“I don’t know, babe. Maybe he did.”
“I would die. Jesus, full-blown denial starts now.”
“Haven’t you been there long enough?”
“I’m on vacation. You don’t go to Mexico to get your fucking heart broken.”
“He probably didn’t hear anything. I would have seen him.”
The ball is yours, Damon. Please don’t drop it.
“Thank God,” she sighs. Everything in me wants to scream at her to pay attention and that her life is about to drastically change. Damon finally takes his leave, and I again lower my glasses, my happiness for her turning envious as my eyes water.
Last week, I was fine, well, fine-ish, and the week before, and the week before that. As of a month ago, I was starting to come to grips with life as I know it post-divorce from the love of my life.
It’s been months. If I’m honest, just over a year of grieving since that blissful time in Sedona. I’ve been grieving three times as long as I got to love him.
Last week, I was moving, keeping up while burying myself in other’s stories, other’s lives, in headlines. Now I’m on a dream vacation with my best friends after hitting a career achievement I’ve been working toward my entire adult life.
My vision blurs as it comes to me.
The future I fought so hard for feels a lot like settling. And if that’s really the truth, then I have no purpose past getting back to my desk. But that should be enough for me, at least until I can manage to fall in love again.
It should be enough.
I still love being a journalist. That much is a fact. I love writing. I love being editor. I love working with my father. That much hasn’t changed.
“You got quiet,” Holly says as I press my towel to my face.
You’re only having a moment because of what you just witnessed. This is their time, soldier the fuck up!
“I’m just relaxing,” I say. “It’s hot.”
“You asked Damon to be my wingman? Seriously?”
I look over to my best friend as years of their history flits through my mind. The time Max Sutton broke her heart when she was sixteen. Damon showed up as I was comforting her, a pizza and her favorite cupcakes from a local bakery in hand. Damon carrying her across our pasture when she hyperextended her knee after dismounting Percy. Damon’s eyes dimming as she proclaimed she was in love during our first year at UT. He pulled the same move six months later with the pizza and twice the cupcakes when it ended—badly. Holly holding Damon’s hand during his grandmother’s funeral. Not letting go for one second as he openly grieved her in the rawest state he’s ever been in.
“Holly,” I say softly.
“Yeah, babe?”
“I love you,” I tell her with a watery smile as my chest continues to burn. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this. All your dreams came true. I’m so proud of you. It might have been a given eventually, but we all know, Uncle Nate included, that you earned that paper.”
“Thank you, I needed you to acknowledge that.”
“Babe, you worked so hard for it. You’re going to kick so much ass!”
We clink glasses as I force myself back into the present, trying to remember the quote that I’ve sort of adopted as my motto—‘Don’t seek happiness in the place you lost it.’
But I didn’t lose my happiness in Easton Crowne. I lost my happiness when I lost Easton Crowne. Still, it’s memories of loving him that push me back from progressing. Ironically, as I sit back now, celebrating my accomplishments, I know my progress is severely lacking because I still haven’t budged personally.
Because I can’t. Because I divorced a man who loved me so fiercely, so completely, that I might have destroyed a part of him that trusted enough to allow himself to love that way again. If so, I did a disservice to the women who will love him in the future, because I doubt he will ever open himself as deeply.
Sadly, neither will I.
Then again, it’s Easton. He won’t settle.
Even with our fate sealed, I have to try to live in the moment and every moment after. I have to look around, count my blessings, and be thankful. I’ve paved my way. This is my life and reality, and I’m determined to live it.
As the tequila glides down my throat, I decide to replace my motto with all the others I can summon with the ever-present sting in my chest.
Carpe Diem. Seize this day—Natalie!
Today is the first day of the rest of your life—Natalie!
You are your own captain—Natalie!
like i never even loved you
Today Kid, EL ROMA
Natalie
I’m drunk. And not in the giggly, cute, adorably passable type of way. As it is, I’m close to sloppy, and gauging from the looks being slung my way by my unimpressed bartender Jerry, in danger of possible arrest.
Little does Jerry know I’m already locked in a Mexican prison, even if it is five-star.
No matter how many bumper sticker slogans I’ve recited to myself today, I lost the battle. So, I dove headfirst into the top-shelf tequila that I’ve been swimming in since Holly left our cabana to prep for the night out.
All thoughts of my victory in becoming Editor in Chief of Speak tarnish as my past and present—which pales in comparison—collide. It all brings me back to the same damning conclusion—the future is now.
After endless months of burying my head in the sand at work, and hiding my raging heartache behind my career, it’s reared its ugly head. Remorse has its wicked way with me and the itch to go back and seek refuge in a packed schedule has me looking up early flights home.
You cannot live to work, Natalie.
It’s the remembrance of Easton’s headlines that keep me parked on my stool at the poolside lounge, adjacent to the resort lobby.
At least in Mexico, I’m safe from continuous updates regarding the new love interest of the world’s most promising new rock star. Here, I don’t have to avoid them as if they don’t exist and press through the rest of my day, pretending I didn’t soak in every line like the rest of his starry-eyed fans. Because that’s all I am now, a spectator, a fan. His past, and maybe for him, still considered a stain.
Even though, technically, I was his first fan and his first wife. No one but me will ever get to claim that title, even if he’s intent on replacing me sometime in the future.
It’s an immature thought, but a valid claim and win, nevertheless.
“AHA!” I shout, and Jerry jumps back in fright, managing to keep a grip on the glass before it slips from his hand. “Whaddaya know, Jerry,” I muse, twirling my colorful drink umbrella between pinched fingers. “I just caught a glimpse of the bright side. Things may be looking up for me.”
He gives me a dead stare as he continues drying his glass. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” I mumble, sucking on the ice from my last drained margarita, attempting to ingest more tequila.
The downside of not catching an early plane home? Watching my best friends fall in love at a time when it’s the most heart-wrenching to witness.
“I have so much to be thankful for, a lot, really,” I reiterate to myself and to Jerry, who motions to my untouched complimentary appetizer in blatant suggestion.
Ironically, even as I continually try to count my blessings, I can’t find one fuck to give about the future that awaits me back in Austin. Not since the tranquil Mexican waters and Se?or Tequila smacked me with a good dose of vitamin truth.
I knew what was expected of me, so I stepped up, took control of my emotions, myself, and my life, and let it fuel me. I did what I do best, I compartmentalized my pain and made and attained new goals. A faint, but new set of abs included.
I’ve since met those goals, and now…my future will consist of more of the same, and it’s blindsiding.
“Jerrryyy,” I drag out his name, a clear solicitation for a pinch more of the numbing juice.