Page 53 of Love Is an Art
Zeke looks pale.
I reach for Zeke’s hand and clasp it, gripping it tightly and rubbing my thumb against his fingers.
“I hope you and Matt are doing well,” he says.
“We broke up. I told you he was a mistake.”
Zeke drops my hand and puts his hand on the small of my back. “We’re going to be late. We’d better go. Goodbye.”
That was a very final tone—not asee you sooninflection in sight.
“I’ll see you at Dylan’s wedding, I hope.”
Zeke’s jaw tightens. “See you then.”
I nod goodbye and walk away with Zeke.
His face is shuttered. It’s clear he’s still thinking about that encounter. He looks so hurt. I want to give him a big hug and cheer him up. We walk through the museum lobby and out the exit onto the quiet ambiance of 54thStreet with its elegant rowhouses.
“Should we go out for dinner?” I ask. “There’s a good Thai place down the block.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was my ex-girlfriend.”
“I gathered.” I wipe my hands down on my pants.Do I tell him now?This is worse than arguing in court.
He turns to face me. “She cheated on me. We dated for two years, and then I found out she was cheating on me.” His jaw clenches.
“Oh,” I say. I wasn’t expecting this.
He looks away. “It was obvious, in retrospect. But she’s a lawyer. She works late, so I didn’t suspect anything when she said she had to work. And she’s very good at lying. Comes with the trade.”
I have to defend my profession. “I don’t think being a lawyer is synonymous with lying.” Even though that’s the least important of what he said. I take a breath. “I don’t think you can beat yourself up over that. You can't live your life expecting that someone is lying to you. Especially someone you’re dating.”
He glances at me. His eyes look pained, his shoulders slumped. This is a different Zeke than the confident man at the bar, or the other night when we were playing pool. He takes a deep breath.
And I’m lying to him.Do I tell him now?I can’t tell him now. Not when he looks so hurt. But the longer I wait to tell him, the worse it is. This could be the worst time to tell him, though. Given that he looks so defeated, and now he’s all focused on lawyers and lying.
Chapter sixteen
Zeke
Ifeelcold.I’mover her. But every time I see Paisley, I can’t help it. It’s like a ghost walks through me. The girlfriend I thought I knew versus the woman she turned out to be. Like this alien took over my girlfriend’s body.
Not because I’m still in love with her.
Because I still feel betrayed. That I could be fooled so deeply. That I wasn’t enough. I’m not over that.
And it doesn’t help when she says he didn’t matter. That only makes it worse. Her whole excuse that she would be monogamous once we got engaged, so she wanted one last fling, only makes it worse. It would never have been the last fling.
If he didn’t matter, our relationship didn’t matter. She cheated on me with someone who didn’t matter. Someone who wasn’t going to last.
And her blaming me—that I was too busy. It’s true. I was busy. I was trying to prove myself to Charles.
She was also busy. She was trying to get promoted. I thought we’d both understood that our relationship was briefly taking a back seat as we pursued our career ambitions.
And our breakup torpedoed all that work. Never again. I have one more chance at the venture capital side now. And one senior ally, Charles, whom I can’t disappoint again.
We’re outside the MoMA. I didn’t even pay attention to how we got here. Tessa is standing silently by my side. Well, that’s a great impression. She’s clearly going to think I’m not over Paisley.Dude goes green at sight of ex.
