks,” I said.

“Anytime for you, bella.” He walked away briskly.

“Did you pay him to say that?”
I said.

Her eyes widened. “No!”

If that bar we’d discovered a month ago was our new night-time hangout, this would for sure be our new daytime place.
Can’t go wrong with hot Italians.

“Well that was...nice,” I said. “Now w
hat was I saying?”

“You were explaining how Erik is such a douche bag.”

“If only it were that simple. The truth is he was amazing in so many ways.” I sighed.

“But he was flawed,” she insisted.

I stared at her hard. “But everyone’s flawed. Rules exist, but rules don’t stop you from meeting people. And when you connect, and I mean TRULY connect...who’s perfect enough to be a robot to all of that?”

“But he let you
go.”

I frowned. “Yeah,
but I can’t really blame him for that either. He did what ninety-nine percent of guys would do, which is surrender to the convenient life.” I shook my head. “His job is there, his family is there, his friends are there, and this woman who loves him despite his mistakes is there. He can spend the rest of his life on auto-pilot, and all those things that everyone wants will come so easily to him...marriage, kids, grandkids...he’s all set!” I hadn’t cried in a week, but I was close to breaking the streak.

“Romes...”

“No it’s okay. I mean this is it, right? Remember when we talked about good versus evil and taking something that wasn’t mine? I knew what I was getting into and here it is, my karmic bitch-slap: being utterly heartbroken a month later.” I shook my head. “What I still don’t know is: what’s HIS karma? He got to keep everything and move on!”

Laura smiled.

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because he DID get his karma!”

“Huh?”

“You said it yourself; he’s all set wi
th everything on auto-pilot. But what kind of life is auto-pilot? He’s not alive like he was with you, no matter how much he convinces himself that staying with her is what he wanted all along.” She shook her head as her Italian eyes brightened in fury. “I mean you don’t just have an experience like that and throw it away! Not without having the life ripped out of you first, which by the way is what happened to him, because he’s obviously living a lie now.” Her fury had now transitioned to a general disgust. “That’s his karma, Romes, the lie he’ll live every day. Only amnesia will make him forget you, and even if it’s not every minute of every day that he remembers you, and even if he convinces himself that his comfortable life is pretty damn great after all, any time you cross his mind---which you totally will---he’ll remember what a coward he was. And that? That will torture him forever.”

She smile
d her most evil smile. I really did love her.

“I guess that’s a pretty good punishment,” I muttered.

“Of course it is! And let’s not forget something else: you said to me once that you wanted to start living, since all these years had passed when you’d barely lived at all.”

“Yes,” I said. “A
nd look how much living I did on that weekend, I even got to see the ocean! All thanks to Erik...” My eyes quickly started to darken.

“No! S
top thanking him! It’s because of what YOU did. Like do you even know what kind of balls it takes, to hop on a plane and put your heart on the line when everyone and their mother thinks it’s a waste of time? And sure, maybe it didn’t work out, but in those three days? You lived more than some people get to live in their whole lives. So start being proud of yourself!”

I smiled. “Wow, I should’ve called you earlie
r if that was the speech I’d get.”