“Yeah.”
Rigby rolls onto his back, and it’s Mark’s turn to give his belly a rub, the dog’s stub of a tail going crazy at the attention.
“Want to get your mind off it?” I ask.
His head snaps up. “Meaning?”
I blink in surprise at his intensity. “I just mean that I’m going into the city tomorrow. Doing a little last-minute shopping. I still have to get Christmas gifts for my parents. And for you. I could use the company.”
I expect him to say no. Mark hates Manhattan. He hates shopping even more. Instead he stands and considers. “There is a new restaurant in the East Village I’ve been wanting to check out. It’ll be hard to get reservations last minute, but I know the guy—he might be able to squeeze us in, if only at the bar.”
“Well, this works out perfectly,” I say, giving an excited little clap. “I actually have dinner plans, and you’ll have better luck squeezing in at the bar if it’s just you, and—”
“Hold up. You want me to go with you into New York. Right before Christmas. Where it’s tourist central. All while you’ve made other plans for dinner?”
Whoops. When he puts it that way . . .
“It’s just . . .” I swallow, nervous about explaining, but not really knowing why I’m nervous. Other than his glare, that is. “It’s just that Stephen’s in the city. You know that financial guy I dated a few months ago? He’s free for dinner, and—”
“Still with the fucking list?” Mark snaps. “After tonight, you’re still holding on to the delusion that some crazy lady in a train station knows your future better than you do?”
I throw up my hands. “And just like that, asshole Mark is back. Look, I know you think it’s stupid. You think all that stuff is stupid. But don’t you get that I have to at least try? If I don’t, I’ll always wonder. So if you don’t want me to talk to you about my ex list, you can just say so—”
“I don’t want you to talk to me about your ex list,” he interrupts. “I don’t know how I possibly could have made that more clear over the past few days.”
His loud, angry words seem to echo through the small bathroom, and even Rigby goes still, looking up in surprise at his favorite person’s harsh tone.
I’m surprised, too. Not so much that he’s out of patience on the whole fortune-teller I’ve-already-met-my-one-true-love thing, but because Mark’s never yelled at me. Not once. I mean, you’ve figured out by now that he’s not the lovey-dovey type, but he’s actually a pretty easygoing, even-keeled guy. Even when he’s angry, which is rare, it’s always a quiet kind of angry, more annoyed than mad, really.
But he’s mad now. I can see it in the tension of his body, the hot look in his eyes, the tic in his jaw.
I’m . . . confused. And a little stung.
This makes two guys in one night who’ve made it very clear that what I have to say isn’t worth listening to, that my thoughts and feelings aren’t worth listening to.
Too late, I realize I’ve spoken the words out loud, and Mark’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“Are you seriously comparing me to Doug Porter right now? That because I don’t want to watch you throw yourself at the feet of men who either hurt you or were wrong for you, I’m in the same category as a guy who doesn’t have an ounce of decency?”
“You’re right,” I say, closing my eyes, suddenly very, very tired. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I open my eyes in time to see him nod, accepting my apology. And offering none of his own.
“I’m going home,” I say quietly, taking a step back. “I’ll see—” I almost say I’ll see him tomorrow, out of habit, but I correct myself. “I’ll see you later.”
Mark says nothing as I walk out of the bathroom and down the hall.
Rigby follows me down the stairs and across the yard to my own house, and the little dog’s loyalty is just about the only thing that keeps me from crying. I don’t even know why. It’s just a fight. They happen between friends all the time, we’ll probably forget it tomorrow, it’s just . . .
I turn back to Mark’s house and look up at the second floor, even though I know his bedroom window faces the opposite way.
As expected, there’s nothing but still darkness, and I can’t stop the sinking sensation that things are somehow changing between us. And I don’t know why, and I don’t know how to stop it.
December 19, Tuesday Morning
I made the ultimate East Coast rookie move: I made plans in winter without checking the forecast first.
Moron, I think with a groan as I turn away from the blur-of-white window. I know better. I’ve lived in New York all of my life, and my college stint in Boston had even more winter weather to contend with.
It speaks to how distracted I’ve been that I made plans to go into New York City, a two-hour trek, without checking the weather first.
Remember that bitter wind I mentioned last night? Turns out that icy breeze was the precursor to one hell of a nor’easter.
I turn on the news, thinking that maybe it was a freak storm they didn’t see coming. I turn the TV off again once the plastic-haired meteorologist announces that the “magnitude of the storm is on par with what we’ve been predicting for days.”
With eighteen to twenty-four inches predicted over the next day here in Haven, and nearly that much in the city, there’s exactly zero chance of me making it into Manhattan today.
I pull out my phone, knowing I should send a text message to Stephen. Of all my exes, Stephen Hill was one of the good ones. So I’m confused, and more than a little frustrated. I mean, this lady tells me that I’m going to reunite with my one true love before Christmas. I’ve got only a few more days to do it. And with Stephen leaving tomorrow, not to return to New York until after Christmas . . .
It means it’s not him. Stephen’s not The One. That’s the thing about trusting things outside yourself: if you’re going to trust, you have to trust all the way. You have to trust that things like snowstorms happen for a reason, and that your real destiny lies elsewhere.
But man, I wish the stars and the fates and whatever could be just a little more obvious sometimes. I wish that people with the Sight didn’t just tell you little bits and pieces.
I wish I wasn’t both freaking out about the fact that my ex list is shrinking and yet simultaneously feeling . . . relief?
None of this has gone the way I thought it would. At the start it seemed like a grand adventure—an easy adventure, honestly, since it’s not like I was trying to find the love of my life among random strangers. These are guys that I know. Guys that I’ve loved, at least some of them. I thought I’d come face-to-face with a familiar guy and realize that I couldn’t remember why I’d broken up with him—that I’d want him back, and he’d want me back, and happily ever after and all that.
Instead, the closest I’ve got to thinking maybe was Jack, but our physical chemistry apparently had a major expiration date.