“Did anything happen between them?” Maggie asks.
I don’t answer right away. Instead I look down, noticing the jagged cracks in the weathered concrete.
“When things started to get really strained between us, I flew down to Raleigh to surprise him. I had asked him what he had planned for the weekend and he said he was staying home. I got to his apartment around nine o’clock that night and when I knocked on the door, he didn’t answer. I called him ten times and got sent straight to voice mail.”
We’re in front of the restaurant now but neither of us goes inside. Maggie passes her bag from one shoulder to the other. “What happened next?” she asks.
“I sat outside his apartment until two in the morning before checking into some scary, seedy motel. I think I slept for a total of twenty minutes.”
“Oh, boy.”
“Yeah. When I went back to his apartment the next morning, he was hungover and in his clothes from the night before. He was shocked to see me but excited, too. He picked me up and gave me a big hug. I think he was still drunk since he didn’t notice I was about to cry. I asked him what he did last night and he said he stayed in and watched TV.”
Maggie nods and I go on.
“I lost it. I told him I knew he was lying and when I tried to leave, he said everyone from work went out and got wasted, and he ended up passing out at Madison’s. Obviously, I flipped. He swore nothing happened, but he had just lied right to my face. And in the midst of everything, I asked him, if he were single, would he be dating Madison? He wouldn’t give me a straight answer and that was it for me. I was miserable all the time and he was clearly at the point that he couldn’t be honest with me. I told him we were over.”
“How’d he take it?” Maggie asks hesitantly.
“Not good. He begged me not to end things and said he would do whatever I asked. He’d said he’d quit his internship and move to New York. I knew I was hurting him, but we couldn’t go on the way we were. You shouldn’t have to force a relationship to work when you’re twenty and twenty-two.”
“Very true,” Maggie says. “So that was it? That was the last time you spoke to each other?”
“After the breakup he called me a lot. I never answered but every day I could feel myself getting closer to picking up. One night, he called when I was at my parents’ house. I told them I was thinking of giving Ryan a second chance and they got so mad. They knew what happened when I went to visit him, and they thought we were done for good.”
“Didn’t you think that, too?”
“I did, but I also missed him so much. I thought I’d feel better after we broke up, but I felt more depressed than ever. My grades tanked, I barely hung out with my friends... I was in a bad place and my parents—my dad especially—resented Ryan because of it. We got into a big fight after he called. He told me I was acting like a zombie and that being with Ryan was draining me. He said love wasn’t supposed to be like that and he raised me to know better. I ran out of the house.”
“Oh, no,” Maggie says, guessing where I’m going with this.
“Yeah. The accident happened the next day.”
Sometimes I wish my dad had been a worse father. That he didn’t coach my softball team from first to eighth grade. That he didn’t go on every little-kid ride on our trip to Disney and act like he was having the time of his life. That he didn’t make a little chef’s hat for me to wear when I’d visit him at his pizzeria two blocks from our house. If he didn’t do those things, him being gone wouldn’t feel like a giant hole cut out in every memory I have or will ever have. But he did. And I’ll never stop missing him.
“I was numb after that. I had spent my last moments with my dad fighting over a boyfriend who barely called me and who had sleepovers with other girls. I stormed out like a selfish spoiled brat and after a lifetime of having an amazing relationship, my father left this world being disappointed in me. The guilt was suffocating, and I became filled with so much hate. Hate for me, hate for Ryan, hate for our entire relationship. I blamed us and I hated us.”
“Damn.” Maggie sighs. “Did you tell Ryan when it happened?”
“No. The day of Dad’s funeral, he called just as it ended. I picked up and he said he needed to talk to me. I was out of my mind and hearing his voice sent me off the deep end. I told him I was done listening to his problems and that I couldn’t believe I wasted as much time with him as I did. I said I had never been happier than I was that last month without him. I told him every time he called, I laughed at how pathetic he was.”
“Me oh my. And his response was?”
“That he had been dating Madison for months behind my back and that he was only calling me out of pity. He’d said he didn’t want me to show up crying at his doorstep like I did the month before.”
Maggie flashes a pained expression. “You guys were an intense pair.”
“Yeah. And then last night, he told me he was calling that day because he just found out his parents were getting divorced.”
“Of course they were,” Maggie says, almost laughing. “Because this breakup wasn’t tragic enough. Do you think he really
