Chapter One
It was heart-wrenching to watch a dream die. To watch that ephemeral hope choke and gasp, reaching in vain for the rescue that would not come before it dragged in its last ragged breaths.
I sat across the candlelit table from Zachary Martin, my boyfriend of one year, on this late November night. My ears rang with silent screams while my eyes watched Zach’s lips move, repeating his declaration one more time. All around us, diners leaned over their meals going about their enviably normal Wednesday evenings while not having their hearts ripped out over a shared antipasto plate. Christmas decorations tastefully accented the walls and windows, and their celebratory nature insulted my moment.
“But I don’t understand,” I said for the fifth time like an annoying robocall on repeat asking if you want an extended warranty.
Zachary reached across the table at Mama Russo’s and held my trembling hand. Not only did he not want an extended warranty, he was ready to cancel all goods and services. “It’s a fresh start—for both of us.”
“I don’t want a fresh start.” I jerked my hand back and glared at Zachary through watery eyes. “You said you had big news tonight, news that would affect both of us.”
Awareness merged with pity and softened his gorgeous features. “Oh, Annie. You thought I was going to propose.”
I leaned across the table, my long, blonde hair accosting the bread basket. “Of course I did. We’ve been dating for a year. We’ve talked about it so many times.” I brushed away hot tears. “You told me you wanted to cut back on expenses because you’d recently made a large purchase.”
“The first six month’s rent on an apartment in San Francisco is a large purchase. Housing is not cheap there.”
I turned my head before I gave into my impulse to tear out Zachary’s beautiful blue eyes. “So that’s it? You’re taking this start-up job and leaving me? We’re done?”
“You’ve got to admit, things haven’t been working.”
“For whom?”
“Annie, seriously? You’re always at work, and so am I. We hardly see each other. You and I have different interests.”
That wasn’t entirely true. We both were quite fond of Zachary. “This decision feels like it came completely out of nowhere. And of all times. Right before my big job interview?”
His eyebrows lowered in confusion. “Another one?”
As far as pep talks went, Zachary wouldn’t be coaching a little league team any time soon.
My watery gaze swept the elegant table. “Why bring me here to the restaurant where we had our first date? I mean, of course I would expect it meant something.” You inconsiderate moron.
“I thought it would lessen the blow.”
“You thought your news would go down easier while I ate my favorite lasagna?” I reached for a roll and tore off a bite. If I was losing a boyfriend and a dream tonight, I was going out eating carbs.
“I’ve tried to tell you a few times. I just…couldn’t.”
“I thought we were going to get married. Be a local power couple. Get to the top in our careers. Have children.” Be together forever. “Are you seeing someone else?”
Zachary’s gaze dipped briefly before meeting my watery stare again. “No.”
That cad! “You are.”
“We’re not serious.”
My blood bubbled beneath my skin like lava. “You’re with someone else, but it’s not cheating because it’s ‘not serious’?”
I guess if I ate that whole carton of ice cream in my freezer, the calories didn’t count if I didn’t have my whole heart in it? What had happened to the man I deeply cared for? The one who saved me the last piece of pizza and watched old black and white movies with me and roamed in and out of antique shops on Saturday mornings? “How could you do this to me—to us?” My voice pitched and wobbled like a porcelain vase teetering on a ledge, ready to crash. “We had a future planned, Zachary.”
“I don’t want our plan anymore. I need…more.”
“Like what?” I stayed at my goal weight for this man. I watched sports for him and pretended I gave one fig about football. I wore his favorite perfume though I thought it made me smell like bug spray. I went to foreign film fests with him, laughed at his lame jokes, and attended every one of his boring marathons. “How could I possibly give you more?”
“I don’t think you can,” Zachary said quietly. “Dizzi makes me feel…alive.”
“Dizzi?” She sounded like Barbie’s drunk half-sister. “Where did you meet her?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Pretend it does and tell me anyway.” He owed me the whole truth, the cheating rat.
“She’s my new trainer at the gym.”
Zachary had started going to a new gym this summer a few blocks from his house in Sugar Creek. After that, I’d caught him preening and flexing in mirrors he’d pass, buying new clothes, and the worst of it all—eschewing dessert and watching his caloric intake to the point of obsession. If the police came and dusted this bread bowl for prints, they’d only find mine. I should’ve known we were on shaky ground when Zachary threw out all the butter from his refrigerator. Can you really trust a man like that?
I studied this face I’d thought I’d wake up to for the next fifty years and thought of another foiled engagement years before. “And when this Ditsy—”
“Dizzy.”
“When this Dizzy’s had her fun and moves on to the next client she so unprofessionally hits on, then what?”
“This isn’t some cheap affair, Annie. I’m…in love. The soulmate kind of love. Not our comfortable, compatible arrangement. Dizzy gets me.”
Arrangement? No, we didn’t have fireworks, and Zachary didn’t make me weak in the knees. But we were good together. “I get you.”
“She makes me laugh and thinks I’m hilarious.”
He wasn’t, so that said a lot about this woman’s grasp on reality.
“We finish each other’s sentences.”
Oh, Lord. That was so cliché. Maybe that was romantic in a movie, but in real life, it was ridiculously annoying.
“We go on long runs and…she listens. She’s fun and exciting.”
The unspoken inverse, that I wasn’t fun and exciting, stung like a poisoned dart. But Zachary was no Mr. Adventure himself. That’s why we were so perfect for one another. We were both reserved people with refined tastes, quiet demeanors, and old souls.
“Dizzy loves warm beer and watching Sponge Bob Square Pants. It’s the cutest thing.”
There went refinement.
Not for the first time, my mind spasmed with the image of my first love, a college boyfriend I’d stupidly walked away from eight years ago when he’d proposed our senior year. I should’ve said yes. I should’ve realized what I’d had and not so fearfully and callously left it behind—like Zachary was now. If only I’d known where I’d be at age thirty—sitting at a table for two—about to become a party of one. “You’re really going to throw away all our plans for this woman you met at the gym? I’m about to land an important promotion at the museum, and your consulting work is on fire.” Could I not make him see reason? “Maybe take some time, think about what you’d be losing—what we’d be losing.”