Page 16 of Somewhere in the Sunset

My entire body shudders uncontrollably against her as I try to get a fucking grip on these tears, and she holds me steady, soothingly, until all of my regret seeps through me. I have no choice but to allow myself to feel it, the remorse and the guilt. And only once it’s embedded in my core does she decide it’s time.

Charlotte smooths out my hair as she unwinds her fingers. She steps back, and I let her. My eyes hurt like a bitch as I lift my head to look at her, but I’m not all that sure she looks any better. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, staring back at one another with such heartbreak pulsing between us.

“Go home, Weston,” she says, wiping away her own tears. She rubs wearily at her temples and collapses back onto the couch, not quite looking me in the eye anymore. “Please don’t call me or come by. I want a clean break, and I need my spare keys back.”

I stand up from the coffee table, but my legs are like Jell-O. The ground really has been knocked out from under me. In defeat, I reach for my keys in my pocket and slowly unwind Charlotte’s apartment keys from the keyring. My heart is in my throat as I pass them to her.

She hugs a pillow to her chest and nods to the door. “Just go. Please.”

But I don’t go. I study her face one last time, memorizing every tiny speck, carving her features into my mind, because I never want to forget a single thing about her. I love her, but now I have to give her what she wants, and that is a life without me.

If only I had my shit together. If only I loved her harder, sooner.

I walk away.

I leave her apartment, her building, her.

And then I google the nearest bar that’s open this early on a Sunday.

GRACIE

I need to try harder to pull myself together. It’s been five days now since Luca left with such finality, and approaching two weeks since he walked out the first time. Things aren’t getting any easier. I still can’t shake the numbness and I feel stuck in limbo, like I’m waiting for something. But this isn’t a temporary glitch in the matrix, it’s my new normal, and I need to accept that I’m on my own now. I need to learn how to survive.

“Tomorrow I’m going back to the gym,” I announce, cutting through Elena and Maddie’s conversation that I lost track of five minutes ago. “Do you guys want to come?”

“On a Saturday? When it’ll be packed with cute guys who can watch me deadlift three hundred pounds?” Maddie says with a grin. “Absolutely.”

Elena scoffs and adjusts her glasses. “I get my workouts from men.”

“Don’t we know it,” Maddie says, and Elena flicks her fortune cookie at her.

“I’m going to start eating healthy meals again,” I continue with steely determination. Feeling bloated, I push away my container of chow mein and then poke at the leftovers with a chopstick. “Not this junk.”

“You say that like there’s something wrong with eating takeout every night,” Elena says. “I do. And I feel fine.”

“I think it’s time I learned how to drive too.”

Maddie swallows a mouthful of orange chicken and exchanges a surprised glance with Elena. “Really?”

“Yeah. I need to be able to get around by myself. It’s time.”

There was never any need to get my license until now. The BART is efficient for getting around the city and Luca always drove when we needed to travel further, like whenever I visited my mom. But there is no direct public transit to Santa Cruz, so unless I learn how to drive immediately, it’ll be a while before I can visit my mom again. Plus, it might be nice to gain some independence.

“I think this all sounds like a great plan,” Elena says, “but it’s missing one thing. We need to put you on Tinder. Or Bumble. Or Hinge. All of them, in fact.”

“Elena,” I groan in frustration, reaching for my wine. It’s alarming how easily these glasses are going down. “I’ll date again when I’m ready, which will be a long, long, long time from now.”

“Can I just reiterate for the thousandth time, I amnottelling you to date,” Elena says with a dramatic sigh, then narrows her eyes at me with a smirk. “I’m telling you to get laid.”

“No.”

“I’m sure a quick smash in the backseat of a car would knock that stubbornness straight out of you.”

Maddie tries to muffle her little puff of laughter. “Sorry, Gracie, it’s just .?.?. God, Elena, you really do have a way with words. You are going to be such an amazing lawyer.”

“Thanks,” Elena says, shaking out her shoulders. She pouts at me. “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll let you work on yourself for a while, but if three months from now you still haven’t gotten laid then I’m going to have to intervene out of genuine concern for your wellbeing.”

Elena means well, but there is no way for someone who has never had their heart broken to everbeginto know just how much I am hurting. Getting over Luca isn’t that easy. I fall backward and let my head hit the pillow, but instantly feel nauseous as the ceiling swirls overhead. We are onto our second bottle of wine.

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