Sitting in this orange chair with the rickety, loose arm gives me flashbacks to that time, just days after our breakup, when I cried in his office. I’d used up all his Kleenex while spit-firing ways in which we could “fix” our relationship. In response, he shooed me out of his office, telling me I needed to get over it and “move on.”
“How can I help you?” His tone is irritatingly calm, almost condescending, like I’m a patient and not his ex-fiancée. He’s leaned back in his chair, legs crossed, resting his arms behind his head, unapologetic about taking up space.
I suck in a deep breath, bracing for judgment. “I’m looking to reunite with my exes. To get a second-chance romance, kind of like my grandma’s. The one who took over our wedding,” I remind him.
His eyes go round like dinner plates. “Umm, you’re aware I’m with Ingrid now, right?”
How could I not know? Ingrid is another doctor, who works in Oncology. They started dating two months after our breakup. Watching Seth fall into another relationship so quickly, as if the years we spent together were simply an unfortunate blip, was a whole new level of gut-wrenching. Seeing them together in those early days, stealing kisses in darkened corridors or cuddling in the cafeteria in the booth that used to be ours, was torture. It doesn’t help that Seth is boisterous when he likes something. He made it known to the entire floor how “chill” Ingrid is compared to other women, how she loves beer and sports, and how she’s basically a “hot dude” (aka the perfect woman).
“Obviously. Every happiness to you both,” I force out. “You can rest assured, you are not a contender,” I clarify, mortified he’d even get that impression.
Seth pretends to wipe the nonexistent sweat off his forehead as he pours coffee from his travel thermos into his Harvard Medical School mug, crest pointed toward me. “That’s a relief. Though I kind of feel like I have an obligation to warn the rest of these men.”
I give him a pointed look, ass half out of the chair. I should probably get out of here before this turns south. “Really, Seth?”
“Relax, Tara. I’m just messing with you.” He plays off his belittlement like it was nothing, reaching for his smiley-face stress ball. He tosses it upward like a child. “Anyways, I have an appointment soon. What’s your question?”
“I wanted to know, for research purposes, why exactly you broke up with me. You never really gave me a proper explanation, other than telling me you couldn’t handle me. And I thought it might be nice to know what I could do better going forward.”
The tension is as visible as a panty line under Crystal’s workout leggings. Neither of us breathes, blanketing the office in complete silence, save for the dull beeps of various machines and faraway chatter echoing from the hallway. I tug at the collar of my scrubs, body erupting with a sickening, prickly heat from Seth’s piercing stare. “I didn’t give you a fulsome explanation because, frankly, I didn’t know if you were in the proper mental space to handle it.”
I flatten my spine against the back of the chair and meet his hard gaze. “I’m ready to handle it now. Why did you end things?”
He clears his throat, still tossing the stress ball back and forth between both hands, refusing to give me the decency of his full attention. “That’s a loaded question. But for one, we never had any shared interests. You hate sports, and you never wanted to hang out with my friends.”
My eye twitches. Seth knows full well he never invited me around his friends, all of whom are doctors or trust-fund kids I have nothing in common with. Crystal thinks he was embarrassed I was a lowly nurse. That I wasn’t as educated as they were. On one occasion, I overheard him telling his boss at the staff holiday party that I was planning to go back to school to get my master’s degree—which was a complete lie.
He continues on. “But besides that, the biggest thing was your distrust of me. You were really cling—”
I cut him off, unable to stomach the c-word again. “Okay, let’s not forget how sketchy you were in the lead-up—”
“Well, actually.” He holds up his finger, commanding the floor. I almost burst out laughing. It’s a running joke between myself and the other nurses that Seth is NICU’s resident Well Actually Guy, intruding on completely private conversations with technical corrections and irrelevant facts he found on Reddit. “Multiple studies show that trust is foundational to any relationship. If you don’t have trust, you have nothing. That’s something you’ll need to learn if you want to maintain a long-term, healthy relationship,” he tells me, feigning concern.
“Trust isn’t something you have to learn. It’s something you earn,” I say, my tone firm, fists clenched in my lap. “And I think we both know your behavior at the end didn’t exactly scream devoted fiancé.”
“That’s what happens when you pull the leash too tight.” He tosses the stress ball onto the desk, clearly done with this conversation.
I stand, letting out a jaded sigh. Why did I ever expect to have a productive conversation with Seth? “I think our versions of the truth are two very different things, Seth.”
He lifts his mug high for a slurpy sip and shrugs, like he can’t be bothered. “Guess so. Good luck with the witch-hunt either way.”
? chapter eight
MCDONALD’S IS PACKED tonight, full of loitering teenagers and distressed moms screaming at their children to sit down and eat their damned Happy Meals. I take in the familiar comfort of greasy fast food that permeates the air, eliciting a loud rumble from my empty stomach.
Trevor brought me straight here after discovering my lifeless body star-fishing on the living room floor. When I denied his offer of an ultra-healthy homecooked meal, he practically dragged me to his car.
“You need to eat. I need you alive to cover half the rent. Come on, I’ll bring you wherever you want to go,” he’d promised. As an unapologetic glutton, I wasn’t about to deny the prospect of being chauffeured to eat wherever I wanted. Admittedly, his spicy scent was also an energy booster. Two hits and I was up on my own two feet.
Trevor stands in line for our orders while I secure a table near the window. As I wait, I come up with so many things I wish I’d said to Seth. He railroaded me in that conversation at work today, like he always manages to do. Meanwhile, I’m left to come up with sick burns and vicious insults long after the fact, when no one cares anymore except me. Story of my life.
I’m also disappointed in my college self for completely misreading my entire relationship with Jeff. My stomach turns when I think about how I skipped around campus, fancy-free like the human version of a heart-eyes emoji, ignoring the signals entirely. Had I known he considered me to be a total nutjob, I never would have wasted my time on him.
For the first time in my life, I’m starting to understand why romance heroines dramatically swear off men. Maybe I should do the same. Love would surely fall into my lap the moment I did so.
Trevor arrives with our food stacked on one tray. The moment he spots the sprinkled salt and a dab of ketchup smeared across the table, he backs away, shaking his head. It might as well be fresh blood from an open, oozing wound. “No.”
I haphazardly wipe the mess away with my napkin. “Come on. Sit. It’s perfectly clean now,” I assure him, gesturing to the open seat across from me.
He looks into the dirty booth and shakes his head, his eyes flickering to the comparatively clean booth on my side.
I pat the space next to me and scoot over.
With zero enthusiasm, he slides in beside me like the diva he is, knee bouncing under the table. The warmth of his thigh grazing mine sends a zing down my spine. I’m now hyperaware we look like one of those cute couples who sit on the same side of the table at restaurants because they can’t keep their hands off each other.
“Is it the screaming kids?” I ask, tearing the wrapping off my Quarter Pounder like a frenzied child on Christmas morning.
“No. I don’t mind kids, actually.” As I chew that first, glorious bite, he waves a hand around at the floor, full of slushy, brown napkins. “It’s a postapocalyptic nightmare in here.” He zeroes in on a glob of hardened sweet-and-sour dipping sauce I missed at the corner of the table. I promptly scrub it away before he has a breakdown.