Good at Being Alive(77)

“How was your interview?” he asks when he calls that night, casual as can be. As if we’re a couple. I fight an insane impulse to hope we are. “Fuck this. Hang on.”

A moment later he’s calling me back on video. My smile is too wide, too giddy. Ridiculous. I can’t make it stop.

“Are you calling on video to make sure Caden’s not in the room?” I ask.

“Are you bringing up Caden just so that I take the train back there in a fit of jealousy?” he counters.

My teeth sink into my lower lip. “Would it work?”

He leans back in his desk chair. “If you took it far enough, yes.”

I prop the phone on the table and continue to shove clothes into my suitcase. “I’m tempted, but this is almost like having you here anyway.”

A voice in my head is already saying, See? Being on two different continents could work! You’re already making it work. We’ve only spent one night together and I’m already a month, a year, a decade ahead. It’s the exact kind of shit I used to ridicule Bronwyn over.

“It’s nothing like having me there,” he replies. “Because if I were, you wouldn’t be packing. You also wouldn’t be clothed.”

Spoken like a man I want in the picture a month, a year, a decade from now. God, I hope I’m right.



* * *



? ? ?

I fly back to New Jersey the next day. It’s my favorite time of year at home, but that’s sort of like having a favorite season in hell—you can pick one but that doesn’t mean you actually want to be there.

There’s a heaviness inside me the minute I walk into the house. It isn’t new—but until recently, I felt so low most of the time that being here wasn’t noticeably worse.

I sink onto the stairs as I look around this house I never was happy in. Theo was right: I need to get out of here.

I’m clinging to this place because letting it go means admitting they’re not coming back. But remaining is like having a wound I won’t allow to heal.

I rise. Unpacking my suitcase can wait.

I go to Jessie’s bookshelves and start throwing out the knickknacks. I’ll start small, and eventually, when I’m ready, I’ll put the house on the market. I’ll move somewhere new, and I’ll become someone new. I suspect I’m already doing the latter.

After the knickknacks, I box up the weird collection of cups from a local restaurant and my dad’s old college textbooks, though I’m not sure anyone will want them.

I’m lighter and emptier at the same time when it’s done. I’ve been weighed down by these things, yes, but their absence leaves a hole I’ll need to fill with something else.

A hole I want to fill with talking to Theo, texting Theo, seducing Theo, though I probably need to do something slightly more productive as well.

“Huacachina,” I announce as we talk on the phone that night.

He opens a carryout container on the table in front of him and I examine the little I can see of his apartment like a lovesick stalker, hungry for the smallest details—the table is glass, there’s nothing on the walls, the blinds behind him are open but it’s too dark to see the view. It’s less enlightening than I might have hoped.

“I have no idea what you just said,” he replies.

“Huacachina. In Peru. I think Families Travel should offer a trip there. You can ski or snowboard in the sand.” I open up my laptop and show him the video I’ve saved. “There’s not a ton of lodging available, so it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d want a company to plan for you if you were traveling with kids. Maybe combine that with Machu Picchu.”

His head tilts. “If you’re willing to do the research on it, maybe. Figure out the best hotel, the best way to get to each place, and how long you’d want to stay.”

I grin. “Are you hiring me?”

He raises a brow. “It’s more like I’m asking you to finally earn your keep.”

He lowers the blinds behind him. It’s ridiculous that I still have no clue if he lives amid skyscrapers or pasture.

“Do you live near that hotel I stayed in?” I ask.

“Not especially near it, no,” he replies.

“Are you a spy?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Is there a reason you provide me so few details about your life?”

He laughs and puts his fork down on the table. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be participating in this ridiculous show if I were. What detail is it you seek?”

I throw out my hands, exasperated. “I don’t even know where you live. And don’t say London. You ask me all these complicated questions about my life, but I only get one-word answers about yours.”

“Hoxton, near the park,” he replies, his head cocked. “Do you feel as if you know me now? I can send you a location pin on Google Maps if it helps.”

I release an aggravated groan. “I’m not trying to find out shit I could just look up online, Theo. I want to know things like…” I scan my head but only one question comes to mind: What happened to the complication?

I can’t ask it. Not yet. It’s way too early to show him all my Bronwyn-like neediness. And if I was going to take on one quality of my sister’s…it shouldn’t be her only flaw. “Why was Samia so weird with you that night we met her?” I ask instead. “She said something about knowing who you were, but the way you’d say it to, like, a convicted rapist.”