ABBY
THE FIRST MONTH was the hardest. Hank was still in town. He got the robotics program started just as he promised, but from the beginning he brought in another engineer who would be taking over as the coach for the season.
We weren’t seeing each other. We weren’t talking on the phone. And he only stopped by my classroom once before his move was official to tell me he’d be leaving the next week and ask me to dinner… so we could have a decent goodbye. I agreed.
It wasn’t like the first time.
He didn’t argue or beg or reason or coerce. He just showed up at my apartment on a Thursday night and we walked down to Main for dinner at Benny’s. We kept the talk small, the conversation polite, the contact to a minimum.
And when it was done and we were back at my apartment and my heart was breaking all over again, we both smiled. I wished Hank all the best. He kissed my cheek and left.
It was as gentle a goodbye as we could have asked for, and so brutal that I wondered how I was still breathing the next morning. How I hadn’t perished in the night. Death by dehydration from tears shed. The next night wasn’t any better. Neither was the night after that. And knowing that Hank had given me exactly what I asked for was no consolation at all.
This was what I wanted.
It’s been a month since he left. Dan still drives me. Hank said that the press’s presence would most likely increase once they realized we’d gone our separate ways, and he was right. For about a week I could barely get groceries without some vulture asking me if Hank had some dark secret, a dirty kink, or erectile dysfunction—looking for dirt from the scorned ex. They always left disappointed. It’s mostly died down to only once or twice a week now, and the reporters tend to be more benign. Still, every time I see one, I’m reminded of the one thing I’m working so hard not to think about.
Hank is gone.
My only consolation is that it was a clean break. I’m not waiting. I don’t have to wonder how long I’ll get to keep him anymore. I don’t have to worry about what it means when he pushes back his visit. I don’t have to be the one kicking herself for believing this time it would be different.
I don’t have to wait for anything.
And any day now, I’m going to stop feeling like my heart is breaking all over again and my life is going to start to feel full. Any day now, and that gut-wrenching sense that I’ve made the mistake of my life is going to go away.
Just not today.
HANK
“NATE, YOU’VE BEEN running point on this one. Just make the call.”
He nods, heading out of my office. I ought to be going with him, or hell, doing it myself. That’s what would have happened a year ago. Five years ago. Ten.
I had to be the one in control. I wanted to be the one with his hands in everything. I needed to fill every damn minute I had, so I didn’t have time to think about how empty I was.
But busy isn’t cutting it anymore. I can’t work hard enough to distract myself from thinking about Abby. From remembering what it was like having her greet me with that soft smile and bright eyes. Talk to me each night, hear her laugh and quirky little insights… the way she says my name when I tease her and she likes it.
It’s been two months, and the truth is that I don’t want to stop thinking about her. I don’t want to feel so fucking hollow. And hell, apparently I don’t even want to work.
I pick up my phone and walk over to the couch in my office. The décor is nearly identical to what I have in Chicago but nothing feels the same.
Flipping through my contacts, I find the one I want.
Hank: How’d the test go?
Alex: Aced it. Thanks for helping me figure it out.
We text back and forth over the next half-hour and he tells me about robotics. Jorgenson is doing a good job as the coach but everyone liked me better. The design and build teams are kicking ass. Their programmers are bickering. And no one can decide how the driving is going to be split up, but they’re all convinced they’re going to crush it in the first competition.
Even via texting, this kid’s excitement is contagious, and suddenly I’m not feeling quite so empty.
How is it that I haven’t been able to muster even half the enthusiasm for the SpaceWalk project I have for the kids back at Bearings?
I ask him how Ms. Mitchel is, not really sure why I think I’m going to get more than a single word, fine, out of some high school kid and not really sure what I would want to hear even if I could. Do I want her to be as miserable as I am? No. What kind of a douche would want that for the woman he loved… even if he couldn’t have her?
But do I want her to be completely past everything? Hell no. So she could move on with some other perfect guy? I’m not that big of a man.
But where the line falls, I’m not really sure.
All I know for certain is that not one damn thing has felt right since the day we ended it. And I have no idea what it’s going to take to change that.
When nine o’clock rolls around, I pick up my phone like I do every night.
Moving on will probably require breaking this habit, but I’m not ready to do it just yet.
“Hey, Dan. How’d it go today?”
“Very well, sir. I picked Ms. Mitchel up at 7:00a.m. She was quiet on the ride to the school. Looks tired. A little thin, as we discussed. I offered her a muffin and some juice, but she declined. No incidents. Pick up from her classroom at 5:15p.m. She was alone. No incidents on ride home. The reporter from Tuesday hasn’t returned.”
“Thank you, Dan.”