Naya: I’m sorry.
Jake: You want temporary. You g ot it.
Thirty-eight
You know I love you, but you look like shit.” Felicia opened the front door and wrapped me in a hug. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Bull, you’ve been a puddle of sad since everything went down.”
“This is the first time you’ve seen me.”
“Am I wrong?”
She wasn’t, but I wasn’t planning to admit the amount of time I’d spent rereading old text messages from Jake and crying. At night when I couldn’t sleep, I replayed every moment we’d spent together, searching for every clue that being apart was the right thing. That didn’t stop me from creeping on his social media.
The day before, there had been new content, and my stomach flipped, seeing him tagged in a photo, a selfie reposted by Gretchen dated seven years earlier. The two were smiling and sitting at a candlelit table. Jake was holding the camera while Gretchen kissed his cheek. They looked kind of perfect together. The caption read Going out for Italian food with this guy tonight. Not quite the same as the honeymoon in Florence, but I’ll take it #TBT. I remembered how much he had avoided this meeting, how being around her put him on edge. But he agreed to go to dinner, so maybe not anymore. I’d added terminate social media connection with Jake to my list but immediately crossed it off, knowing having no connection with him would be worse than seeing things like that on his feed.
I put on my coolest, most confident-sounding rational professor voice. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be,” Felicia shot back. “You trusted a guy for the first time since Davis, and no matter what you say, that was a big deal and I know you’re not fine.”
“All right, I’m not fine, but it’s too late now, right? I screwed it up.”
“Did you try to call him?”
“No,” I answered simply, though I had begun to call him a bunch of times. My pride stopped me from hitting the button to dial. I didn’t think I could handle hearing him say the things he’d texted me, no matter how much I missed his voice.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Fel.” I sighed, exasperated. “Can I just get that sleeping bag I asked to borrow?”
Her slow sigh told me she was debating whether to let me get away with the subject change. Her audible inhalation communicated that I was off the hook for now. “C’mon. It’s in the living room.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you going camping or something?” Aaron asked from the floor of the living room, where he was building Lego towers with the kids.
“We’re going to this retreat site in the woods, and we’ll be in cabins. It’s for that committee I’m on.” I settled into an armchair across from my friends, pulling the sleeping bag to my chest.
Aaron cocked an eyebrow.
I shrugged. “The president has a thing with being out in nature.” We were supposed to be giving feedback and answering questions the consultants had come up with during their review. That won’t be at all awkward.
“Maybe it’ll be fun. I’d have fun watching all you nerds trying to survive while roughing it.” Aaron planted himself on the other end of the sectional.
Felicia, perched on the arm of the couch, scrubbed her fingers through Aaron’s hair playfully. “You realize you’re a high school math teacher and not a cattle rancher, right, honey?”
“Yes, but I go outside, sometimes.” Aaron laughed, propping his feet on the coffee table. “Will your guy be there? John?”
“Jake—why do you never say his actual name?”
“Because it bugs you. Will he be there?”
“Yes.” Two days in the woods with a man who’s seen me naked. Scratch that, two men who have seen me naked. “Davis, too.”
“Naya!” Felicia sat upright, concern coloring her expression. “You never said he was going to be there. Are you okay being that close to him?”
Aaron shot me a pointed look from across the room, and I knew he’d kept his promise to not tell Felicia about the texts, but he wasn’t happy about it.
I tucked my knees to my chest, choosing to stare at the kids and not my best friend. “I don’t really have a choice.”
Thirty-nine
I searched the parking lot for Jake before climbing out of my car, but I didn’t see him or Carlton in the assembled group outside the main administration building. I did see Jill across the lot and hoped I could stand with her while we waited. Since we were both on this committee, I’d hoped Jill and I might get to know each other better. At thirty-three, I found myself adding make new friends to my list, which was humiliating, but throwing myself into work and hiding out had also meant not making time to socialize. I hadn’t sunken to googling how to make friends as an adult yet, but I saw the search in my future, especially since I was single again.