Page 100 of Second Chances
Beth staredat the words on the invitation as she waited for her Uber to arrive. Every day for the past four weeks, Beth had stared at the words letter-pressed on the thick, ivory paper as she waited for her morning cup of tea to steep.
Jane and Charles. Twentieth of May.
It was a week and a half away and every time she read over it, the words became more and more suffocating.She read them with her eyes, she read them in her mind, some days she read them out loud, some days she read them backwards, some days she traced the letters with her fingertip, but without fail, every day and every way that she read the words, they condensed and absorbed into her as one solitary and cohesive unit:Darcy.
It had been over four months – almost five – since she had seen him, since she had left him. She’d gotten on the train to Boston and never looked back. Locking her emotions and all thoughts of what had happened that day deep down inside hadn’t been easy, but she’d quickly learned that as hard as it was to sequester them, it was much harder on herself to let them roam free.
She’d always considered herself a strong person, in spite of her weakness around Darcy, but looking back, her past-self had no idea what being strong really meant.
Now she did.
It was a difficult perspective to master, there was no question. In hindsight, she now considered it a stroke of luck that she had moved in January, the coldest time of the year; the cold froze her face before her tears even had a chance to fall and the desire to remain indoors prevented any spontaneous breakdowns from being witnessed by random strangers - and there were quite a few of those in the beginning. It probably took most of her first month here to really work through the kinks of putting her own emotional mask in place.
But she’d learned how to do that from the best.
When the train arrived in Boston that night, she took a cab to the AirBNB condo that she had reserved for the week while in route; a hotel would have been easier to track, if someone had been looking. Arriving at her destination, she created a new Gmail account and sent an email to Jane, letting her know that she was safe and that she just needed some time. She apologized for leaving Jane to make excuses and clean up the mess of her sudden departure, but she needed space to herself, for herself. Ending the email, she told her sister she’d be in touch with her new cell phone number soon but only with Jane’s express promise to not giveanyoneany of her new contact information. Jane’s instructions were to tell their family that Beth had been given a new job opportunity in Boston where they would need her to start right away.
She could only imagine the hell that their mother was putting Jane through for pretending to not know anything. It was the only way to handle Irene; if she knew that Jane had more information, she wouldn’t rest until she’d extricated it all from her daughter.
No, knowing Irene, she probably was more irritated than worried at Beth. She could hear her mother’s voice now –‘Only Beth would do something like this’or ‘I told you that girl was trouble, John.’Her mother would have no qualm writing off what was necessary for her sanity as something that was thoughtlessly immature.
It was something that Beth could live with.
The alternative – telling her mother the truth about everything, on the other hand, was not. What had hurt was not being able to tell her father. She knew he was worried about her and she knew he would never buy the story that Jane was instructed to give. He’d seen her and noticed too much over those last few months in the city. Jane had mentioned him in almost every email that they exchanged for the first couple of weeks after she had left – how he always asked about her and how her new position was going.
Beth had finally caved and emailed him from her work account; he didn’t deserve to be cut off even if she couldn’t tell him the whole story. They’d kept a weekly contact – emails with superficial questions and conversation; their lack of depth made her heart hurt, but opening up everything to him would open a wound she was afraid she’d never be able to close again. At least, this way, he knew she was safe and ok – relatively speaking, after she’d scared him by abruptly leaving like she had.
Desperate times…
Beth had to laugh at herself for how she had behaved - like she was some sort of undercover spy, protecting her identity. In retrospect, what was she thinking? That Darcy was going to come after her? That thought must have been from her emotionally traumatized brain; a brain that still lived in romantic movies where her lover would travel to the ends of the Earth to find her and win her back. No, rational Beth knew that the man who had moved on with his “hated” ex-girlfriend onlyhoursafter breaking up with her, would not be looking to find or come after her.
She hadn’t heard from him –not one word;she told herself that she didn’t want to and that it was a good thing. Over time, she acknowledged the truth that she wasn’t sure if it had alleviated or in fact exacerbated her hurt.
Thinking back, the first few days in Boston were a black hole of anger and depression; one that would have continued its downward vacuum, pulling all of the life out of her, if it hadn’t been for Col – the thought of him bringing a smile to her face.
Colin Dempsey.
Patrick’s twin brother and major hunk, according to the media. To her? He had been her savior, and now, her only friend. Pat had responded to her impromptu email three days later, saying that he wasn’t going to be able to make it to Boston until the week of the Dempsey Contest, but he’d called Christine, his head of Human Resources at the Dempsey Center, and said she would be giving Beth a call in the next day or two to set up a formal interview. After that, life went on – or so they say.
She was brought into a PR position at the Dempsey Center to work alongside Colin. She hadn’t even known Pat had a brother, but after meeting Colin, she could see how similar they were. Even though they weren’t identical twins, they both had that same movie-star, make-your-knees-weak smile, the same color hair – although Colin kept his a bit shorter; the biggest difference she noticed was their eyes – Colin’s were a deep green, whereas Pat’s were just brown. Colin was friendly and outgoing like his brother but didn’t enjoy being in the spotlight like Pat did. They’d done a few acting gigs together when they were younger. Colin faded out of that lifestyle once their mom got sick and let his slightly older brother take the spotlight.
They’d founded the Center together, Pat being the public face for their project and Col, being less of a celebrity than his brother, the driving force behind the day-to-day operations.
It was a much different world of PR than what she was used to. She traded in celebrities and parties for cancer survivors and charitable fundraisers. Not that she hadn’t enjoyed her work for Gardner, but she felt that her new position brought more meaning to her life.
Or maybe that’s just what she kept telling herself to stay convinced that she was in a better place now.
Beth laughed to herself – ‘a better place.’ What did that even mean? Most days she felt like she wasn’t even in a place; she was just floating through, trying to not let anything from the outside world touch her. She kept her experiences limited – mostly just going to work and coming home, maybe the occasional run. She kept her relationships and interactions to practically non-existent. She was friendly with her co-workers – cordial, but never so much that they invited her out to do things with them.Anymore at least.They had in the beginning, when she was new. Then, there was no way she could have gone; every day had been a battle to make it through the workday without breaking down. After she got home, the floodgates would open until exhaustion from crying would put her to sleep, allowing her to recharge for the cycle to begin again the following morning.
The battle hadn’t stopped; it only became mundane. Like a video game level that, as you repeatedly challenge it, you learn where every pit, booby-trap, and enemy are waiting and at some point, you know it so well that you finally beat the level and move on.
That point hadn’t come yet; she still hadn’t figured out how to beat her level of heartbreak.
Every day she deflected and avoided all of the traps that would cause her to remember and cause her to break. But every day she got home, and even though the crying had subsided – for the most part, the hurt remained the same.
She’d been in no condition to form any relationship – even a friendship, at that time. Her only real and substantial interactions were with Jane, which she also kept on a limited basis. She talked to her sister once or twice a week usually and the unspoken rule was that Darcy was never mentioned. Beth never complained to her, never cried to her, never led her to believe that anything was wrong. She’d done enough of that; this was no longer Jane’s burden to help her bear.
And then there was Colin. It was obvious that something bad - something really bad – had happened in New York, prompting her abrupt departure and her request for a job from his brother, but he never pressed her. When he’d been introduced to her and welcomed her to the company, he’d been overly welcoming, yet completely professional; in spite of the fact that his eyes told her he was curious to know what had happened to make her move, to make her want to work with them. He never asked, never hinted -God bless his soul.
