prepared to see him. Understatement of the year, and yet, the brutal truth. I’d had a decade free from Eric Jansen, and in one evening the Band-Aid had been ripped off and all of my feelings—pain, and anger, and confusion—had slapped me in the fucking face.
And even though I knew I should just be glad that the whole thing was over, there was another teeny-tiny undeniable part of me that wanted to redeem the fact that I’d come off looking horrendously awkward at best, and totally crazy at worst.
I could friend him. No big deal. Maybe send him a message that said something like:
Nice to see you. So sorry I had to run. I had an appointment I couldn’t miss.
No, a date. A date sounded better.
Yes.
Let him think that I’d moved on, that I had a fabulous new boyfriend who was a doctor . . . no, wait, an accountant. That sounded stable and not thrill seeking. Like the kind of guy who would be happy to come home for dinner at a reasonable hour, who wouldn’t get tired of living in the same place, who didn’t flinch or flee at the idea of putting down roots. I could totally see myself with an accountant. Except, I had dated an accountant, and he’d had the unfortunate habit of jabbing at my clit like it was a key on a calculator until I’d finally had to break up with him before he broke my vagina.
Whatever.
I took another sip of wine. Okay, a gulp. A big fucking gulp of get-your-head-on-straight-and-forget-you-ever-saw-Eric-Jansen liquid courage.
I clicked on “Message” instead.
A message was safer. No need to actually friend each other and make that commitment into each other’s lives. I mean, yes, I was friends with my old hairdresser, but surely ex-boyfriends, hell, ex-fiancés, were held to a more tenuous standard.
My fingers shook as they hovered over the keyboard, pressing down on each letter like it was a wire connected to a bomb . . .
Eric,
It was nice to see you tonight. I’m so sorry I had to run, but I had a date. I hope you’re well. Take care.
Becca
That was nice, right? Maybe a little crazy, but at this point I figured I had nowhere to go but up. And it was probably an improvement over what I wanted to type, which was basically a variation of,
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you for breaking my heart.
It got the point across, but probably wouldn’t do a lot to help me in the sanity department.
I stared at his profile picture. He looked good in his green flight suit. He wore a blue cap on his head that I figured was part of his uniform and covered up his thick Prince Harry hair. He stood in front of an F-16, looking like every girl’s fantasy. And even though I didn’t have a pilot fantasy, I had a whole lot of Eric fantasies, and more than that, I couldn’t ignore the twinge of pride for the man he’d become.
He might have broken my heart in the process, but it was impossible to deny that Eric’s transformation from the boy who’d been in and out of juvie before we got together to a captain in the Air Force—one of the elite few who flew fighter jets—was impressive to say the least.
Once upon a time I’d been his biggest fan, had believed he could do anything. We’d had dreams—I’d wanted to go to law school at the University of South Carolina and he’d still been figuring out what he wanted. I’d been surprised when he told me he wanted to join the military, but so proud of him. I hadn’t thought about what it would mean for us then, just felt excitement that he’d found something he was passionate about, something that could give us the future together that we’d envisioned.
And then, little by little, the fights had started.
The military meant that he couldn’t control where he was sent; it meant overseas assignments, and as he slowly explained to me, it meant moving every couple of years, sometimes as frequently as every year. It meant that being an attorney—a difficult enough goal to accomplish—would bethat much harder, that I would struggle to
And even though I knew I should just be glad that the whole thing was over, there was another teeny-tiny undeniable part of me that wanted to redeem the fact that I’d come off looking horrendously awkward at best, and totally crazy at worst.
I could friend him. No big deal. Maybe send him a message that said something like:
Nice to see you. So sorry I had to run. I had an appointment I couldn’t miss.
No, a date. A date sounded better.
Yes.
Let him think that I’d moved on, that I had a fabulous new boyfriend who was a doctor . . . no, wait, an accountant. That sounded stable and not thrill seeking. Like the kind of guy who would be happy to come home for dinner at a reasonable hour, who wouldn’t get tired of living in the same place, who didn’t flinch or flee at the idea of putting down roots. I could totally see myself with an accountant. Except, I had dated an accountant, and he’d had the unfortunate habit of jabbing at my clit like it was a key on a calculator until I’d finally had to break up with him before he broke my vagina.
Whatever.
I took another sip of wine. Okay, a gulp. A big fucking gulp of get-your-head-on-straight-and-forget-you-ever-saw-Eric-Jansen liquid courage.
I clicked on “Message” instead.
A message was safer. No need to actually friend each other and make that commitment into each other’s lives. I mean, yes, I was friends with my old hairdresser, but surely ex-boyfriends, hell, ex-fiancés, were held to a more tenuous standard.
My fingers shook as they hovered over the keyboard, pressing down on each letter like it was a wire connected to a bomb . . .
Eric,
It was nice to see you tonight. I’m so sorry I had to run, but I had a date. I hope you’re well. Take care.
Becca
That was nice, right? Maybe a little crazy, but at this point I figured I had nowhere to go but up. And it was probably an improvement over what I wanted to type, which was basically a variation of,
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you for breaking my heart.
It got the point across, but probably wouldn’t do a lot to help me in the sanity department.
I stared at his profile picture. He looked good in his green flight suit. He wore a blue cap on his head that I figured was part of his uniform and covered up his thick Prince Harry hair. He stood in front of an F-16, looking like every girl’s fantasy. And even though I didn’t have a pilot fantasy, I had a whole lot of Eric fantasies, and more than that, I couldn’t ignore the twinge of pride for the man he’d become.
He might have broken my heart in the process, but it was impossible to deny that Eric’s transformation from the boy who’d been in and out of juvie before we got together to a captain in the Air Force—one of the elite few who flew fighter jets—was impressive to say the least.
Once upon a time I’d been his biggest fan, had believed he could do anything. We’d had dreams—I’d wanted to go to law school at the University of South Carolina and he’d still been figuring out what he wanted. I’d been surprised when he told me he wanted to join the military, but so proud of him. I hadn’t thought about what it would mean for us then, just felt excitement that he’d found something he was passionate about, something that could give us the future together that we’d envisioned.
And then, little by little, the fights had started.
The military meant that he couldn’t control where he was sent; it meant overseas assignments, and as he slowly explained to me, it meant moving every couple of years, sometimes as frequently as every year. It meant that being an attorney—a difficult enough goal to accomplish—would bethat much harder, that I would struggle to
Similar Books
The Regency Detective
David Lassman
Hunks Pulled Over
Marie Rochelle
Sins of Eden
S.M. Reine
The Summer Tree
Guy Gavriel Kay
Lena
Jacqueline Woodson
Love Becomes Her
Donna Hill
The Veiled Dragon
Troy Denning
Legacy of Desire
Marina Anderson
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth
Cory Doctorow