“Hurt” doesn’t begin to describe the way my heart feels when I hear Rose and her friend talking. I should hang up the phone the second I realize they don’t know we’re connected, but I can’t.
Call me curious.
Call me nosy.
Call me a fucking loser, but I listen to their conversation and I hate what I hear.
A dare.
I’m just a dare.
I should have known it was strange when Rose started acting differently this week. She started being more outgoing, a little more confident.
I guess I thought maybe she was just being a little braver, a little riskier. I guess I thought maybe she was coming out of her shell.
I guess I thought maybe she didn’t see me the way I see myself: broken.
Instead of hanging out at the house, I head to my local MMA gym and find Ralph. He’s one of my best buddies. We served together in Iraq and now we spar together as much as possible, which isn’t nearly enough.
“You got time?” I ask him. He’s in his office doing paperwork, but he nods immediately and gets up.
“Let’s go,” he says, and we head into the ring. This is what I need, what I’ve been missing this week. When my stress gets to me, I need to fight, to hit, to feel. I need the pain, at least a little bit, and I need to know I’m not alone.
Ralph gets that.
“You want to talk about it?” He asks, throwing a jab. I block his punch and move, then throw my own. I make contact. He groans, and I shake my head.
“I don’t want to talk, fucker. I want to fight.”
“Fine,” Ralph shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to him. “Suit yourself.”
Then he proceeds to kick my ass.
I fight like shit. He throws punch after punch and finally gets me in a choke. I try to fight it, but I know I can’t, and I tap out.
Pussy out.
I show how weak I am in this moment, in everything I do, and then Ralph pulls me to my feet.
“What the fuck is wrong?” He asks.
“It’s Rose.”
“Your secretary?”
“Assistant.”
“The one you’ve had a boner for, for like, years?”
“That’s the one.”
“What happened?”
“We slept together.”
“And? No offense, dude, but after all this time, you should be a little bit happier about this than you seem. You’ve had a thing for this woman for a long time. What’s the deal?”
“I found out she doesn’t really like me.”
He raises an eyebrow, looks confused, so I clarify.
“She only came onto me because of a dare.”
“Ah,” he says, and hops out of the ring. I follow him over to the water station and we both get a drink. “So now you’re questioning yourself and your experiences together and you think she only wanted your D to impress her friends.”
“Basically.”
“You know that’s total bullshit, right?”
“Excuse me?” I growl. I shouldn’t growl. Ralph is just being my friend. He’s being honest with me and right now, that’s what I need.
You’d think that being high up in a company, I’d have a lot of friends. The opposite is true. When I started working for my dad, people stopped being my friend. People began to view me as either dangerous or wealthy and somehow, that never seemed to work out in my favor.
“You’re still hurt about Janine,” Ralph says simply. He leans against the wall and looks at me. Somehow, this guy can see right through me. It’s what I need. I know it’s what I need, but I don’t like it. I don’t have to like it.
Then I realize he probably hasn’t heard the news.
“She died, Ralph.”
“Fuck, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. What happened?” He looks genuinely surprised. He looks sad for me.
“Car accident,” I shrug. “Her mom called me, but didn’t really give me any details. No idea whose fault it was. No idea if there was alcohol involved. All I know is that she was alive and then she wasn’t. She was here and then she was gone.”
“How are you holding up?”
“It’s been a long time since we were together.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You know how they say ‘time heals all wounds’?”
“Yep,” he laughs and pats his arm, which is thick with scar tissue from an IED he encountered in Iraq. Ralph came home early because of the accident. It doesn’t hold him back and he’s luckier than most, but he’s got very visible scarring from his time in the service.
My scars are all on my heart.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“That time heals everything?” He thinks about it for a second, then nods slowly. “I think most of our wounds heal over time. There will always be scars. We’ll never be quite the same as we were before the accident or the fight or the breakup. We’ll never be the same person. Pain makes us grow, forces us to become something new. Someone new.”
“I don’t miss Janine. I’m sad she’s dead, but there’s a sort of disconnect when I think about it. I haven’t loved her for a long time. I’m not in love with her. Even though she hurt me, I just wanted her to be happy. She broke me, but I still wished her well.”
“You actually loved her, you mean,” Ralph clarifies. “When you truly love someone, when you care for them deeply, you want them to be happy no matter what the cost. When you love someone, you don’t care if they have to be with someone else to be happy. You don’t mind if they need to go somewhere else to be happy. It still hurts, but what matters is their own happiness. What matters is their own future.”
“I thought we were going to be happy together, but that changed. When I found out about her and Mike, once the shock and surprise wore off, I genuinely wanted them both to be content together.”
“They weren’t.”
“No, they weren’t, but I hoped for it. Now that Janine is gone, I don’t feel as sad as I think I should.”
“You feel like you should mourn for her.”
“A little bit, yeah.” It doesn’t really make sense to me, but I feel like I should be more upset about her passing than I am. I think I should feel more sadness for her than I do.
“You’ve moved on, my friend. You’ve found someone new to love. Are you really telling me you don’t love Rose?”
“I’m telling you we’re nothing. We slept together one time. It meant nothing to her, to either of us.”
“Wow,” Ralph slaps me on the shoulder. “You’re a worse liar than I remember.” Then he turns and heads back into his office, leaving me alone at the water cooler. I stand there for a few minutes thinking about what he said.
Am I lying to myself, to her?
Am I lying to him?
Ralph comes back a minute later and he hands me a picture.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking at it. It’s a woman: one I’ve never seen before.
“My fiancé,” he says with a smile. “And yes, you’re invited to the wedding, fuck-face.”
“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone,” I say, feeling slightly out-of-the-loop.
“Let me tell you a little something about love, mate. You can lie all you want, but when you find someone special, you need to latch onto them. She’s not Janine. You’re going to fight and you’re going to hurt each other, but that’s part of the journey. She isn’t the woman you were with before, just as you aren’t the men Rose has been with before. Andrea and I? We hurt each other all the time. It happens. We don’t mean to, but it happens.”
Ralph is smiling as he watches me look at the picture of his bride. He’s right: she looks happy. She’s grinning at the camera like there’s nowhere in the world she’d rather be, like there’s no one out there for her but him.
Is that the way Rose looks at me?
I want it to be.
A week ago, I would have said I’m out of her league. A week ago, I would have said she’d never look twice at a guy like me. Yeah, I’ll fuck anything that moves, but I’d never fucked Rose before because she was different, special. I didn’t want to mess things up between us. I didn’t want to hurt her, but honestly, I didn’t want to hurt myself because I knew if I had a taste of Rose, there would be no going back.
Now I know I was right.
There really is no going back.
“I messed up,” I admit to Ralph.
“It’s not too late. It’s never too late.”
“Sometimes it’s too late.”
“Rose is not Janine,” he says for the millionth time.
“I know, Ralph. I know, buddy.”
“Then damn, Parker, fucking act like you know. No more whining. No more pussy-footing around. You want your girl, Parker? Go fucking get your girl.”
I hand him back the picture. Then I give him a big hug. I don’t care if it’s not very manly or masculine to hug your friends. Ralph is a brother to me.
“Good luck,” he says, and I turn to go. I pass by other people working out, other people sparring, but I don’t even look at them as I head to my car.
One thing at a time.
I need to do one thing at a time.
Today, that thing is Rose.
I need to get my girl back.