Page 31 of Happiness for Beginners

“I don’t know how to explain,” he said, sitting up.

“Wait—” I took a few steps backward. “Was this a joke?” I felt a stab of humiliation at the possibility. “Did Duncan dare you or something?” I looked around. “Were you, like, videotaping this for the Internet?”

“No!” he said. Then he rubbed his eyes. “I never thought it would work, okay? I thought you’d roll your eyes at me like you always do. I didn’t think you’d actually kiss me, or lie back on the bed like that, or look up at me like I could mean something to you. I certainly did not anticipate that crazy sleep shirt of yours. And I sure as hell never imagined what kissing you would actually feel like.”

I paced around some more. Everything that had felt so exactly right a little while earlier was now the opposite. I went to the window again. There was nowhere else to go.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

But I wasn’t having it. I felt a burning anger roar through me. I turned around and pointed at him. “Shut up, right now! This whole thing is fucked up, and the whole point of coming here was to getun-fucked up. So unless you can explain to me what’s going on—in simple words that a non-Scrabble champion can understand—we are done, and I mean really done, like I don’t want you even talking to me.”

He looked down. I couldn’t read his expression. He looked… I don’t know: anxious. Or nervous. Or overwhelmed. He stared at nothing for several minutes.

“Well?” I demanded at last. “Can you?”

He met my eyes then, but he didn’t say anything.

I waited as long as a self-respecting person can wait. “Okay,” I said at last. “That’s it, then.” I could feel the disappointment on my face, and that just made it worse. “I hope you and Duncan get a good laugh when you tell him.”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I’ll never tell Duncan about this.”

I didn’t know what to do with the sadness in his voice, or the way his shoulders seemed to slump forward like his heart had been scooped out. I didn’t know what to do with any of it. So I did the only thing I could think of.

“Please get off my bed,” I said in my meanest big-sister voice. “I am going the hell to sleep.”

Chapter 6

After that, I ignored him.

I ignored him while we slept. I ignored him as the phone rang its wake-up call. I ignored him as we brushed our teeth, checked out, and walked to the car. I ignored the hell out of him—like the tough guy I was trying to become.

It was a bright morning, and Jake offered to drive. I sat at the farthest edge of the passenger seat and leaned my head against the window. I wedged earbuds into my ears and then, even though my iPod wasn’t charged, I pretended to listen to music for the next four hours as we left the motel—and civilization itself—farther behind.

Now I knew what I was dealing with. Jake only wanted me when he couldn’t have me. That was a genre of man: the “I wouldn’t belong to a club that would have me for a member” genre.

I knew that type.

All those years with Mike, he only loved me when I was mad. Or distracted. Or busy. He loved tochase,but the minute I let himcapture,he suddenly felt smothered. I learned early on that I had to keep running to keep him interested. But after a while I got tired of running. After a while, I just wanted to be caught.

When we first met, I wasn’t sure if I was interested. But Mike pulled out all the stops: flowers, dinners, love letters. After a while, I was hooked. But just about the time I’d start hoping he’d call, he’d stop calling. It was like he sensed it. Once I realized he was losing interest, I’d make a point to busy myself—with projects and friends, and sometimes other dates. But as soon as I’d manage to move him to the back burner, he’d call more often.

Of course, there were many times in between extremes when we got along great. It’s just that everything we did took place within this bigger pattern, and it took me a long time to spot it. Once I did, it took me even longer to stop trying to change it. Or demanding that he change it. Or hoping a marriage counselor would change it. But some things about people just don’t change. As much as I knew intellectually that it was his problem, I’d never been able to shake the feeling that there must be something wrong with me.

Was I overwhelming? Or too emotional? Or too needy? I’d never thought of myself that way before, but I guess who you are always seems normal to you because you don’t know what it feels like to be anyone else.

I could see the mountains in the distance as Jake kept driving. They really did look purple, and I wondered what trick of physics made that happen. It had been an act of bravery, really, to let Jake catch me last night. In all my recent experience, being caught meant being left.

Yet, here it was, the morning after, and the facts seemed pretty plain. Jake had chased me, caught me, then looked around, wrinkled his nose, and said, “Actually, you know what? Never mind.” Either I was, in actual fact, too much, or something about me attracted men who only wanted too little.

Who knew?

Who cared?

Three years of marriage counseling had taught me that this particular issue was not a resolvable one. It was lucky—lucky, dammit—that Jake had hit the brakes. It was one less thing to struggle with. One less thing to regret. I should be thanking him for stopping us. But I didn’t feel like thanking him. I felt like punishing him for getting us started in the first place.

That was the whole morning’s car ride.

By the time we pulled up to the historic wood-and-stone hunting lodge that served as the headquarters for the Back Country Survival Company, I had erected a pretty solid imaginary wall between us.

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