I spend the next two days doing exactly what I should’ve done this week, if I’d known what was good for me: helping my parents get the house ready to go on the market and being the busy little worker bee for Mr. Fowler. Even though I’m not in the office, I’m a workhorse. I answer emails, volunteer to help the other interns, conduct an entire board meeting from three states away, and offer to bring breakfast for Monday when I return. I set up a rental car so that come hell or high water, I will be back in Boston by Monday, by the time my “vacation” ends. I drown myself in busywork so I don’t have to think about Dax.
Not that it helps very well. Or even at all.
When I’m in bed, I don’t sleep. I writhe around in physical pain, tangling myself in the sheets. All I do is replay my last conversation with Dax over and over again in my mind. You know who I am, he’d said. But I didn’t know that side that he showed everyone. I only knew the person he was when he was with me.
But it doesn’t matter, does it? I’m the moron who let him fool me twice.
On Saturday after dinner, I finish packing up my room. Now it’s down to nothing but bare furniture, a mattress, and fuzzy pink carpeting. I guess I’m not feeling very sentimental about my life in Friesville because there’s only one small box of things I want to keep; the rest I throw in the trash. When my parents are gone, there will be nothing in this town left for me. I’m counting the moments until I can get in my rental car and blow town for good. I’ve lined up a car transport that will deliver my VW to Boston so I don’t have to come back to town. Expensive, but worth it.
My mother raps on the door as I’m finishing tossing things into a garbage bag. She has a little crinkle in her brow and is inspecting the ceiling as if she’s hearing distant thunder. “Oh, this is sad,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye.
I nod. I’m numb. Maybe I’ve cried myself out, but I can’t even bring myself to care that in another few days, my childhood home won’t be mine anymore. I want to leave. I can’t fucking wait.
She massages my shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Dax coming to take you back tomorrow?”
I shake my head. How do I explain to her two seconds after I told her Dax and I were together, it all fell apart? I’ve become convinced that sweet, different side he showed me was nothing but a lie to get me to fall for him again. He wanted to nail the “one that got away”, and he did, game over. “I’m getting a rental.”
She cocks her head to the side in question. I wait for the “Why?” Instead she strides to the now curtain-less window and tilts the blinds. “Speaking of your car . . . “ she says, motioning through the window. “Looks like he got it running again.”
I scramble off my mattress, nearly falling on my face trying to haul myself across the room. It’s darkening outside, but it’s easy to make out my bug in the driveway. The door opens and Dax coolly steps out, and runs a hand through his unruly dark hair, still wearing his body-defining grease-stained t-shirt.
Then he looks right at my window and sees me gawking at him. I cringe and back away, turning all shades of red. I peer down at the same boxers and tank I’ve been wearing since Thursday. They have a stain from last night’s Chinese food on the front. I haven’t even showered in two days. I am the picture of beauty.
FML.
I know that I’m never going to see him again. That’s the plan. Even so, this is not the last image I want Dax Harding to have of me.
“Mom! Tell him I’m not here. Tell him I went out,” I plead, wishing I hadn’t thrown away my old comforter because I’d really like to suffocate myself with it right now.
She gives me a tsk. “Don’t be silly. He already saw you through the window,” she says, pushing a strand of flyaway hair behind my ear. “Did you two have a fight or something?”
“No. I . . . I was wrong. I guess we’re not together. It’s complicated.”
“Oh, baby,” she says, smoothing my hair. “Well, it’s probably for the best. You two do live very different lives. Long distance relationships are hard.”
Maybe I could believe that was what Dax was worried about, if he had even called this a relationship. No, he said we were never together. Clearly, he doesn’t do relationships of any sort, long-distance or not.
Dammit. I told myself I wouldn’t think about it again, but of course suddenly I am, so deeply that when the doorbell finally rings I jump sky high.
“Fine, I’ll get it,” I say, daring myself to open the door without brushing my hair or my teeth. Let him see you looking like scum. That’ll show him you really don’t care.