Page 34 of Don't Be in Love

It was a wave of relief compared to the past nine hours.

The look on Dorian’s face as I left him by the pond still pulled at a muscle in my chest. He was painted in disbelief. Arms slouched at his sides and brows pushed together in the center. As ifIhad done something wrong. As ifIwas the one who had waltzed right up to him, ignoring our rule to avoid one another. As ifIhad pushed him into the water.

I couldn’t believe that society had been pushing this “women are confusing” agenda for so long when men like this existed. What a bunch of nonsense. All we had left was Marty.

I waved to Marty across the street. He waved back as I waited for the black cabs, cyclists, and cherry red buses to pass.

The smiling old man sat on the bench outside Big Ben’s Bakery every Sunday morning with a croissant spewing chocolate like a tiny volcano. Hail could be falling from the sky while termites ate the seat around him, and he’d still be smiling.

I wanted to be like Marty. Rosy cheeks, a croissant in my hand, and zero thoughts about Dorian.

The one positive thing about yesterday was Sabrina getting a glimpse into who Dorian was: unavailable and narcissistic. Maybe not the latter but definitely the former.

When Mia had found me in a moister state than I had been previously, she dragged me inside where Brina was crying in the bathroom.

“He really does have a girlfriend.” She had choked out the words, holding up her phone with a picture of Dorian kissing the blond I had just researched myself. It even made me choke.

“We don’t know that,” Mia reassured her.

“They’re kissing!” she wailed, shaking her phone. My heart ached.

“Let’s get you home,” I said, taking her phone and tucking my arm under her shoulder, Mia followed the same movement.

“Whyareyouallwet?” she murmured, breaking up the emotion in her throat as we left the bathroom and stepped back onto the stone path outside.

“I saw a duck in the pond and thought it’d be fun to see if they acted differently from the ones in the Charles River.”

She cracked a smile. A sunrise of a face breaking the ocean line. “Doesn’t sound like a conducive environment for research since you interrupted their space. What’d you find?”

“I found that they react the same way when a tiny one tried to bite me. British animals obtain the same amount of politeness as my deli guy back home.”

She laughed. “What actually happened to you?”

“I’ll tell you another time.”When we’re old and gray and you’ve forgotten who Dorian is.

Her smile fizzled out once we returned to the apartment and she spotted my watch on the coffee table that “looked exactly like the one Dorian had worn that one time in—” The rest of the words became unrecognizable from the mixture of her accent and the tears.

We curled up on the couch—after I moved my watch—and wrapped a single blanket around us as if we were trying to test glow-in-the-dark bracelets, putting on the least romantic film society has ever watched.

Fast & Furious.

Brina was nodding off within the first half hour of the film, her cheek pressing into my shoulder. Mia held her head up as I scooted out from under her, replacing the space with a pillow. She slipped the bobby pins out of her hair while I worked on her mascara with a cotton ball.

She must’ve woken up and returned to her bed around 1 a.m. because that’s when I heard,He sent you letters, Allie!

I folded my pillow around my head like a half-open sushi roll.Come on, Sabrina. He’s just a guy.

I wanted her to be happy. But watching her cry over someone like Dorian was … bittersweet. It pulled me away from the present and threw me into the past.

It was my mother all over again. Hours spent alone in her room. Porcelain dishware designated for guests collected dust. Even the TV collected dust. I hadn’t seen any new sitcoms or romance films that came out until I was living at my aunt’s.

Slowly, the photos of Dad disappeared from the fridge. Childhood pictures were suddenly missing faces. It was as if a murder had been solved and all the evidence was being disposed of. The smell of sawdust that lived in his clothes had dissipated from his closet.

He had ruined her life. And she, consequently, had ruined mine.

I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.You’re wasting your time.This will never do you any good.

Sabrina was better off getting over him now. Today’s pain would save her a lifetime of trauma.