Page 6 of Coming Around Again

I shake it, ignoring the spark that leaps between us with the touch of our hands. I look away first.

“Let’s go introduce you to the assistant director of sales, who’s sitting in for Desmond’s father Sean because he had another meeting to attend today.”

I go on autopilot, greeting the assistant sales director and shaking hands. I’ve met so many people today that I’m overwhelmed.

And then, we escape. Michelle takes me back down to our offices and drops me off. “It’s been a long day for you already, I’m sure,” she says warmly. “Why don’t you go ahead and take off for the rest of the afternoon, and then you can jump in bright and early tomorrow.”

“Thank you, that’s kind.” I dredge up a smile for her, and reach gratefully for my tote. “Tomorrow, then. I think I’m going to love it here.”

I escape to my car and plug in Vivian’s address into my map app.

Desmond works at my new company, the new job I’m so proud of. The one I was hoping to do so well at. What does it mean for my career?

What does it mean for my life?

If I don’t want to cry in this parking lot, I’d better get moving. I manage to get home by concentrating on learning the route and on driving appropriately. I make it into the townhouse before my control snaps and I break down, crying like I’m eighteen years old. Like my heart is broken all over again.

By the time I can take a steady breath again, I’m exhausted. Forget my usual early-evening workout, it’s all I can do to get myself into the shower and then dress in my White Tree of Gondor pajamas.

When my phone rings, I almost don’t answer it. I know I can’t bear to talk to my mother about anything significant.

But it’s Clover, my best friend from high school. She still lives in Dogwood Falls, a twenty-minute drive from the lake, where her family runs Next Chapter Books. I could use a friendly ear right now.

“Clover? It’s so good to hear from you.”

“Are you okay? You sound awful. Like you’ve been crying.” She draws in a breath I can hear. “Was your first day bad? Tell me everything.”

I wipe my nose. “Tell me about you first. I can’t…can’t talk freely just yet.”

She pauses. “Okay. Um. Listen, I’ll give you all the gossip, but when you’re ready to confide in me, just stop me. Promise?”

I promise to stop her when I can speak, and she begins to tell me what’s going on back home. “I talked my dad into carrying more New Adult novels. We just got a shipment of various Lauren Blakelys last week, and they’re selling fast!”

Clover tells me about the Mercantile in town starting to carry locally-produced, hand-woven, hand-dyed shawls, and about the Dogwood Inn’s new wedding chapel, where two of our former classmates are getting married next month.

Which just makes me feel sad, because Maddie got her man but I didn’t.

Sure, okay, I’ve dated since then. I had three boyfriends at Wake Forest. I dated another guy in Ohio. They were all decent guys. All pretty handsome, and they were good to me. Not a cheater or a slimeball in the bunch, because I’m not an idiot. I’ve been careful with my heart. They were perfectly adequate boyfriends.

But sooner or later I’d realize that I was bored, or that the guy felt more for me than I did for him, or that he wanted a family right away and didn’t have patience with my career goals, and I’d end things.

It occurs to me now that the real problem was that none of them was Desmond. I sniffle a little.

“Are you ready to talk now?” Clover asks me gently.

I take a deep breath, and ask her if she remembers Desmond. She only met him once, but she knew right away how things stood between the two of us. And Clover was the one whose shoulder I cried on when he left without a word in the middle of August.

“The guy who broke your heart? Of course I remember him, the asshole.”

Vivian is my best friend, but Clover’s been my other best friend for longer. I’m lucky.

I take a deep breath. Then I explain about the job. About how the company is partially owned by his family, and how he works there, and how I wouldn’t actually report to him, but I’d be working with him. And how he seemed so angry at me, and how my body didn’t seem to care that he was an angry, abandoning asshole, he was my first lover and my body thinks that he should still be my lover, and how for one terrifying moment I had the awful temptation to beg him to take me, right there on the conference table.

And how humiliating that feeling was, because clearly he didn’t love me enough to even say goodbye, let alone stay in touch. He just dumped my ass, and somewhere, in the back of my brain and deep in my body, he’s still the One Who Got Away.

I’m crying again, but this time mostly because I don’t understand myself.

“But…” Clover starts to say something, then stops.

---