Heat

“Eat your ice cream and tell me what happened.”

I shrugged, squinted at the mint chocolate chip and fudge in my bowl. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Do I need to hire a hit man?”

I took a bite. It tasted good. I was numbly amazed that anything could possibly taste good. “No. I broke up with him.”

“You broke up with him?”

I nodded, pushing the ice cream to one side so I could get a spoonful of fudge.

“Does this have something to do with your mom?”

I nodded again, my throat tight. Suddenly I didn’t want fudge because fudge wasn’t Martin, and fudge would never be Martin.

Stupid fudge.

Holding her own bowl, Sam insinuated herself next to me on the bed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Kaitlyn, tell me everything. Talk to me. Let me help.”

“Nothing will help.” I knew I sounded emo and morose but I didn’t care. Being dramatic was the only thing that felt right.

“Then tell me because I’m nosey. Tell me what happened.”

So I did. I told her all about Martin’s pariah parents and how he’d grown up being used and humiliated—though I didn’t share the specifics—and about the impossible situation with my mother, and a vague description of Martin’s plans for revenge.

It took me an hour because I had to stop every once in a while to sob like an infant. Talking about it was reliving it again and I experienced fresh pain with each word. However, when I was finished, when my tale of woe was complete, I felt somehow different.

I didn’t feel better. I just felt less…despairing.

Despairing, desolate, dejected, depressed, hopeless, inconsolable, miserable…

“I’m sorry if this makes things weird with you and Eric.” I said this to my melted bowl of ice cream because it hurt to lift my eyeballs.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying, I hope this doesn’t put you or Eric in an awkward situation. You shouldn’t let my break up with Martin affect your relationship.”

She was quiet for a moment, and I felt her eyes on me. “Kaitlyn…Eric and I aren’t in a relationship.”

Even though it hurt, I lifted my scratchy eyes to her, knew my face betrayed my confusion. “You’re not?”

“No, hon. We’re not dating.”

“Then…then what happened last week?” My voice was nasally and a little squeaky.

She shrugged. “Nothing of significance. I mean, yeah…we had a good time together, but we’re not dating.”

“Did you sleep with him?” I didn’t know I was going to ask the question before I asked the question, and I winced because it was rude, and sounded judgmental and demanding.

Her half smile was just north of being patronizing. “Yes. We slept together. And we hung out and made out and had a lot of fun. I like him a lot, but I’m not looking for a relationship and I told him that at the beginning of the week. Between school and tennis and now needing a summer job, I was looking for a good time. So we had a good time, but I doubt I’ll see him again.”

New tears flooded my eyes and I blinked them away, tangentially amazed that I could still cry. “Am I a bad feminist? You can tell me the truth.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam chuckled and tried to untangle a patch of my hair near my ear.

“Because I fell in love with Martin. I started falling in love with him the moment he kissed me in the chemistry lab. I am totally weak for him. And the thought of sleeping with someone without being in love…I don’t know. It makes me want to throw up.”

“Kaitlyn, you and I are two completely different people with completely different temperaments, experiences, and personalities. Not all women can—or should—have casual sex. Just like, believe it or not, not all men can have casual sex. And your inability to have sex without deeper feelings doesn’t make you a bad feminist any more than my love for lace panties and the color pink makes me a bad feminist. Do you see what I mean?”

I nodded, still feeling like a bad feminist. But more than that, I still hurt. The absence of Martin screamed in my ears and the acute pain of sudden loss tortured my soul…ugh! Now I was contemplating my tortured soul. I was pathetic.

I groaned. “What is wrong with me? How can I be this upset over a guy I was with technically less than a week?”

“First of all, stop beating yourself up for what you’re feeling.”

“I’m pathetic. I’m a drama llama. I’m that girl. I’ve spent years judging that girl, and now I’m her and I feel so terrible for judging her because, if she felt one tenth of the agony I feel right now, then I need to write her an apology letter. I should punch myself in the face for being so judgey.”

“Kaitlyn, we are all that girl sooner or later. You can’t know or understand another person’s pain until you’ve lived through a similar experience. You fell hard and you fell fast. It was dating boot camp on that island, and you were all in. Girl, you just lost your virginity two days ago! Give yourself some time to adjust.”

“Oh, Sam, how am I going to make it through the rest of my life when almost six hours post breakup I’m already contemplating death by fire as a preferable alternative to the ache in my heart?”

Sam sighed and wrapped her arms around me. She laid her head on my shoulder and said softly, “Kaitlyn, stop and think about this, really, really think about what’s going on. Think about what you know about this guy.”

“I know he loves me and I broke up with him and I don’t even really know why.”

“You know why. You broke up with him because he was unwilling to do the right thing.”

“But he loves me and—”

She made a sound in the back of her throat that reminded me of Marge from the Simpsons and interrupted my whiny tirade. “Here is the truth, and I’m sorry if it hurts, but here it is: Martin is never going to choose anyone—even you—over himself.”

I winced because… Gah, right in the feels.

I pressed a damp tissue to my face. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’m not saying this to be hurtful. You are beautiful and amazing and so smart.” Sam paired this with a squeeze. “And did I mention beautiful? But the thing is…” she lifted her head and searched my face, “the thing is, he doesn’t know how to love. He doesn’t. You said it yourself, his parents are pariahs. He knows all about self-preservation, and he’s thinking only of revenge. He’s the Count of Monte Cristo.”

I gave a pitiful laugh and shook my head. “I know you’re trying to help, but you don’t know him like I do. I know he loves me.”

“I’m sure, on some level, in Martin’s universe of one, he’s willing to make room for you. I’m sure he does love you, as much as he’s capable. But, that’s just it. It’s a universe of one, and giving you a corner isn’t what you deserve. You deserve a universe of two, and a pedestal, and cabana boys to peel your grapes.”

Tears squeezed out of my eyes even as I snorted. I wiped them away with my tissue, which was basically just lint at this point.

“I don’t want cabana boys. I just want…I want…” I glanced at the ceiling and shook my head.

“I know. You want Martin Sandeke to choose you over his mastermind revenge plot, a revenge plot that’s occupied his mind since he was a teenager and toward which he’s been working since he reached the age of reason.”

I nodded and added sarcastically, “Yes. Exactly. Why can’t I be more important to him than a life-time ambition?”

Sam wasn’t at all sarcastic when she squeezed my hand and said, “But don’t you see? You should be. You’re not asking him to do anything wrong or illegal, you’re not asking him to choose you over his convictions. You’re asking him to do the right thing, the good thing, the honorable thing. If he really loved you, really and truly loved you, then you would be more important to him than revenge.”

I stared at her until she grew blurry in my vision and added absentmindedly, “But I’m not.”

“But you’re not,” she echoed, giving me a sad face, then pulled me into a hug, whispering again my ear, “And you should be.”

***

I texted my mother on Monday and told her that Martin and I broke up. She texted me back that she would arrange through the chemistry department for me to finish my lab credits without a lab partner. She also said she was looking forward to seeing me over summer break.

When I received nothing else from her—no call to ask how I was, no thank you or recognition of what the break up cost me—I became irrationally angry and played ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine on my acoustic guitar until 2:37 a.m. I only stopped because Sam came home from a late night study session and needed sleep. When she left the next morning, I picked up my guitar and played it again.

But playing angry music on an acoustic guitar is completely dissatisfying, so I stopped. What I needed were drums.

The next week was really strange. Sam said I was in mourning, but somehow I felt like the one who was dead. Life became mostly periods of calm detachment infrequently interrupted by flashes of intense and painful chaos.