I stumbled out of the bathroom the next morning and noticed that everything “Will” was gone except for some words scribbled on a napkin.
A CAR WILL PICK YOU UP AT 10 AND TAKE YOU TO THE AIRPORT. -W P.S. YOU’VE RUINED ME. Tears began pouring from my eyes; the last thing I wanted to do was hurt him. I picked up my phone and dialed his cell, but it went straight to voicemail. I called Frank and he told me Will had gotten on the first flight back to New York.
Track 19: A Cautionary Tale
My flight was delayed due to a mechanical failure. It was the first time I felt an irrational fear of flying. I thought for sure that I would be going down in a fiery ball of flames and never get to tell Will how sorry I was. I called his cell phone twenty times while I waited at the gate. Every time it skipped to a message saying that his voicemail was full. I couldn’t wait to get back to the apartment and apologize, but I still wasn’t sure what I would say and I didn’t know if I was willing to stay with him after his catastrophic decision to throw the deal away.
It didn’t matter; I wouldn’t get a chance to make that decision. When I got to the apartment all of Will’s things were gone. There was check for five thousand dollars on the counter. In the memo he wrote “for whatever.” I fell to my knees and sobbed.
Over the next few weeks, I called his phone hundreds of times with no luck. I kept replaying the words You’ve ruined me over and over in my head. I did nothing but the bare minimum in the café. I showered rarely and wore the same clothes practically every day. I had no energy, my apartment was a mess, and I didn’t even open my mail. Every day just blurred into the next and I fell deeper and deeper into a surreal fogginess of grief and sorrow. The worst part was that I knew it was entirely my fault. He was done with my fickle bullshit; how could I blame him?
He took everything that was his in the apartment, even the T-shirts I would wear; it was like he never existed. I would look for him on the street and through store windows. I went to the Montosh, where Bradley, the other bartender, told me he quit in typical Will fashion.
“Yeah, the place was packed the night he left. He stood up on the bar and said, ‘I love every single one of you.’ He was pointing and yelling ‘I love you and you and you and you’ and then he pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and read a prayer he wrote. I don’t remember it word for word, but I remember the last line was ‘Save your souls and stay away from love or you’ll be a madman like me’ and then he said, ‘That’s it, I’m done, I’m outta here! Gonna go sleep and drink!’ Maybe not in that order, but at least he seemed happy, in a crazed kind of way.”
The words stung, I knew Will wasn’t happy, he was never neurotic like that when he was happy, it was just his coping mechanism.
I walked out feeling like the world was folding in on me. I gasped for a breath, but the weight of my mistake was crushing. I thought Will must have been completely insane to quit his job; it wasn’t like him to be that irresponsible. I imagined him in some storage closet somewhere, drinking himself to death.
I begged Sheil to try to find him through the mutual friends they had, but she told me no, that I needed to learn my lesson. She’s a tough cookie. Martha was a little more sympathetic; she gave me a copy of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, complete with her own highlighted notes. I sat in the back of the café, scanning the book for some answers, advice, anything I could use; I was grasping at straws. Most of what I got out of it was just a reminder that I’d fucked everything up.
I ran my fingers over the quote Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. I squeezed my eyes shut, cursed myself, then threw the book down and screamed.
Martha came over and put her arm around me. “You need to eat—you’re disappearing on me and you’re scaring the customers.”
“I deserve it.”
“You’re wrong. Will is a deeply sensitive young man and he knows what you’ve gone through this year and he’s been patient with you. I don’t think you deserve any more heartache, but this is your own doing and you know it. You’re not being punished; you’re punishing yourself. You can’t fault a man for loving you, Mia.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure about that?” She sniffed me. “Child, you need a shower. Go home. I’ll close up.”