I turn the corner and time seems to slow down when I see the building ahead.
This is the post office where I first met Arthur.
I’m being catapulted to memory lane at a time when I’m trying to go down new paths. But Mario mapped out all these destinations—the actual ones, not my metaphorical ones. Of all the post offices in this borough alone, I can’t believe he randomly decided on this one. And it’s unbelievable how much the universe seems determined to make New York feel even more suffocating to me.
I stand outside, heart hammering like the post office is a haunted house. But after a minute or so, the heat gets to me.
The Ben who steps inside doesn’t even feel like me. It’s a Third-Person Ben who walked in here two summers ago with a breakup box and met the person who would become his next boyfriend. It’s like I can see Past Ben walking through the post office with Past Arthur right behind him, fresh off a conversation about twins in romper outfits they saw before entering the building. Then Past Arthur calls Past Ben’s box a “big package” and Past Ben notices Past Arthur’s hot dog tie. And they talk about the universe until a flash mob splits them up.
Fast-forward to almost two years later and I’m me, standing alone in the post office waiting for a different boy. It must’ve been a lot easier for Arthur to get over me. He got to return home to Georgia and then go to school in Connecticut, two places I’ve never been. Meanwhile I had to act like I didn’t see Arthur-sized footprints all over the city we walked around together. I can’t tell you how many times over the past few months I specifically avoided Dave & Buster’s in Times Square. I’m never in the mood for the tourists swarming Madame Tussauds and McDonald’s, but that arcade is where Arthur and I had our first of many first dates.
I don’t regret those dates. But I don’t always like thinking about them.
It’s not lost on me why I’m having trouble trusting people. For all I know, Mario is guarding his feelings, too. And if he laid everything out on the table, I still might not know how to feel. Arthur was a bighearted open book that didn’t have a happy ending. Just because someone says they love you doesn’t mean they’ll never say it to someone else. Between me and Arthur, I should’ve understood that better than anyone as the one with more dating experience.
It’s okay.
I’m working on my own character development. I didn’t rush into a relationship, or even try to force my way back to Hudson just because he was familiar and I was lonely. I lived in my loneliness and I got uncomfortable, and now I have to make sure I don’t let my character building go to waste because I’m too needy with Mario.
I don’t want to lose sleep over a broken heart ever again.
I go wait by the counter with all the mailing slips, right under the air conditioner. I grab the pen that’s chained up with a rubber band like it committed some crime, and begin drawing on the back of someone’s abandoned receipt. I’ve been dreaming more and more lately about what the book cover for The Wicked Wizard War will look like. Samantha’s drawing from a couple years ago was great for Wattpad, but I don’t think it’s going to fit the book anymore. Last Monday I spent the afternoon at the Strand bookstore with Mario, and we studied different cover art and discovered we have complete opposite tastes. We played a game where we randomly selected ten books, took notes on our phone apps on whether we liked the cover or not, and there wasn’t a single one we agreed on. I honestly don’t know if I wanted different results because it just got funnier and funnier the more we disagreed.
This is something I really like about us—we can have different tastes and still be interested in each other.
My phone vibrates. It’s either Mario with an update or Dylan sending another random TikTok of people popping their pimples.
But it’s neither.
It’s Arthur.
I legit spin around like I’m going to find him inside the post office.
This is his first text since April, when he wished me happy birthday. The first text since he arrived in New York.
Hey, heard you ran into Jessie
It’s a brief message, which bothers me. I want more. It seriously took him a whole day to text that? Was he having some major cookie hangover with Mikey?
Maybe they were chilling. Let’s call it what it is—maybe Arthur and Mikey were having sex. Picturing your ex with someone else is really hard. It’s one of those things you don’t want to think about, but the thoughts don’t care what you want. It’s especially hard to not think about those things when you’re writing a book with a character inspired by that person.