Page 99 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
Losing Ro is one thing, but when did I lose myself?
I want to unthink the words as they form, to deny them, but the truth is Iamlost. I’vebeenlost, trading out one mess for another, and it’s not working anymore.
I can’t keep my own life at arm’s length forever. And it’s not a matter of knowing or deciding what comes next, because life is happening in real time, all the time, without warning. That’s the design. A constant series of terrible and beautiful moments butted right up against each other. And I can’t escape that. I don’t want to anymore.
But right now—in this moment when Idoget to choose—why would I pick anything other than a happy ending?
I switch over to Zola’s Netflix account, and I’m greeted by British baking shows and shiny plastic real estate moguls posedunder waxy palm trees. There are no boogeymen on her landing page. It’s bright and beautiful and all the things I’ve been too scared to admit to wanting.
Until now.
I click the first title in her watch list, and I’m transported into the big emotional swell of whatever romance Zola probably fell asleep to last night. Even without knowing anything about who these characters are, or how they got to this moment, I can’t look away. Every word of their declarations draws me in, and before I know it, I’m rooting for complete strangers to find their way back to each other.
It’s not just their words, though, it’s the way theyseeeach other. It’s how he seems to know all the reasons she’s hard to love, but he wants to do it anyway.
And when they kiss, a spark of something vaguely familiar ignites in my chest. My breath hitches at the memory of when I’d last felt that spark—with Ro. When I was undeniably, inexplicably happy.
The credits roll. But it’s not enough.
I start the next movie in the queue. Another romance where I don’t want to know what these characters had to endure to earn their happily ever after. I just want to feel what they feel when they get it.
More. I need more.
So that’s what I give myself, jumping from sweeping romance to sweeping romance. And when my eyes finally give in to the exhaustion of my sleepless night at the hospital, it’s long-awaited first kisses, second chances, and forgiveness that play out behind my eyelids.
Love: shiny and happy, and just within reach.
—
In my dreams, I find him, but when I wake a few hours later, the sun still high overhead, Ro exists only in my memory again. I’m not ready to leave him there.
I call one more time to tell him how wrong I’d been. How sorry I am that it’s taken me too long to see what he seemed to always know, but again there’s no answer.
I don’t pause to make a plan or to contemplate exactly what I’m racing toward as I trip over myself to get out of this house. There’s no more time to waste. I have to get to him. I have to make things right, to see if we can be all right.
I’m one foot from the door when my shaking hands, clumsy with adrenaline, swipe at my purse and spill its contents onto the kitchen island. I curse the mess delaying me by even these few seconds.
But then I see the business card. Life delivering something beautiful, even in the mess.
5:14pm
Me:Hi, this is Ro’s friend, Kaia.
Me:You said to text if I ever needed anything.
35
The thrashing of my heartbetween my ears is so deafening that I hardly register Paul’s hello as I enter the gallery.
A few people are still milling around the main room in the Greenpoint art space, but Paul leads me past them to the live instruction studio off the back. He pulls a heavy black curtain aside, and the room comes into view—what little I can see of it from behind the swell of the standing-room-only crowd.
Bodies shift, angling to get a better view of the stage, and the propulsive energy of the last two hours drains from my body. My hands are slack at my sides, my body anchored to its spot on the ground, and when I see Ro before me, the whole world stops spinning. It takes all my strength just to stay standing. But it’s not Ro’s eyes or smile that come into view. It’s his heart.
A freshly painted mural is revealed to me, precious inch by precious inch. It drapes the walls in countless shades of calming blues and grays, melting into one another like notes of the sweetest song. Swirling together in a way that’s so haphazard and so intentional all at once. I follow the movement of each line, hear the rhythm of every brushstroke, and I can feel him. Everywhere. Like he’s standing behind me, holding on to me.
And then, I seehim.Paint splattered and breathless. Pulsating muscles beaded in sweat.
I’d thought I’d memorized his every feature, but for the first time, when I see Ro, IseeRo, and the sheer force of him consumes me, inside and out. My breath comes in quick bursts, squeezing past the weight at my chest. I need to get to him now. I’ve needed to get to him always.
