Page 21 of Back for Seconds
After holding it together all night, through dinner and dancing with friends, I’d started to come undone while we waited for a cab. My breath coming in big, jagged gulps. I’m fine. I’d laughed it off. Seriously. He’d pulled me into a narrow street across from the restaurant so no one would see the tears pooling in my eyes. Sorry. I get emotional when I drink.
You’re perfect. He’d held my face in his hands, thumbs tracing the curve of my cheeks. I wish you could see what I see, June. I’d felt his tears falling onto my cheeks, slipping down between our entwined fingers tucked tight under my chin.
What had he seen? And when had it disappeared?
For the last year, I’d wished I could ask him.
Tell me the exact moment you stopped loving me. I’d thought not knowing might kill me.
But it hadn’t. Here I was—still living.
I blew out a breath.
Dinner, tonight, at seven. There it was. My chance to finally do something, to break out of the fog I’d been slogging through since my name had dried on those documents.
Every day had been the same: I woke up choking on all the guilt and memories of every bad thing I’d ever done. It wasn’t just that I had been a bad wife. I’d also been a bad friend, a bad girlfriend. A bad sister, roommate, teacher. Fuck, I’d even been a bad Girl Scout. What had Troop Leader Melissa said? I was too heavy-footed in the forest. I scared away all the birds. Now we were never going to get our bird-watching badge.
Shame suffocated me, like plastic wrapped tight around my face. First, I had to claw myself free. Then, I tried to catch my breath.
It wasn’t just that this was my chance to Get Back Out There! This was also an opportunity to do the something that had haunted me since before my divorce. The something that hung over me like a dark cloud, a trapped and angry spirit.
It was scientific, really.
I needed to have sex with Joey.
And, sure, it helped that he was really quite stunning. That he had gentle eyes and the broad, muscular back of a mariner. I’d seen the way he had palmed those shelves. Hand strength like that was…promising.
But this wasn’t about Joey. What I needed, more than anything, was to know that I could.
Could sleep with someone.
Could still be desired.
That I still had the courage to slide out of my underwear in front of a stranger and live to tell the tale. I needed to know that my life hadn’t ended fourteen months ago when I’d found those first, awful texts hidden in WhatsApp, a messenger Brian and I never used. The memory of his words walloped me in the chest, threatening to take all the air out of my lungs and send me crawling back to the place he’d left me.
I promise you I have never felt this way about another woman before, not even June.
“No.” I said this out loud, to the line of parked cars ahead of me. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. No.
Joey was perfect. Perfect for moving on.
From: [email protected]
Subject Line: What the frick
December 19, 4:15 p.m.
My dear Junie Bee,
I’m writing this to you from the airport lounge. I can’t believe how badly my stomach hurts right now. It’s like I ate a frickin bag of nails. Whose idea was this again? Don’t answer that!!!!!
I can’t go on a cruise. Do you know how many bathing suits I own?
ONE.
I’m going away for multiple weeks and I have ONE BATHING SUIT!
