"Don't forget the bit about the symphony," he added. "Because that was totally part of it too."
"Thanks for the reminder."
After an easy smile, Jory asked, "What's the story with this ex?"
I didn't want to rehash the epic tragedy of Teddy and me but I'd brought it up, and sooner or later, I was going to have to share this part of myself with Jory. It was much like divulging sexual health histories and exchanging notes on food allergies—boring, occasionally gross, but necessary if we wanted to be on the same wavelength. Or naked.
With a gusty sigh, I said, "On and off for two years. Then, lived together for three years. Cheated on me from the very beginning."
"Oh, shit."
Yeah. That was the usual response.
"Pretty much," I replied. "I moved out and ended things last winter. That's how I landed at my sister's house. I only have to babysit her kids about once a week when she and her husband have their date nights as payment. That and letting her spray me down with all her therapist juju. It could be worse."
Jory ignored all my quippy comments and drilled into the heart of the matter. "How are you doing?"
"I'm good," I admitted, and I meant it. "I'm still in my head a bit because anyone who is cheated on for years assumes they did something to cause it, they did something to attract someone who uses and abuses people. But I've had nearly a full year to be sad and angry, and then sad some more. I've gone through down phases and dark phases, and some ragey, bitter ones too. At some point, I stopped having feelings about the breakup and how everything went down with us, and all the garbage feelings started drifting away."
I passed my coffee to my other hand and knuckled some sugar from his upper lip because it was there but also because I wanted to touch him again. Wanted to laugh with him and hold him close, just like this, and keep my old dramas in the past.
"Are they completely gone? The garbage feelings?" he added.
"Well, I met this blindingly hot guy when he was on campus for new staff orientation—"
"Blindingly hot, huh?" Jory asked with a smirk.
"In fact, the only thing I could see was this guy with good hair and marine life on his ties. After that, I didn't think about the ex too often. I freaked out about dumb stuff like what to wear and whether I'd blown it the first time we got together, and those are total garbage feelings but they're different. It's different. I'm relearning how to take care of myself. My sister has other words for it but I think that's the main idea, you know?"
"I do know." Jory studied me for a long moment, long enough to make me wonder whether I'd said too much, shared too deep. Then, "Maybe it is part of your charm. It's okay if our charm gets a little banged up along the way, don't you think? Or a lot banged up. I just—I have to believe we're all good and worthy even when we don't have clear, concise stories where everything we went through makes sense, and our issues are predictable and our quirks are only minorly quirky, never distractingly quirky. Sometimes big, shitty things happen like a serial cheater and it makes us twitchy about new relationships. Other times, we have a slightly chaotic childhood and we're almost paralyzed with anxiety as adults. The hit doesn't have to be hard to leave a dent. And regardless of the size of that dent, I need to believe we're all okay. That it's our rusty, banged up charm calling out and asking for acceptance."
I wasn't in mad, crazy love with Jory.
Though I wasn't nearly as far away from it as I'd originally thought.
Part III
Winter
5
Jory
There was a gravity tied to each school year, a forward motion with a speed dictated by the combination of my teaching assignment, the mix of students in my classes, my colleagues, and my reactions to all those things.
Certain years crawled by, each day passing more glacially than the previous. Others were there and done before I knew it. The problem was, I rarely knew which one I was in at the time. Teaching railroaded you like that. Exhausted you like that. It was a three-foot job that required thirty-thousand-foot planning, and it was nearly impossible to know how it was going until stepping far outside it.
This was only one of the reasons I looked forward to the winter holiday break each year. By that point, I was in desperate need of time off to recover from exams, the end of the grading period, and all the special seasonal events. I never did any holiday shopping until after school was out for break because getting through it all was the best I could manage.
I was incredibly fortunate to be dating a man who not only understood these things about me but shared some degree of my late December frenzy. Max didn't give big exams and his end-of-term grades were much less complicated but he still had his hands full. Whereas I taught three grade levels, Max taught nine. He had to turn in a grade for every single kid, kindergarten through eighth grade. Despite that load, he was helping me grade my exams.
"Aren't you two the cutest?" Mallori cooed as she walked into the kitchen. "It's like you're doing homework together."
"Except it's not homework and we're trying to get this done so we can drink gin and tonics all night," Max replied, an orange pen cap jammed between his teeth as he scanned the paper in front of him.
"Don't forget the white elephant," I added. "Or, as you put it, the weirdest gift wins swap."
We were headed to a holiday party with Max's friend group tonight. I'd met his crew several times in the past couple of months and they were a great bunch though they were a bit leery of me. More, they were leery of anyone hurting their friend again. That was the story I told myself because stepping into any situation where people held me at a distance and shot well-intentioned warning glances in my direction turned my anxiety up to ninety-five.
It was a good thing they were fun and Max never left me alone for more than a bathroom break because their desire to pounce was palpable. I wasn't positive but I had the sneaking suspicion they'd run a background check on me too. There was no other way they could've known I'd worked at an ice cream shop—same as Max I'd discovered—in high school.
"Right. Can't skip that," Max said. "But go ahead with your happy homemaker fantasies, Mal. We won't stop you."
"It's not my happy homemaker fantasy." She scoffed as she folded a kitchen towel, wiped the countertop, and folded it again. "I just like having you guys here."
"You're a lot like my sister," I said, smiling at Mallori. "You and Keaton are totally different beings but she likes to have family around. Something about people being together pleases her."
Mallori shook out the towel and folded it again. "Well, I'd love to meet her. Your mom too. We could have a get-together sometime."
Max glanced up from the exam in front of him, shrugged. "What would happen if our sisters hit it off? What if they teamed up?"
"That would be an exciting event," I replied. "Your sister, the marriage counselor. My sister, the divorce attorney. They could launch a referral program."