One of the last lines Romeo says to Juliet in the play comes to mind, when he believes she’s dead and right before he drinks poison: Here, here will I remain with worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here will I set up my everlasting rest, and shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this world-wearied flesh.
Joe’s deactivating Romeo’s account, not musing on suicide, but still. Did he tell Viv and Jess he was quitting Instagram to try to get me to change my mind? Or did he mean it?
I ask a careful question. “Did you two approach Joe after the meet and greet? Or did he come to you?”
“We grabbed him for a chat,” Jess says. “We wanted to tell him the same thing we’d told you earlier, that it might be fun for you two to work together, but he said you won’t, and now you said you won’t, so I guess that’s the end of it.”
They both watch me.
“It is,” I say.
I try to ignore the disappointment on their faces. What’s even harder to dismiss is the soft, sad meow that comes from Juliet, as if she’d understood every word.
Am I doing the right thing here? Or am I being as silly as a Shakespearean fool?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.”
- Romeo and Juliet (Act 1, Scene 4)
Joe
Packing to leave the hotel is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. My hands shake and my thoughts scatter. My body feels sluggish and my legs seem disconnected from my body, like a bug some child has tormented.
I move methodically around the room from bed to desk to chest to closet, tossing both dirty and clean clothes in the bottom of my suitcase, something I’ll probably regret since I need the clean ones to be clean for the next week. I shove bathroom items into my kit, stuff Romeo’s bag of food into his small duffel, and finally, fold up my suit from last night. I can’t help holding it to my face before I pack it. Kathleen’s sweet vanilla scent graces the collar.
I can’t leave without her. I can’t.
But she’s made it very, very clear that she doesn’t want me.
I have to focus. Boyd will be by any minute. My cousin— kindly, under the circumstances—agreed to take Romeo on the plane back to Tampa this afternoon and hand him over to my mother to keep until I get home. As for me, I canceled my ticket and booked myself onto a series of Amtrak trains.
I thought about rushing back to Florida and burying myself in work, but I can’t do it. I need time to think and, frankly, to grieve. Taking a cross-country train has been on my bucket list forever. Now’s my chance.
I’ll leave from Union Station. The route goes through the farmlands of Nebraska and Iowa to Chicago, then across to Washington, D.C., and finally meanders down the East Coast to Tampa. I’ll stop for a day—maybe more—in each city and get lost in the hustle and bustle. If you see me, I’ll be the guy with the broken and bleeding heart.
A knock on the door interrupts my melancholy thoughts. My heart pounds in my chest, hoping it might be Kathleen . . . but it isn’t. Boyd still looks annoyed with me, and I can’t really blame him.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know this weekend didn’t go the way we’d planned.”
He rubs his side. “You can say that again.”
“I’ll make it up to you when we get home. Bars every Friday and Saturday night and batting cage every Sunday. Sound good?”
“I have to spend time with Samantha, too.”
“Have to?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I’ve been wondering if she’s really the one for me. After the way you reacted to Kathleen, I don’t know. Maybe I should wait until I feel like that about someone.”
“You’ll find her. And hopefully it’ll end better for you than it did for me.”
Boyd frowns. “You going to be okay? I’ve never seen you so broken up over a woman.”
“I’ll make it.” Somehow. I scratch Romeo and slide him into his carrier. “You did good, buddy. You’re a winner, like I’ve always said.”
Even though I feel like a loser.
“See you at home,” Boyd says to me, before shaking his head at whatever he sees on my face. “Try to pull yourself together somewhere between Nebraska and Illinois, okay? I hear those corn maidens are a sight for lonely eyes.”
I try to smile. “I’m not lonely.” I was about to joke that I have him, but Boyd raises a skeptical black eyebrow.
“Dude. You live with a cat and spend too much time with your mother. You work under a bank of fluorescent lights and sit next to a guy with a chronic cigarette cough and bad taste in music. And, cousin, I hate to point this out, but you fell for a total stranger in less than 48 hours.”
I blink. Everything he said is factual, but it doesn’t reflect how I feel. I love Kathleen, plain and simple. I don’t expect my friends, family, or anyone else to understand it. I only know it’s true.
“I hear you,” I say.
He claps me on the back. “Have a few beers and a few laughs. Meet some new people. I’ll make sure this guy is taken care of.”
After they leave, I look around my empty room. One suitcase, one backpack, no Kathleen. And it’s time to go.
I’d planned to grab a Lyft over to Union Station, but a pedicab sits outside the hotel doors. I climb in the back and tell the woman on the bike where I’m going. She has long, gray hair twisted up in dreadlocks, but her face tells me she’s only in her twenties.
Why would you dye your hair gray? It’s going to happen before you know it, I want to tell her. I’ve noticed more and more silver hairs sprinkled around my ginger head in the past year than ever before.
As the girl pedals toward Union Station, I glance back at the Hyatt one last time. Kathleen’s not there. This isn’t some Hollywood romance, after all.
It’s life.
And my life is in Tampa, managing yet another narcotizing project, sweating through my lightly-starched collared shirts over a long, hot, humid, and, if I’m honest—lonely—summer, waiting for the weekends when I can go fish or dull my pain over a few drinks with Boyd.
And all of it will now be much, much worse. Because I’ve loved and lost the most wonderful woman in the world.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
- Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)
Kathleen
A low-level but insistent headache grows as I store my dirty clothes in a laundry bag, lay the bag in my suitcase, and fold the few items I didn’t wear neatly on top of the bag. My chest grows tight with every passing minute, and I feel my energy drain away.
I snuggle Juliet, who peers at me with her mystical green eyes, and then rubs her head gently against my chest. She seems sad.
I glance at James’s side of the room. His bag lays wide open on the ground with clothes, dirty and clean, strewn around it. I know for a fact his toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant are still in the bathroom. He’s been watching television since I got back after talking to Viv and Jess.