Page 41 of Rebound With Me
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When we finally get around to eating dinner, it is room temperature, but we have worked up too much of an appetite to care.
I watch him eat, like an athlete after a game. He has so much energy but he usually seems so cool and controlled. I can’t help but wonder if any of it’s an act, but he always seems so authentic. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good salesman. I want to ask him, but I don’t. I want to ask him if there’s anything hecan’tdo, but I don’t. I want to ask him if he’s ever been a butt model, but I don’t. Instead, what comes out of my mouth is: “Has Sadie been in touch with you since the weekend?”
A deep crease forms between his brows as he shakes his head. “No. I blocked her on my phone, and she hasn’t e-mailed me or anything. Why? The principal been in touch with you?”
“No. Not since I tossed his clothes out my window and yelled at him. He would see that as encouraging my bad behavior.”
Vince rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”
I do love that Vince is so uncritical of my freak-out that day. Whether he was watching from across the street or not. I was deeply ashamed of myself, because I was still seeing myself through Russell’s eyes. It’s a lot easier to feel good when I look at myself through Vince’s. I just can’t imagine why Sadie would want to walk away from that.
“Did you love her?”
He freezes for a moment, before going back to chewing and swallowing what he was eating. He wipes his mouth with a napkin and angles himself so that he’s facing me square-on. I wipe my fingers and get ready for his answer, because I can tell it’s not going to be a flippant one.
“I’ve thought about this a lot. Almost as much as I’ve thought about you, since last Saturday. I thought I loved her at first. I guess I wanted to. That feeling I had in my gut, I thought it meant I was in love with her because I was afraid of it. But I think my gut just knew it was wrongand I was trying to justify this choice that I’d made to be with her. Now…I think I loved who I was trying to be, when I was her boyfriend. Does that make sense?”
“Oh my God.” I push my plate aside and hold my hands up over my head. “That’s it.” I reach out to pat his knee. “That’s exactly it! I’ve been trying to articulate how it was for me with Russell—and that’s it. I loved the person I was trying to be when I was with him. But that’s not me…That’s not true. That’s always going to be part of me, it’s how I was raised. But it’s not who I am.”
“So why were you engaged to him? I mean, you could have said ‘no.’”
I curl my legs up into my chest. “Yeah, I guess. I think I’d just given up on love and it seemed like since it all happened so easily that it was right and fine and why not?”
“You gave up on it? You’re what—twenty-seven?”
“Yeah. Is that one of your party tricks like guessing shoe sizes?”
“Hey, I don’t guess, I have a gift.”
“Right, sorry…No, I just…Um well I fell in love with my first boyfriend when I was sixteen.”
“Oh.” He seems surprised, or maybe disheartened to hear this. “In Bloomington?”
“Yep. And it was first love, you know, it felt so big and beautiful and forever, and I thought I was so lucky to have met the person I’d spend the rest of my life with when I was in high school. And we went to I.U. together. I studied education, and he studied creative writing.” I look up at Vince’s face and his expression and body language is so puzzling to me. It’s like he’s ever so slowly deflating. “Anyway, after we graduated, he decided to move to L.A. to be a screenwriter, and he didn’t want me to go with him.”
He wrinkles up his face. “Without discussing it first?”
“Not really. We had always talked about staying in Bloomington. I’d teach and he’d self-publish books until he got a publishing deal. And then he just…told me. He had already made all the plans to go out there on his own.” I know what Vince is thinking. “I really don’t think it had anything to do with another girl, it was just that he wanted to start over without me. And I took it really hard. And I didn’t want to get hurt like that again.”
“Have you seen him since then?”
“No. Not at all. He sent me an email when he got there, and I didn’t write back. That was it. I got off of Facebook because I didn’t want to see any pictures of him or know what he was doing.”
“So…you’re still not over your first love?”
“I don’t know if anyone ever really gets over their first love. It’s not the person that I had trouble getting over, it was being in love for the first time. And then, finding out that you can fall out of love. Or maybe I really am an overly-sensitive big baby….I’ve just never been cheated on before. I don’t think.”
“Me neither. That’s the part of all this that I can’t wrap my head around. I can’t believe I was so busynotpaying attention to her at that point that I didn’t see any signs. I can’t believe she cheated on me withthatguy. I can’t believe that guy would cheat onyouwith anyone.”
“Even her?”
“Especially her. Have you seen her?”
“No. I don’t think I want to.”
“Yeah, it’s probably for the best.”
