Page 46 of The Last Dance

11

Eating My Feelings

Ambri

This week is The Bite of Oregon. One of my favorite foodie weeks of the year. It has everything from: amazing new menus by the best chefs in the state, cuisine from Oregon’s seven regions, a distiller, wine tasting, beer gardens, sweets, music, even an iron chef competition. If I could spend all four days camped out right at the center of it, I would.And… I don’t have to pay for my own food. It’s on the website because it’s for a work story. That’s probably my favorite job perk ever.

This year I’ve invited Claire and Karmen to check it out with me. Ben and Henry are working in Ben’s brewery booth and hopefully will steer clear of us. Noah had to work. In a way I’m kind of glad. I didn’t want today to be completely awkward if Henry and I have another unexpected run-in.

Noah knows about Henry. And he never had a single worry about it until the other day. Little does he know he’s not the only one with worries.

My argument with Henry the other day had me shook. I can’t explain the things I was feeling, and I don’t really want to. The only person who knows is Claire. Unfortunately, since she knows that means Ben probably knows too. I know Ben has probably already told him what our fight did to me, which is part of why I’m so desperate to not see him today. I’m not ready to talk to him again about things having to do with us anymore. It’s been a few days and I’m still trying to process everything he said during our fight. Why couldn’t he say any of that back then? The what ifs are killing me. It’s like an overthinker’s nightmare.

‘I had Henry show me how to do the Heimlich Maneuver last night. You know, just in case.’ Karmen giggles as she says it.

‘Haha. I truly hope that was a one-time thing.’ I laugh but thinking of it brings back the rush of mortification, knowing that my saving grace that day was Henry. Any other century than the one we’re in and I’d owe him my life for saving mine. Which he’s already tossed away once.

I never even would have choked if he hadn’t walked through that door. Now here I am actually voluntarily hanging out with his girlfriend. It’s weird, I know it is, but life moves on and I refuse to keep missing out on things because my feelings can’t handle it.

‘What should we do first?’ I ask, hoping to change the subject from anything Henry related.

‘If I know you, and I think that I do…’ Claire glances around the event ‘… I’m gonna bet you want to wander and wait for some divine smell to call you in.’

‘See, there really is a reason why we’re best friends.’ I wink obnoxiously.

‘She really does have a food obsession, doesn’t she?’ Karmen asks Claire, the two of them lagging behind me as I slowly pace the grounds waiting for a booth to grab me by the stomach.

There are so many mesmerizing smells that I can hardly pull out just one that I can’t resist. Bacon, freshly baked bread, garlic, it’s like a carnival for the senses.

‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’ Claire laughs. ‘I once caught her devouring an entire Costco pie for breakfast after being heartbro—’ She stops mid-word when I throw a glare her direction. I asked her specifically not to mention anything having to do with me and Henry. Her only job today is to make sure our entire conversation doesn’t revolve around the one person we all have in common. Here we are thirty minutes in and she’s already forgotten. ‘A bad day.’ She tries to save it before Karmen picks up on it.

I know it was onlyonenight, but it cost me my best friend and the guy who meant everything to me. Sleeping with Henry was the worst decision of my life. Of course, it didn’t seem that way while it was happening. But that’s the way all bad decisions are. You see them in hindsight.

‘That’s sad. I can’t say I’ve ever done anything smart after my heartbreaks either, so no worries there.’ Karmen shrugs, picking up on Claire’s faux pas as if it’s just a thing women do when someone rips their heart from their chest, stomps it on the ground right in front of them, and then takes pieces of it with them when they leave so it can never have the possibility of being whole again. Sure, an oversized pie is the perfect consolation prize for that. ‘The dumbest thing I ever did after a break-up was tattoo the guy’s name on my body to prove to him exactly how dedicated I was and hope he’d come back to me.’

I look over at her, going from her feet to her head. I don’t see any visible tattoos. I wonder what Henry thinks of his girlfriend having some other guy’s name tattooed on her. Talk about awkward.

‘I thought tattooing the name of a partner was bad luck? Like itcausesbreak-ups,’ Claire asks.

‘Yeah, I found that little superstition out after the fact. I ended up covering it up because I was mortified I’d done it at all. It definitely didn’t help us to get back together and made me look desperate.’ She shrugs.

‘The Dump Truck!’ I point towards a booth hoping to change the subject so we don’t have to have any more of a heart-to-heart than we just did. ‘The best dumplings in all the world, in any flavor you could imagine.Andthey have a sampler where I – er,we– can taste them all.’

‘Don’t kid yourself.’ Claire waves a hand at me. ‘You know you’re gonna order a sampler for yourself.’

‘You’re totally right.’ I laugh.

I mean, it would be wrong if I didn’t have all the details for my story. Right?

‘Oh, my God. These are so good,’ Karmen says a few minutes into our first feast fest. ‘I’m gonna have to start going to the gym for a few hours a day if I keep hanging out with you guys.’

‘Nah… just put a treadmill in front of your TV. Trust me, it works.’

‘Does she really have a treadmill in front of her TV?’ she asks Claire.

‘Yup. And she sometimes runs on itwhileshe eats ice cream. She’sthatmuch of a weirdo.’

Over the next few hours we visit a handful of booths, and the wine-tasting room. I successfully avoided Ben’s booth because I suddenly had to use the restroom, which resulted in me stopping by this amazing teriyaki booth and eating an entire meal without anyone else even knowing.AndI avoided Henry. Win-win in my book.

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