“You can’t just put me on indefinite layaway, Ricky,” I said simply. “I don’t have time to give.”
Ricky didn’t say anything, and so I let myself look at him. It felt like this might be my last chance, and so I tried to catalog the parts of him I would miss the most. His strong jaw, locked tight with tension. His hands, curling and stretching at his sides. His smooth, nearly hairless golden skin.
The Ford Focus I had requested pulled up in front of us. The driver rolled down her window.
“Angela?” she asked.
“Yup,” I said, taking a step toward the car. I opened the door, preparing to step in.
Ricky grabbed the handle, stopping me from closing it.
“Wait. Wait. We’re talking about this,” he said definitively. “This isn’t over, okay, Angie?”
Talk about what? I thought. His initial reaction had been enough; even if Ricky changed his mind tomorrow and told me that actually, he did want to commit, I wouldn’t believe him. You’re just saying this because you don’t want to lose me, not because you actually want it, I would think, and that would make me feel even more pathetic than I already did.
“Promise me, Angie,” he said beseechingly. “I’m going to call you tomorrow. Promise me that you’ll pick up.”
My driver sank deeper into her seat with impatience, and I finally let myself look Ricky in the eye again. I’d never seen him look like this, like he was about to fall apart. Panic stretched his voice thin, and his grip on the car door was tight, pulling his skin taut over his knuckles. Maybe at another time, I would have thought that his reaction meant something. Now . . . I wasn’t so sure. I’d thought I could read him. Look at how he looks at you, I had thought, so sure that he was the one instead of one of many.
“Okay,” I said, and after that, he let me go.
Twenty-One
But Ricky didn’t call the next day, or the day after that, or the one after that.
“You okay, boo?” Nia asked, handing me my third cup of Earl Grey of the night. I accepted it with a bleary smile. Even though I was the one who’d just gotten my heart thrashed, I felt sorry for Nia. After all, she was deeply in love with the best friend of its thrasher, and the conflict of interest was probably maddening.
“I have to be,” I said, gesturing toward my laptop screen. Dr. Reed had sent me a last-minute batch of edits for our presentation. My team was on call tomorrow, meaning that I wouldn’t have the time to implement his changes and rehearse them then; everything had to be squared away today. “I’m too busy to wallow.” I gave Nia a small smile. “Thanks for keeping me company, by the way. You really don’t have to. You have an early day tomorrow.”
“Don’t thank me,” Nia said. “I still remember how you took care of me after Ulo.”
I laughed, remembering my many late-night trips to the grocery store to grab extra Oreos to help abate Nia’s post-breakup suffering.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “Go home.”
And I would be fine. For the first time since we’d met, I finally knew where Ricky and I stood. I brought up commitment, and he fled the scene. There was no reason to feel conflicted about us anymore. No need to question his intentions or let myself be reassured by how good of a guy he was. Like with my internal medicine practice questions, I had gotten Ricky wrong so many times that the right answer now seemed obvious.
Operation Deep Clean went into effect immediately after forty-eight hours of Ricky-related radio silence. I wasn’t going to allow myself to sink into a funk of self-inflicted misery by scrolling through his Instagram or rereading our texts. No. I was going to be proactive against Future Angie, who would doubtlessly want to do those things. I unfollowed him on social media, deleted his number, and set up a study and social schedule so airtight that there would be minimal room for my mind to wander. Because I was done. And I didn’t plan on turning back.
Still, when the day of my presentation came and I didn’t get a text from an unfamiliar number wishing me good luck, I had to swallow my disappointment.
“Nice blazer,” Tabatha said, peering at me through her camera. She’d stayed up late the night before to give me some last-minute pointers, which included helping me choose an appropriate presentation outfit. When I selected a flaring midi dress, she kissed her teeth. “You don’t have to hide those curves to look professional,” she insisted, eventually guiding me to a knee-length pencil skirt and a chunky necklace I’d purchased long ago and never worn.