“I’ve made a huge mistake.”

Scooby raises his brows, his forehead crinkling as he has a swig of beer. “You don’t say.”

I run my hands down my face, feeling absolutely exhausted. It’s the kind of exhaustion that comes from your soul, when you’re emotionally spent and don’t have anything left to give.

I have been grappling with my stupidity for over a week now and it’s not getting any easier. If anything, it’s getting harder because the longer I go without talking to Marina, without touching her, seeing her, the more irreversible I feel the damage is. Like everything we had, everything we were to each other, is being erased. Her love was once so clearly imprinted on my heart and now it’s fading, dissolving, day by day, until one day I won’t remember what that felt like. To have her, body and soul.

Which is why I want to reach out. I want to say something.

I need to do something.

I can’t lose her.

And I know I already have.

“What do I do?” I ask him.

Scooby and I are sitting in a very dark and empty bar in Sherman Oaks, drinking beer at one in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful day outside, sunny and warm, the smog has cleared and there are blue skies. But I can only observe it like I’m looking down from a satellite. That’s how I’ve been observing most things these days, with distance, like I’m not even here. Just a ghost trying to escape another ghost.

The only thing I’ve been doing is writing. Pages after pages of poems. Poems I won’t post, I won’t share. My self-loathing over what I did to Marina has opened up old wounds, wounds I’d rather ignore, that I usually ignore.

But I’m not ignoring them this time. I’ve spent my life doing that. I’ve tackled my father, growing up with him. Boarding school. Feelings of worthlessness. Of being unlovable. I’ve tackled my relationship with my mother, then my relationships with every girl that crossed my path.

I’m dealing with all of it, head on, in words that are just for me. They aren’t even beautiful. They don’t make much sense. They’re words that no one else will ever see. But I’m feeling it. I’m ripping open my heart and dipping in the pen and writing it down in blood.

And it all comes back to Marina.

The hardest thing to write.

That wound is still too fresh.

It still hurts too much.

And the worst part of it all is that it’s my fault.

I can clearly see the pattern, now that I’m letting myself look at it. I probably should have started seeing a shrink years ago because the pattern is so obvious, I would have been able to work on it right away.

If you don’t believe you’re worthy of love you’ll never know what to do with love when you get it.

And I had Marina’s love. I had it. I had all of it. Right in my hands. She gave me her love expecting me to hold it and keep it safe, the same way I felt safe in her arms, how I felt she was my sanctuary.

I never wanted to hurt.

I never wanted to bail.

I wanted to love her. I swear I did.

And now it’s too late. I broke her trust when I broke her heart and then I destroyed my own heart in the process. It never even had a chance to know what it was capable of.

It never had a chance to fight.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think you’re an idiot,” Scooby says.

I side-eye him. “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Because you are your own worst enemy. You sabotaged yourself. This is all your doing.”

“Still not helping, Scooby.”

“This was all in your hands, bro. You did this.”

“I don’t think I can talk to you anymore.” I have a sip of beer. It tastes bitter.

“Meaning,” he goes on, “you weren’t rejected. You weren’t told you weren’t worth it. You had her love and you still have it and that’s something.”

“She hates me,” I tell him.

“That girl hates no one,” he says. “She loves you. You don’t turn that off.”

“Why are you so adamant?”

“Hey, I may be a bit weird but it doesn’t mean I haven’t found and loved my own weirdos over time.”

Weirdos. Find your weirdo. That’s what Marina had said to Noah.

“You know, the normal people can have each other, that’s cool. Good for them. Be normal. That doesn’t interest me. But just because I’m an acquired taste who rides a bike down on Venice dressed like Abe Lincoln, doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of women who like a guy like me, who want someone strange and unusual. Anyway, my point is…what was my point?”

“I have no idea.”

“Right. Marina. You guys are good together. You’re better than good. She’s in love with you and you fucked up. Big time. And I know you totally broke her heart and, once again, you’re pretty fucking stupid for doing that. But she still loves you. It doesn’t dissolve like that.”

“Love turns into hate pretty quickly,” I point out quietly.

“Mmmm, I don’t think so. I think people say that. I think because love and hate are the strongest emotions, people think they are interchangeable. And honestly, it’s easier to hate than to love. There is no risk in hate while love is based on risk. We just want to protect ourselves, that’s all.” He pauses to finish his beer. “So while Marina might be so hurt and angry that you broke up with her that she feels like she hates you, she doesn’t. That’s still love, just wearing a different mask. Believe me. Lift up the mask and you’ll see.”

I have to admit, Scooby’s words are giving me hope. Hope that maybe she still loves me. That maybe it’s not too late and we aren’t over.

“I think your problem right now,” he says while gesturing to the bartender for another beer, “is that you want her to love you but you’re too afraid of loving her. I think you need to look inside yourself and then you’ll see you shouldn’t be afraid to let anything happen because it already has happened. You already do love her. I bet you have from the start. But if you’ve never been in love before, if you’ve actively shied away from it, well then how would you know? You can put lipstick on a pig and pretend it’s a sexy lady but if you’re honest with yourself, you still know it’s a pig.”

“I’m sorry…what?”

“Am I getting the analogy wrong?” He shrugs and then thanks the bartender as he’s passed another beer. “Anyway, you get my drift. If you actually want Marina back, you can’t just go and do it. You have to know what you want, recognize how you feel, and then, only then, you have to grovel. You have to grovel like a son of a bitch.”

I exhale, my nerves alight. The groveling I can do, I just don’t know if it will work.

But she’s my best friend. She deserves more than this.

And I won’t let her go without a fight.

I’m going to start fighting for everything now.

With a stack of printed out papers in one hand, I march toward Marina’s house, going for the gate. It’s nine at night, the street is dark and quiet, the air humid.

I’ve sent flowers to her house.

I’ve sent gift baskets.

More flowers.

Chocolates.

I’ve texted and emailed and called Marina repeatedly over the last few days, asking to see her, speak with her. Even just to know if she’s been getting my presents.

She’s shut me down every time.

Well, the one time she answered the phone, she shut me down. She said, “please stop calling me, I don’t ever want to speak to you,” and then hung up. Everything else before and after went unanswered.

But I’m emboldened by what Scooby said.

To grovel like a son of a bitch.

To fight for her.

To fight to be a part of her life in the very way she deserves.

The way we both deserve.

So I’m just heading over to her house unwanted, uninvited, and I’m not backing down, not until she knows how I feel, until she hears what I have to say.

But the gate is locked.

I frown, my fingers trying to fiddle with the latch which is usually so easy to lift.

“Can I help you?” a raspy low voice that definitely belongs to a heavy smoker comes out from the house.

I jump and look over at the open window where Miss Havisham is leaning out of, the curtains pushed behind her.

Bloody hell. I’ve never had a good look at her before, only as she was back in the day as a movie star and it’s apparent she still thinks she’s said movie star with all the thick, cakey makeup and red, overlined, Joan Crawford lips.

“Uh, hiya.” I remove my hand from the gate lock. “I’m here to see Marina.”

“She’s not home,” she says.

I glance at Marina’s VW bug on the street. “Are you sure?”

“She’s gone out with her friend. The grumpy one. What do you want?”

I stare down at the papers. “I wanted to give her something.”

“You can give it to me, I’ll give it to her.”

“Well actually it’s best I give them to her in person. I really need to talk to her.”

“So you can break her heart again?”

Ah. So she knows.

“No,” I say quietly. “I’m not going to break her heart again. I don’t even have her heart anymore.”

She rolls her eyes. “You young people don’t know a thing about love, do you?” She sighs and cocks her head. “Do you smoke?”

“I used to,” I admit. “Only on occasion now.”

“Come on in here. Have a cigarette with me and I’ll tell you the secrets of the universe.”

I should probably leave. I know that if I try and go to Marina’s—whether she’s home or not—I’ll get in trouble for it. It is Barbara’s property after all and she’s yelled about calling the cops on me before.

But curiosity has me by the neck.

I walk around to her front door and knock.

Wait a moment.

And then the door slowly opens, extra dramatic, with wafts of cigarette smoke billowing out toward me.

There stands Miss Havisham, though I suppose I should start calling her Barbara now. And unlike the Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, she’s not wearing a wedding dress but a long, red, satin gown with a lacy, white shawl over top.

A cigarette dangles from her sticky lips. Her hand holds out another one for me.

“Here. Welcome,” she says, walking over to the fireplace with her gown billowing behind her and grabbing a giant, vintage lighter from the mantle.

She lights her cigarette first and then lights mine, peering intently into my eyes as she does so.

“You remind me of Montgomery Clift,” she says, blowing smoke.

I raise my brows. “Wasn’t he gay?”

She shrugs. “Everyone was at some point. But you both have that brooding intensity, that need to embrace the dark. He always played the moody, sensitive and self-destructive characters because he was the same in real life. I bet you are too.”

I try and shrug it off. “It’s a bit self-indulgent to refer to yourself as brooding. I’m often thinking and lost in my head.”

“And your brows do this,” she says, sliding a finger down over my forehead, pushing my brows over my eyes. I’m hit with a wave of rose perfume. “You do that and you think and you overthink and that’s what makes you broody.” She makes a flamboyant gesture to the couch. “Here, sit down.”

I do so. I have to admit, the nicotine feels good, even if this whole situation is a little weird.

“So what do we have here?” she asks nodding at the papers as she takes a seat in an armchair across from me.

I absently flip through the pages. “They’re for Marina.”

“But what are they?”

I take a long drag of the cigarette, finding courage. “Poems,” I tell her, the smoke falling from my mouth. “They’re poems I wrote about her over the years. I wanted to give them to her.”

“Why?” she asks hoarsely, coughs.

“Because. She…I want her to know how I feel.”

“How do you feel?”

“About her?”

“It’s a simple question, Lazarus.” She draws out my name. “How do you feel about her? Do you love her?” She blows smoke rings out into the air and watches them float to the ceiling.

“Yes.”

“Are you in love with her?”

I swallow. “Yes.”

She cocks a thin brow and ashes into a silver dish. “Well. Isn’t this interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Love is always interesting,” she says. “Love is our biggest adventure.”

I don’t say anything to that. I’m not sure what there is to say. I suppose being in love does feel like being lost in a big fucking scary jungle somewhere but I’m not sure what kind of adventure that is.

“I’ve loved a lot of men, Lazarus. You may not know it, but I was quite the looker in my day. I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. I had many, many lovers. I broke many hearts. And many of them broke my heart. And it was all part of the adventure. That’s how you have to look at it, you know. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” I exhale a cloud of smoke. “Did you ever have that one big love that obliterated the rest?”

Her face crumbles, just slightly. I immediately feel bad for saying anything.

“Yes,” she says, voice low and raspy. “My first husband. Cooper. He died.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yes. So am I.”

“How did he die?”

“Car accident. Wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The impact killed him instantly.” She pauses, takes a drag, her fingers shaking slightly. “I had many lovers after him, husbands even, but no one compared to Cooper. It was like we shared the same soul but it was much bigger and brighter than that. Like we were…starmates. Made in the stars. Found each other here on earth. It was that kind of love. I never had it again and that’s okay. It really is, because I was lucky enough to have it to begin with. My only regret is that it took me too long to realize what he was to me. I was young and dumb, ignored his advances forever until I finally gave in…he died a year into our marriage. I wish we had more time together. But even so, I have zero regrets over loving him. More than that, I’m forever thankful.”

She ashes again and fixes her eyes on me, razor sharp. “Which is why, if and when you realize what you have with Marina, you need to hold on and never let go. Because life is short and love needs to be indulged often.”

She stands up as those words settle over me. “I have something for you.”

The smoke follows her as she leaves the living area and disappears down the hall.

My eyes take in the room in a quick, absent way. Framed movie posters adorn the walls, old framed black and white photos and random knickknacks clutter up every available free space. But my mind is reeling over what she just said.

It pains me to think I’m realizing everything a little too late.

When she comes back in the room she’s carrying a small tin of what looks to be Altoids.

I get to my feet and she gives it to me.

“This is for you. Don’t open it now. Don’t lose it. Don’t show anyone. Think about Marina and what you want and what she means to you. Do all that first. Then have a look.”

“This isn’t a Magic 8 Ball, is it?”

She gives me a look. “Don’t be foolish. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a lie down.”

I stare down at the Altoids and shake the tin but I don’t hear a thing.

She’s staring at me expectantly, brow raised. You know, to leave.

So I do.

“Is Marina really out with her friend?” I ask, pausing at the door.

“Yes, she really is.”

“She’s not home?”

“No.”

“Then can you do me a favor?”

She narrows her eyes at me but there’s a slight smile to her lips. “I thought I just did you one.”

“It will only take a few minutes.”