What Love Looks Like (16 page)

        
Several
days later I gathered what nerve I had left and e-mailed him. At least I
wouldn’t come off as desperate via e-mail. If I’d called him, he might have
seen me as demanding. But if I e-mailed, he wouldn’t have to reply immediately,
and he’d at least know I was still thinking of him. I would ask about a few
weekends in the beginning of May and try to remind him how carefree and cool I
was. I carefully composed my thoughts, taking care to seem blasé.

        
Hey, hope you’re having a great week so far.
I have been absolutely slammed at work, but I checked out a few dates for you
to visit if you still want to. The first two weekends in May work for me.
Either of those good for you? If not, no worries. We’ll figure something out.
Let me know. Later. xo Elle

        
It
was casual but direct. I hit send, and instantly I felt relieved. I’d reached
out to him, and the ball was back in his court. A day later I heard back.
Cool, I’ll check it out
was all he said.
My heart sank at his brevity. I sensed him distancing himself from me; there
was an obvious shift in our energy. But I didn’t know why he wouldn’t just
break it off. He’d yet to say anything was wrong. And I was still hearing from
him, though only intermittently. But according to the conversation we'd had in
New York, he
was
my boyfriend. We
hadn’t broken up, at least not that I was aware of.

Like Jenna said, I
shouldn’t have to sit around feeling miserable when I could simply pick up the
phone and insist on a reason for his evasiveness. His pretending nothing was
wrong was unfair to
me.
I had to
forget about trying to impress Jay and take care of my own heart. If I wanted
to call him, I’d call him, dammit. No, I didn’t want to put him off by being
neurotic, but I deserved an explanation. I clung to the hope that he’d come
around and start wanting me again, but I’d only get the information I needed by
picking up the phone and insisting upon it.

15

 
It
wasn’t until a few days later that I gathered the nerve to call Jay. Until
then, I was playing defense, letting him have all the control. I'd always
calculated my moves precisely to thwart any risk of his seeing my neuroses. I'd
mirrored his every move. If he texted, I wrote back. If he called, I called
back. Even on the day we met, I’d found a way to slip him my number, ensuring
that he would be the one who made the first move. Everything had been on Jay’s
terms, but that was about to change. I picked up the phone and dialed his
number.

“Hello?” he
asked. To my surprise, he answered. It had taken five minutes of mental
preparation and a double tall latte for me to get the chutzpah to even dial
him.

“Hey. How are
you?”

        
“Good,
how are you?” He sounded tired.

        
“I’m
great!” I said, lying. “Just wondering what’s been going on with you.”

        
“Work’s
been a pain in the ass. My customers from Germany are really time-consuming.
I’m with them day and night. Sorry I’ve been so hard to get a hold of.” He was
being completely reasonable. I’d overreacted for nothing!

        
“It’s
okay. I just hope things calm down so you can come back and visit again soon.”

        
“Definitely,
babe. Just give me another couple weeks, and I’ll have everything figured out.”

        
“Take
all the time you need.” I instantly let him off the hook. How could I be angry
with him for working hard?

        
“That’s
why you’re awesome. Thanks for understanding. Look, the customers are waiting
for me to take them to lunch. Can I call you tonight?”

        
“Of
course. Bon appétit.”

        
Peace
returned to me. My anxiety dissipated almost instantly. His voice sounded warm
and at the same time reasonable; he was simply a busy man. His lack of
communication had nothing whatsoever to do with a lack of interest. He was just
trying to make a living. And so I waited that night for him to call, as he
promised he would.

        
By
the next day, I was still waiting. I waited until the weekend. Nothing. The
wait was agonizing. But he made it sound as if everything was fine, so what
more could I do? I knew he wasn’t a phone person, so I had no choice but to
hold out and be content in the meantime.

        
A
week later I was out for a jog with Luna. The weather was finally starting to
improve, and I had a sense of calm. The sunshine elevated my mood, and I had
started to feel that things were going to take a turn for the better. When we
got back, I noticed a text from Jay. Excitedly, I swiped my iPhone to reveal
what I hoped was an update on the work front.

        
What is my sexy little German going to do
with this big sausage after this boring meeting?
He wrote. Panic mounted in
my body, followed by physical reactions: sweaty palms, a beating heart, and
redness in the face.

Pardon me?
I replied.

        
Oh shit
, he wrote back. What was that
supposed to mean? He'd obviously sent the message to the wrong recipient. He
was sexting with another girl and had mistakenly sent it to me. He was talking
dirty with some German slut! My brain worked overtime trying to piece it all
together.

        
You’ve got to be kidding me,
I wrote, as
my body continued to erupt with dread.

        
Babe, I’m joking around
, he said. He was
trying to cover it up. It was too late; he’d shot himself in the foot. I was
overwhelmed with hopelessness and rage. How could he do something so horrible
to me? After everything he’d said to me in New York. After stringing me along
all these weeks!

Within seconds
my phone rang. “What do you want?”

“That wasn’t
what it looked like,” he said.

        
“It
took you a week to pick up the phone and actually getting busted to make you do
it. What more is there to say?”

“Don’t
overreact. I can’t handle it when girls yell.”

        
“Oh
poor you! I’ve been nothing but completely non-obsessive, non-clingy,
non-everything that you didn’t want. And all it got me was lies. So now I’m
going to do what
I
want. And that is
to tell you to fuck off!”

        
“Relax!
It was just a colleague I was joking around with.”

        
“You’re
so full of shit. Tell me the truth, Jay.”
 

        
He
was silent for a few long seconds. “Listen, I told you I wasn’t good at this.”

        
“So
what does that mean? That you have the right to fuck one of your slutty German
customers? That is what happened, isn’t it?”

        
He
sighed. “Yes.”

        
“And
when you were supposed to visit, you were—” I cut myself off, but my tone
said it all.

        
“Yeah.”

        
“How
is it so easy for you to be dishonest?”

        
It
was disturbing to think that someone could lie so effortlessly, as if he were
telling me what the weather was like—and especially since we were in the
early stages of our relationship. The sex was mind-blowing, and we couldn’t
keep our hands off each other. But apparently, he couldn’t keep his hands off
other women either. I imagined a skinny blonde Swiss Miss look-alike with a
German accent, flirting with Jay covertly at his office. I wanted to vomit.

“I told you I
wasn’t good at relationships,” he said.

        
“Why
did you tell me you wanted one in New York, then? This was your idea, in case
you’ve forgotten.”

        
“I
didn’t want you to be with anyone else.”

        
“So
you
wanted to be with other people,
while I waited around for you in between trips?”

        
“I’m
sorry. I’ll try harder,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You don’t want
to lose me, or the sex?”

        
“I
don’t want to lose either.”

“You just did.”
And I hung up. I waited a few moments for him to phone me back and beg my
forgiveness, but he didn’t.

An entire week
went by, and I didn’t hear from Jay. That he made no further effort to try to
win me back pierced me like a stiletto to the heart. I’d felt the pain of a
breakup before, but never so unbearably. In the past, breaking up was
accompanied by a certain sense of liberation. But parting ways with Jay felt
more like a fatality—the death of the ideal version of me. The casualty
of the woman I thought I’d become. I mourned her loss with the same intensity
that some reserved for an actual loss of life. The person I mourned was real to
me, though. When I had nothing to look forward to, she'd given me hope that I
had a shot at happiness. Elle 2.0, may she rest in peace.

As the days
progressed, I grew increasingly glum. I sensed that my negativity put people
off, but there was nothing I could do to perk up after such a blow. Reining in
my misery was beyond my will. My sister and friends called several times,
concerned that they hadn’t heard from me for a while, but I couldn’t swallow my
pride and tell them that I’d been lied to and pushed aside for another woman.
It was too humiliating after how much I'd played up the relationship. And while
I couldn’t help how I felt inside, I could prevent others from having to deal
with me in those dark hours.

As much as I’d
resented my work in the past, it provided me temporary solace during the
daytime hours. It was the evenings that were the most painful, though. I
couldn't focus on anything other than the huge, gaping hole inside of me. I
wanted to blame Jay for all of it too. I wanted to fault him for breaking my
heart and throwing it, bloodied and tattered, onto the curb like a piece of
garbage. But if I really thought about it, I had to acknowledge that I’d known
who Jay was all along, even before his offenses came to light.

I'd been warned
by a member of his own family to watch out for his wandering eye. He’d told me
over Skype that he was obsessed with our sex, rather than with our
relationship. I’d seen a girl in a bar who’d been scorned by him and who
scoffed at the very thought of him having a girlfriend. And I'd even heard
straight from Jay himself that dating him might not exactly be a walk in the
park. But I fell for him anyway. I was blinded by his good looks, his sex
appeal, and his lies. I consented to sleeping with him, dating him, and falling
for him even though I knew he was a bad guy. All that he’d done was made me
feel less empty for a while. But being with him was like trying to repair a
leaky roof with a Band-Aid. Eventually, something was bound to burst. And in
spite of logically knowing right from wrong, literally every second was
consumed with the pain of losing him

The nights
passed, and I returned to the state of loneliness that I’d come to know well
from my pre-Jay existence. The hours consisted of me, my thoughts, and a whole
lot of quiet. When the weekends came, I knew that forty-eight hours of
isolation were ahead of me. I was numb.

        
One
melancholy evening, I walked the perimeter of the park with Luna, wondering if
I’d ever find a way out of my grief. I watched as she pleasantly greeted
everyone who passed us by. Her vigor, her life force, and her very existence:
it made me smile for the first time in days. As we strolled through the
tree-lined pathways, my senses were hyperalert. I listened as a man played
guitar on the grass, his guitar case open with a few dollar bills strewn about.
He played beautifully and sang as if though one was listening.

There was so
much soul in every lyric, in every strum of his guitar. He was playing his
heart out, doing what he loved. He played for free, apart from a few dollars he
received from generous strangers, just to entertain others and satisfy a drive
within him to make music. If he could be so optimistic with things as simple as
a guitar and a blanket, why couldn’t I? I had so much to live for: my health,
my life experience, and the love and support of my family and my friends. I
couldn’t let Jay, my addictions, my past, or anything else define who I was.

        
I
listened faithfully to the music, and it dawned on me that I was ready for the
weather to get warm. I wanted to get back out there, meet new people, and try
satisfying myself from the inside out instead of the outside in. I wanted to be
me, without worrying about men or my body or booze. I wanted to find love in
the world, whether from another person or in my job:
something—anything—that I could feel passionate about. I needed
something that wasn’t accompanied by anxiety or darkness; rather, something
light and pure. I would figure out what was really important and live my life
around that principle. I’d hit rock bottom and was clawing my way back. It
would be a long road. But I wanted to do it the right way—slow and
steady, not just another quick fix to fill my void. Maybe then I’d finally
attract whatever I was meant for into my life.