“I may have an idea of who she’s referring to,” she says cautiously.
If Jen thinks I’m sticking around for this conversation, she is sorely mistaken. I pile as many bites of roast chicken into my cowardly mouth as possible as I stand up from the table.
“All right, I would love to stay and chat but I really need to go. I have tons of unpacking and editing to do. Thanks for dinner, Mom. See you guys next week!”
I push my chair in and kiss my mom and Jen goodbye before scurrying out of the room. As I’m walking away, I pick up on Jen saying something about “that guy from college” before hearing Mom go off like a rocket.
I close the front door, thinking to myself that next week’s dinner will certainly be eventful. I walk half a block when I finally feel ready to do what I have been thinking about doing for the past six months. My hand is clammy as I dig through my bag, searching for my phone and feeling an anxious pang when eventually I find it.
I’m going to do this. I’m not going to back out. I pull the phone out of my bag and find Beefcake’s number in the contacts section. I close my eyes and refuse to think about the myriad of possibilities that can follow as I push down on the call button.
Hang up! Hang up! Hang up! He’s probably over you. You took too long. Hang up! Hang up! Hang up!
“Hello?”
Hearing a woman’s voice, I nearly drop the phone onto the concrete. I look at the screen to make sure I dialed the right number and see that I called Ryan’s home phone and not his cell. My first question is, why does he even have a home phone? My second question is, why did he feel the need to program it into my contacts along with his cell number? And my third—much more pressing—question is, why is a woman answering?
“Hi,” I say, pushing the phone back to my ear and trying not to sound horrified. “I’m sorry, is Ryan there?”
“He’s out right now, can I take a message?” The voice is clearer this time and it must be her. Madison. He’s back with her. Maybe he never ended things. Not even when he came to Rome.
“I...” I have no idea what to say. I can’t let him know it’s me. “I was just calling to see if he’d like to hear more about America’s leading credit union.”
The call almost immediately goes dead and I click the screen off, frozen in place.
Disappointment wells in my throat as I slip the phone into my peacoat pocket. I guess six months was too long to wait. Ryan and I are truly over. No more grand gestures, no happy epilogue with us on our wedding day. The truth sinks in and slithers through my body, slippery and cold and stinging everywhere it touches.
It’s a long and bitter walk back to the train. I try to tell myself that it’s better that I found out this way before I sent the journal. That with the truth comes freedom. Ryan has moved on and it’s time I did, too.
I’d like to say that prospect takes some of the pain away, but it doesn’t—so I won’t.
24
Two days later, I’m cooking chicken cutlets and brown rice for dinner as I talk to Maggie on the phone.
“So have you heard anything yet?” she asks. After telling her the whole story at lunch yesterday, she knows exactly what was in the draft of the novel I gave to Cristina and is just as anxious to hear her opinion as I am.
“Not yet. To be honest, I never thought she would actually wait until she finished to call me.”
“And just to double-check, the manuscript you gave her was what you wrote in the journal but typed out, right? Everything that happened with you and Ryan, college to present day?”
“Not present, present day. It ended with when I was leaving Italy.”
“When you thought you guys would be getting back together?”
I give the rice another stir and hit the spoon on the side of the small metal pot a touch harder than necessary. “Yes,” I answer.
“That stinks.”
“That it does.”
“And you still won’t even consider sending the journal back to him?”
“That’s a hard no. That journal will either be donated to science upon my death or will stay locked in my desk for all eternity.” Just then, my phone vibrates, alerting me to a text message. “One second.” I lower the phone and look at the screen. It’s from Cristina. I hit the view button and read the message twice before bringing the phone back to my ear.
“Who was it from?” Maggie asks.
“Cristina. It said, ‘I sent you a present. You can return it if you don’t like it, but I think it will fit you great.’”
“That sounds nice. Is she there? Did she drop something off?”
“I don’t know.” I turn off the stove and walk over to my door to look through the peephole. “She isn’t outside.” I then open the door to check if she left something in the hall. “Nothing’s here.”
I’m about to turn back into the apartment when I hear a strange noise coming from the stairwell beside the elevator. It sounds like a disgruntled combination of stomping, running and grunts.
“What are you doing?” Maggie asks. I don’t answer as I listen to the sound more closely. It gets louder and louder, seeming to reach some kind of a crescendo. I move the phone a few inches away from my ear and grip the doorknob as I slowly back into the apartment.
“What the...”
“Kara? Are you okay?” Maggie is trying to get my attention but her voice seems so far away.
I remain glued in place as Duke erupts from the stairwell, throwing himself down into the hallway not ten feet away from me. Ryan appears next and time stands still. He and I look
