'No.'
'Have you seen him?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Okay. Maybe it does have something to do with Marcus…' I say, just wanting her to shut up. 'I don't think it's going to work out with him. And maybe I'm a little bummed. Okay?'
'Oh,' she says. 'I'm really sorry it didn't work out.'
The last thing I want is Darcy's sympathy. I tell her that it really has more to do with work. 'I need a break from Les.'
'But I need you here,' she whimpers. Apparently her ten seconds of sympathy have expired.
'Claire will be here.'
'It's not the same. You're my maid of honor!'
'Darcy. I need a vacation. Okay?'
'I guess it'll have to be.' I see her pouting face. 'Right?' She adds this with a note of hope.
'Right.'
She sighs loudly and tries another tactic. 'Can't you go the week I'm in Hawaii on my honeymoon?'
'I could,' I say, picturing Darcy in her new lingerie. 'If my world revolved around you… but I'm sorry. It doesn't.'
I never say things like this to Darcy. But times have changed.
'Okay. Fine. But meet me at the Bridal Party tomorrow at noon to pick up your bridesmaid dress… Unless you have plans to go to Venice or something.'
'Very funny,' I say, and hang up.
So now Dex will know that I am going to London. I wonder how he will feel when he hears this news. Maybe it will make him decide more quickly. Tell me something good before I fly far away.
I keep waiting, feeling increasingly tortured with every passing hour. No word from him. No call. No e-mail. I constantly check my messages, looking for the blinking red light. Nothing. I start to dial his phone number countless times, compose long e-mails that I never send. Somehow I stay strong.
Then, on the night before my flight, Jose buzzes me. 'Dex is here to see you.'
A flood of emotion rushes over me. The wedding is off! For once, my glass is not only half full, but it runneth over. My joy is temporarily clouded as my thoughts turn to Darcy-what will happen to our friendship? Does she know of my involvement? I push thoughts of her away, focus on my feelings for Dex. He is more important now.
But when I open the door, his face is all wrong.
'Can we talk?' he asks.
'Yes.' My voice comes out in a whisper.
I sit stiffly as if I'm about to be told that someone very close to me has died. He might as well be a police officer, coming to my door with hat in hand.
He sits beside me and the words come. This has been a really hard decision… I really do love you… I just can't… I've given it a lot of thought… feel guilty… didn't mean to lead you on… our friendship… incredibly difficult… I care too much about Darcy… can't do it to her… owe it to her family… seven years… summer has been intense… meant what I said… I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm truly sorry… always, always will love you…
Dex covers his face with his hands, and I have a flashback to my birthday, how much I admired his hands while we were riding in the cab up First Avenue. Right before he kissed me. And now, here we are. At the very end. And I will never kiss him again.
'Say something,' Dex says. His eyes are glassy, his lashes wet and jet black. 'Please say something.'
I hear myself say that I understand, that I will be fine. I do not cry. Instead I concentrate on breathing. In and out. In and out. More silence. There is nothing more to say.
'You should go now,' I tell him.
As Dex stands up and walks to the door, I consider screaming, begging. Don't go! Please! I love you! Change your mind! She cheated on you! But instead I watch him leave, not hesitating or turning back for one final look at me.
I stare at the door for a long time, listening to the loud silence. I want to cry, so that something will fill the scary blank space, but I can't. The silence grows louder as I consider what to do next. Pack? Go to sleep? Call Ethan or Hillary? For one irrational second, I have those thoughts that most people don't admit to having- swallowing a dozen Tylenol PM, chasing them with vodka. I could really punish Dex, ruin their wedding, end my own misery.
Don't be crazy. It's just a little heartbreak. You will get over this. I think of all the hearts breaking at this moment, in Manhattan, all over the world. All of the overwhelming grief. It makes me feel less alone to think that other people are getting their insides torn to tiny bits. Husbands leaving wives after twenty years of marriage. Children crying out, 'Don't leave me, Daddy! Please stay!' Surely what I feel doesn't compare to that kind of pain. It was only a summer romance, I think. Never meant to last beyond August.
I stand up, walk over to my bookcase, and find the Altoids tin. I have one final hope. If I get double sixes, maybe he will change his mind, come back to me. As if to cast a magic spell, I blow on the dice just as Dex did. Then I shake them once in my right hand and carefully, carefully roll them. Just as it happened with our first roll, one die lands before its mate. On a six! I hold my breath. For a brief second, I see a mess of dots, and think I have boxcars again. I kneel, staring at the second die.
It is only a five.
I have rolled an eleven. It is as if someone is mocking me, saying, Close, but no dice.
Chapter 21
I am somewhere over the Atlantic
Ocean when I decide that I will not tell Ethan all of the gory, pathetic details. I will not dwell and wallow once the plane lands on British soil. It will be the first step in getting over Dex, moving on. But I will give myself the duration of the flight to think about him and my situation. How I put myself on the line and lost. How it's not worth it to take risks. How it's better to be a glass-half-empty person. How I would have been so much better off if I had never gone down this road, setting myself up for rejection and disappointment and giving Darcy the chance to beat me again.
I rest my forehead against the window as a little girl behind me kicks my seat once, twice, three times. I hear her mother say in a sugary voice, 'Now Ashley, don't kick the nice lady's seat.' Ashley keeps kicking. 'Ashley! That is against the rules. No kicking on the plane,' the mother repeats with exaggerated calm as if to demonstrate to everyone around her what a competent parent she is. I close my eyes as we fly into the night, don't open them until the flight attendant comes by to offer us headphones.
'No, thanks,' I say.
No movie for me. I will be too busy cramming all of the misery I can into the next few hours.
I told Ethan not to come to Heathrow-that I would take a taxi to his flat. But I am hoping that he comes anyway. Even though I live in Manhattan, I am intimidated by other big cities, particularly foreign ones. Except for the time I went to Rome with my parents for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, I have never left the country. Other than Niagara Falls on the Canadian side, which hardly counts. So I am relieved to see Ethan waiting for me just outside of customs, grinning and boyish and happy as ever. He is wearing new horn-rimmed glasses, like Buddy Holly's, only brown. He rushes toward me and hugs me hard around the neck. We both laugh.
'It's so good to see you! Here. Give me your bag,' he says.
'You too.' I grin back at him. 'I like your glasses.'
'Do they make me look smarter?' He pushes the frames on his nose and strikes a scholarly pose, stroking a nonexistent beard.
'Much.' I giggle.
'I'm so glad you're here!'
