Page 95 of Love on Deck

“It’s obvious from the way you’re sulking and not returning his calls. Did he make out with another waitress?”

I flinched, glad she couldn’t see me. “He made me a promise, and he didn’t keep it.”

“Must have been a big promise.”

“It kind of was. But more than that, it was how long he’d known he couldn’t keep it and still didn’t tell me.”

“Hmm.” Amelia didn’t say more. She didn’t really understand the whole situation.

It became important to me for her to understand, to not think I was being overly dramatic. “Men don’t know how to do anything but let me down. He’s just like the rest of them.”

“Or maybe he made a mistake because he’s human, and you just dug your talons into it like it’s proof he’s the same dirtbag who left you that voicemail ages ago.”

“I’m not still holding on to that,” I said, tying the band on the end of her hair.

She turned to look at me over her shoulder. “Oh yeah? You’ve deleted it from your phone then?”

My cheeks flushed.

Amelia faced forward again so I could do her second braid. “Thought so.”

“It’s bad, Ames.” It helped to hold on to proof of how awful men could be.

“It was bad. He’s not the same guy he was then, which you obviously agree with, or you wouldn’t have dated him again.”

She was right. I wanted to argue that we hadn’t been in a real relationship, but that wouldn’t be true, would it? It might have started out as a farce, but we’d both chosen to give it a real chance after the wedding. I’d obviously trusted him enough to give him a chance.

I did trust him enough for that. He wasn’t a bad guy. He just wasn’t reliable enough for me, either.

“Maybe you should delete it now.” Amelia scooted a little away from me, the bit of braid I’d started on the second half of her head unraveling, her hair falling limp against her face. “Pull it up! Let’s laugh at it, then get rid of it forever. I bet it would be good for you. Like a release.”

Her eyes were shining, and I didn’t really want to be the reason they dimmed again. Listening to Jack identify all the reasons I was not worth his time after that terrible date two years ago didn’t sound very good either, but maybe it would help to delete it. I pulled out my phone and navigated to the voicemail app, scrolling all the way down to my old voicemails. There were a few from my grandma I listened to occasionally when I missed her, and Jack’s was nestled right in the middle of them.

My finger hit the triangle play button.

There was static while he held his phone, not realizing he called me. Maybe it was in his pocket? It was slightly muffled from something. “Nope,” he was saying to his roommate. “Worst date ever. It started out all right, but she’s kind of stiff, man.”

I closed my eyes, remembering how lowering it felt to hear this for the first time. The pain was sharp, the humiliation of it agonizing.

“Maybe if she lightened up a little.”

“So she’s nothing like Amelia?” the roommate asked.

“Nah. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t expect her to be so uptight. Like, no fun at all. She’s intelligent, so the conversation had potential in the beginning, but I was way off. Kevin should have warned me, that’s all I’m saying. What happened to the bro code?”

“It’s outdated,” his roommate said.

“You know what I mean. Kev knows Lauren. I don’t know why he thought we’d be compatible. It’s no wonder she’s single.”

It went on for a while after this, but the conversation shifted to A&M’s football season, so I turned it off.

“That was brutal,” Amelia said. “I forgot how bad it was.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t say more. My stomach had twisted over itself, making me regret the extra fries that had come with my DoorDash order.

Amelia looked at me meaningfully. “You gonna delete it?”

Was I? There was no point in holding on to it, of course. It would probably feel good to let it go. Maybe on some level I’d kept it because it allowed my anger free rein. Each time the irritation had started to ebb over recent years, all I had to do was pull up Jack’s voicemail and righteous indignation swooped in again, reminding me that men were the pigs I thought they were.

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