Today is the start of my fifth day without hearing from Jacob. Five days. That’s one-hundred-twenty hours, or seventy-two-thousand minutes, every single one of them breaking my heart even more. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s true. I can’t believe how much it is true hurts. I’ve had relationships that lasted for nearly a year and didn’t sting this badly when they finally fell apart.
Right after college, when I’d first moved to the city, I’d dated a man named Jeremy who had been wonderful for eight months, except for the part where he’d apparently been cheating on me for two of them. I had locked myself in my apartment for an entire weekend, not wanting to talk to anyone, watching sad movies and crying and calling Jeremy every name in the book in my head, even the few I didn’t call him out loud when we broke up. I’d been so devastated and angry, I’d felt like I’d never recover, and I’d sworn to myself I’d never let myself feel that way again over something as trivial as a man.
But this feels worse. Somehow, Jacob just ghosting me completely makes everything with Jeremy feel like nothing. I’ve only known him for a month – and maybe I never knew him at all, all things considered – but somehow, this stings more than finding out I was being cheated on because of a text message sent in error.
I feel more betrayed by Jacob’s silence than anything else that I’ve ever been through. I think it’s because I really felt that Jacob was different, that what we had was special, that it was already building toward something real. There is – no, was, I remind myself – something about us that just seemed to fit together like we were balancing each other out. Knowing it was nothing but an illusion. That I’d fallen hard and fast for a man who didn’t actually give a shit? It feels impossible. It feels like –
It is ridiculous and dramatic, I know it is, but I can’t stop feeling like maybe I’ll always end up alone. That instead of being destined for the wondrous romance of my grandparents, I’m destined to never find a man to really love at all. I hadn’t realized I was already starting to pin all those sorts of hopes of on Jacob, but I’m afraid I was. I guess I thought it had seemed like fate, coming to this town my grandparents loved so much, literally running into a man who I’d fallen for over conversations, whose voice had quickly become my favorite sound in the world. It had seemed like maybe my life was coming together, here in these mountains, faster than I could’ve ever imagined when I came here.
Now it seems like my life is falling apart even quicker.
I know I shouldn’t put so much on this, that I should be stronger than this, that I shouldn’t let a man make me feel this way. Jacob hadn’t felt like just any man, though. I hate that he was. I hate him for being someone who could make me feel this way.
I can’t even find good distractions, can’t pull myself out of my own thoughts for long enough to get any peace from them. At work, it seems that everyone who comes into the shop is buying something for their special someone. I swear I’ve never seen so many couples come in together, teenagers buying hot chocolate and holding hands on dates, honeymooning couples with glittering rings on their fingers wanting to know what pairs best with champagne, elderly couples sharing chocolate-covered fruits as a special sentimental treat. And if people don’t come in together, they still seem to all be buying treats and gifts for someone at home waiting for them. Not one, but four men today alone have asked me what arrangement of chocolates I thought would make the best anniversary gift.
“We have four gourmet arrangements that feature selections of our best sellers. They all make great gifts, and we can specialty wrap them in a favorite color,” I recite, far away on autopilot. “You can also create your own arrangement. It’s priced by each individual item with fifteen percent taken off that total for making it an arrangement, so it’s still a wonderful bargain.” My voice still sounds cheerful and I know I’m selling the chocolate well, but my heart doesn’t feel in it. I’m faking it in a way I’ve never had to before at this job, and it feels like advertising creeping in all over again.
“What would you want?” the customer asks me. He’s a handsome man, probably about forty, in an expensive-looking blue suit that makes me sure he’s not a local. “It’s our fifth anniversary, and my wife always talks about how small-town chocolates are the best. I want to get something she’ll love. If it were you, what sweep you off your feet all over again the most?”
“Well,” I say, bracing myself against the counter because his question makes me feel like the wind has been knocked out of me, makes me want to hide the backroom and cry. I don’t, of course, but answering makes me feel even lower than I’ve been feeling all day. “I’m not married, but if it were me? I’d want my husband to make his own arrangement of things he knew I loved. I’d want him to know I love the ones with the caramel stripes and put in extra of those. I’d want him to know not to put in any with cherries, because I’m allergic to those, but to make sure to throw in a strawberry or two. I’d want it to not just be chocolate, but chocolate customized for me.”
“If I write down a list of what I know she likes and doesn’t like, can you help me do that?” the man asks, looking at me like I’ve just given him some sort of great relationship advice. He ends up being by far our biggest sale of the day, and I hope his wife loves them. I really do hope they have a fantastic anniversary. But I feel absolutely miserable about the whole thing.
Later, as we’re closing up, Martin brings me over a cup of hot chocolate, smiling at me.
“It looked like you could use this today,” Martin says. “Take a seat for a minute.”
“Thank you,” I say gratefully, sitting. Everything today has felt like an effort, and the idea of sitting with some hot chocolate does sound like a relief.
“That was quite some pitch you made for the custom arrangements out there earlier,” Martin says, looking at me curiously. “Is everything okay, dear?”
“Just having a bit of rough time,” I admit. I don’t want to tell Martin the details of my love life, but I don’t want to lie to him, either. I take a sip of my hot chocolate and close my eyes for a minute, momentarily distracted for the first time all day. It’s warm and soothing, every bit as a good as everyone always says, and the taste of it takes me right back to the days of my grandmother’s kitchen.
“Anything I can do?” Martin asks.
“The hot chocolate helps a little,” I say, opening my eyes again.
“I’m glad,” Martin says, smiling again. “This rough time isn’t anything that’s going to make you quit on me, is it? I’d hate to lose my best employee.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. In spite of everything, I still do love this town and this job. Martin is the best boss I’ve ever had, and I’m in no hurry to leave that.
“Glad to hear it. I really do want to start leaving you more and more in charge of things around here. It’s time I stepped back a little, and I can’t think of a more fitting heir to my tiny empire than you,” Martin says. I smile. I know Martin never had any children. He’s a widower, and his wife had passed away when they were still very young. I think he’s been lonely all these years, despite how much the people in the town love him and how much of an institution this shop is. I like to think he and I are becoming a little bit like family already.
“I’d love to,” I say. “This shop already means so much to me.”
Martin smiles again. “I can tell,” he says. “Let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Any way I can help whatever you’re going through.”
“Thank you,” I say again, smiling sadly. Martin obviously can’t help with this. He can’t make the past five days go away, can’t rewind to the time when I’d thought Jacob and I could make each other happy. He can’t make Jacob the person I’d thought he was. I need a friend right now, though, and having Martin in my corner does make me feel just a bit better about the whole mess.