This Story Might Save Your Life(33)

Joy Moore


EXCERPT FROM UNTITLED JOINT MEMOIR WITH BENNY ABBOTT

Four Years Ago

Benny and I happened upon each other again on a rare rainy day in June. I’d taken up painting—dollhouse art, Xander called it, because the canvases were smaller than my hand—and I was at Blick replenishing supplies. I heard Benny’s voice first, and then his laugh, and I froze. We hadn’t spoken since Xander kicked him out of our apartment, and I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I considered dropping my basket and running. I didn’t know what to say.

The look on his face when he rounded the corner and found me beside the canvas stacks—I can still see it now. “Joy?” he said. As if maybe it wasn’t me. As if maybe he was imagining it.

“Hi, Benny,” I managed to say. Three years had gone by. Three entire years. And in that time, I was a matryoshka doll of emotions. Initially, too sad and broken to reach out, unable to summon the will or energy to pick up the phone, much less endure an entire conversation.

As the exhaustion chipped away, it revealed a layer of outrage. Because how dare Benny say I never wanted the baby? Of course I wanted the baby. Did he think I would become a mother simply to appease my husband? If that were true, I wouldn’t have been so fucking sad.

Deeper still, I felt shame. Benny saw me at my window. He knew I heard him arguing with Xander, knew I chose to remain hidden. I watched Benny leave, saw the hurt in his eyes, and did nothing to make it right. To this day, I have no excuse for my behavior, except to say that I just … couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

Months passed. Months and months. I knew it was on me to reach out, but every time I imagined the conversation I started crying. The gap between us had grown so wide. How had it come to this? It didn’t make any sense. Benny understood loss. He knew what it was like to act irrationally in a state of grief. He had to know Xander and I weren’t in our right minds. Which was why it stung all the more that he didn’t try harder. In all those months, months and months, he didn’t call or text. Not once. His silence was so loud I could hear nothing else. He’d walked away from my window, and that was … it.

And so nestled into the core of my matryoshka doll was a broken heart.

Sadness begets sadness; I understand this all too well now. It was sickeningly satisfying to pile it on, and so I let myself believe that Benny no longer cared, that he no longer wanted to be my friend. I mourned my baby, and then I mourned my friendship, and it was the most miserable time of my life.

And now here Benny was, staring down at me with a cautious, bemused smile, as if I were a cute but potentially dangerous animal that had just stumbled across his path.

“You’re at an art supply store,” I said stupidly.

His beard was longer, and his curls were shiny, and his Wilco T-shirt was a size too large. He dropped his basket, closed the gap between us, and wrapped his arms around me.

I hugged him back, tight, and then tighter, and when we released each other I punched him in the stomach. The air came out of him with a grunt, and he stumbled backward, jaw slack with shock.

“That’s for not calling me,” I explained. “Now punch me back.”

“What?”

“Punch me.” I motioned wildly toward my stomach. I wanted the wind knocked out of me too. I wanted to be punished for being such a terrible friend. “I didn’t call you either.”

“What do you mean ‘either’?” He shook his head, bewildered. “I called you a hundred times. A thousand.”

“Shut up,” I snapped, before my conviction gave way to confusion. He was lying, right? He had to be lying. I pulled my phone from my bag and held it out, as if its very existence could prove Benny wrong. “You did not.”

“I did. And then I called Xander and he told me you blocked my number.”

“He did not,” I said, less convincingly.

“Do you think I’m making this up?”

“I…” I wanted to think that, yes. I wasn’t ready to consider what it would mean if he wasn’t. “I don’t understand.”

Benny’s chest rose and fell. I could no longer read the expression on his face. “You didn’t block me?” he asked quietly.

I frowned up at him through my bangs. “I would never block you.”

We stared at each other, blinking this new reality into focus as shoppers chatted with sales associates in the nearby aisles. “It’s so good to see you,” I said finally.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

My cheeks heated. “Sorry I punched you.”

“It’s cool.” He waved it off. “Happens every time I come here.”

“Crazy artists,” I said with a forced laugh.

He nodded. “So.”

I nodded back. “So. How are you doing?” I cringed at my own formality. Benny and I didn’t talk like this.

He started to respond, but then his gaze locked on something over my shoulder.

“Joy?”

I turned. It was Luna, looking sharp in a sleeveless white jumpsuit and strappy sandals. She smiled uncertainly and stepped forward to give me a loose hug. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.” I felt like I was at an audition without having been given a script. We were all being so awkward. I gestured to her power-lunch attire. “You look good.”