My fingers are shaking when his giant hand engulfs them and he tugs, leading me back to the table where Josh and Sasha are seated and ordering drinks. I come up right as Josh is saying, “Aaaand the woman walking up just now will have a double Bulleit and ginger.” He meets my eyes, and adds, “In a short glass.”
Josh knows I need to toss one back right now. It must be written all over my face.
“Josh, dude!” Tyler smacks the table and the salt and pepper shakers clatter together. “You didn’t tell me Hazel is Hazel Bradford! Did you know she’s the love of my life?”
Josh’s jaw drops to the floor, and I too want to guffaw heartily at Tyler’s declaration. How many Hazels has he met in his life? I also want to let out a banshee scream loud enough to break every window in the establishment.
“We were together for two and a half years, man,” Tyler says, and as I start to challenge this calculation, he sees Sasha and apologizes for being rude (Tyler? Apologizing for social snubs?), reaching to shake her hand with the one that isn’t still wrapped around mine. “Sorry, sorry. I’m Tyler.”
“Sasha,” she says, dazed, like we are as fascinating as early-days reality television.
“I’m totally freaking out right now.” Tyler looks back at me and wipes his free hand across his forehead as if he’s sweating from the shock of it all. “Josh and I work out together sometimes. I had no idea he was fixing me up with my ex. I’ve been thinking about this woman every day for the past four years.”
I’m not even sure how to absorb these superlatives, so I just give him a tight smile and sit down across from Josh, who’s staring at me with such singular intensity I worry he’s burning a red dot into my forehead.
The delivery of our drinks, and the time Tyler takes to order one for himself, gives me a few seconds of oxygen, and head space.
1. Tyler looks fantastic.
2. He seems genuinely apologetic, if not a little over the top.
3. My brain is goo. This is the Tyler Jones Effect. He’s charming, and beautiful, and has always been my kryptonite.
So much for growth.
I remember the first time he broke up with me, how it felt to hear him say that I was fun, but not long-term material.
I remember the first time he left my bed after coming over for sex, and told me it was always so good that way between us, and thanks for a fun night.
We probably had sex twenty more times after that, and every time I felt like shit afterward. It got to the point where it wasn’t even that I wanted Tyler Jones so much as I just wanted to not have this weak spot in my heart. Every time I thought, This time, I’m going to say no! This time, I’m going to ask him to get out after I’ve come but before he has!
This time, this time, this time.
I reenter the conversation as Tyler is telling the story of the time we went skiing and I made it down the mountain alive after somehow losing my poles and careening face-first over a thick sheet of ice. It’s not a story I particularly relish him starting off with, but at least it’s one where my undergarments are intact and my skirt isn’t over my head.
Yet.
“Yeah, Hazel has a pretty hard skull,” Josh jokes quietly, and I’m the only one to burst out in a nervous, too-loud cackle. He looks at me, grinning at my awkward hysteria too close to the surface. Josh reaches across the table and brushes his fingertips across the back of my hand in what is either an I’m right here, you’re okay gesture or a Be cool one.
Tyler is full of Hazel Bradford is the wildest ever! stories, and regales a riveted Sasha and Josh with The Time I Looked into Adopting a Tiger, The Time Senior Hazel Went Streaking Through Freshman Orientation, and most mortifyingly, The Time We Decided We Should Have Sex in the Bathrooms at Every Major Museum in Portland.
Josh gives me a pruney face because we were just at the Portland Art Museum two days ago. “Gross,” he whispers, and wipes his hands on the thighs of his jeans.
I admit Tyler’s a good storyteller, and I come off sounding like the Olivia Pope of Fun in most of them. I can tell Sasha and Josh are genuinely entertained. But as he goes on and on with all this shared history, I’m weighed down by the drooping awareness that I gave Tyler so much of my heart and my time, and received so little in return.
It is astonishing to me that, in all the time we were together and the years we’ve been apart, this is what he remembers. If I had to share my Tyler Jones stories, there would be a couple of great ones, including The Night He First Brandished the Magic Dong™ and The Time He Showed Me Why Women Love Oral Sex, but otherwise, they’d mostly be That Time Tyler Said He Loved Me to Get in My Pants, and That Other Time Tyler Said He Loved Me to Get in My Mouth.
A glance at Josh tells me that, as his gym buddy rambles on and on about our escapades and sexcapades, the bloom is coming off the rose. I understand immediately; if you asked me which is the more meaningful relationship in my life, I’d say Josh without hesitation. But for sure Josh can see as clearly as I can the imprint that Tyler has left on me. I’d have a spoiled-milk expression, too, if Tabby were here talking about all the shenanigans she and Josh shared.
His jaw ticks, and when Tyler stops to actually breathe, Josh cuts in to engage Sasha on her interests, her job, her life.
Tyler takes this opportunity to turn, and reach for my hand again, bringing it to his mouth. “Hazel?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
Something squeezes my lungs until the air is all gone. “For what?”
He nods, eyes closed, and his lips move up and down my knuckles with the movement. Over Tyler’s bowed head, Josh catches my eye and we both quickly look away.
“I’m sorry for ending things, and making you feel that you weren’t worth my time long term.” So Tyler does remember. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you move on afterward. I’m sorry I used you as an escape whenever things got hard in other areas of my life. And I’m sorry I disappeared without a word.”
When he looks at me, I give him a little smile. It’s nice to hear all this. I can’t pretend it isn’t. But I’m obviously still in shock because I don’t really have words in response, even all the wrong ones.
The waiter deposits a Diet Coke in front of him and with that, things click into place.
“You’re in recovery,” I blurt.
He nods. “Yeah. Yeah. I am. I’m so much happier.” He lets go of my hand to lift his glass and take a sip. “I wish I could do a lot of things over again.”
I’m thrilled for him, because it’s obviously a good decision, but I’m so windblown by Tyler’s appearance that I can’t even enjoy the food. One sip in and my drink tastes rotten. My meal is overflavored and feels like a fluorescent bulb in my mouth.
Tyler and Sasha—and to a lesser extent Josh—seem to do just fine with minimal input from me, but I can’t pretend I’m not relieved when the check comes, and the two dudes whip out their wallets. I don’t even put up a fight.
“Haze,” Josh says quietly, “you want to box that up and take it home?”
I look at my plate. I’ve had maybe two bites. “Okay. Sure.”
Josh grabs my bag of food as we stand, and puts a brotherly arm around my shoulders before Tyler can pull me aside. “That was a fun night,” Josh says quietly, looking down at me.