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Calling out of my shift less than an hour before I was supposed to show up was reckless–even for me. Instead of spending the afternoon scrolling on tiktok, Morgan would be forced to actually work today. For that alone, I could expect the worst punishment in the history of passive-aggressive management. There were countless ways she could make tomorrow’s shift hell for me.
But there was no way I could show up for work and still do it today. I didn’t want to rush the conversation with James. Even if I knew the conversation wouldn’t be a fun one.
The car rolled to a stop and silently, I stared at what must have been James’s home.
The glass and chrome building gleamed in the winter sun. I couldn’t understand how a neighborhood this fancy was only a 10 minute drive from my house. I don’t think my mother did either based on the way she gaped at the high rise while dropping me off. She didn’t appreciate hearing that I’d skipped work but was otherwise pretty nonchalant when I re-routed us from Mooove Over to my “friend’s” place close by.
After assuring my mom that I’d find my way back, I was left alone to stare up at the intimidating condo.
“Okay, you can do this. You’re just admitting to your boyfriend that you cheated on him twice. No big deal.”
Except it was a big deal. On a sidewalk in the heart of the city, I stood frozen, hardly able to move. Busy commuters rushed by me with frustrated grumbles but I couldn’t hear any of it. Someone bumped into me hard enough to make me stumble forward but it was just the push I needed. With the new momentum, I walked.
I walked all the way inside.
James’s building had a fancy security guard standing at the front desk. That meant that instead of punching in a code that James could have texted me in 3 seconds, I had to wait 3 minutes for the guard to call one of the tenants before I was let through.
The guard reached into the elevator and chose to the correct floor before I walked in, watching me intently until the doors closed. I assumed it was a building policy. Maybe they didn’t want me pressing different buttons and wreaking havoc throughout the building. But the action made me feel like a little kid. Crossing my arms, I muttered to myself about the condescending employee. I complained long enough that I didn’t notice what button the guard pushed. When the elevator doors slid open again, I realized that James lived on the second highest floor.
“How rich is he?”
The entire floor only had a couple of doors, meaning the units inside must have been huge. In seconds, I identified the number James texted me. My chest was tight with anxiety but still, I knocked.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t James looking exactly like he did at school a few hours earlier. He wore the same clothes, his hair was parted the same way. He didn’t look like a guy about to go through a breakup. Except, he seemed happier. His full set of teeth were on display as he smiled and unfortunately, I think I was the reason why.
Hitting him with the classic “we need to talk” was supposed to soften the blow but James hadn’t caught the hint. The heavy knot at the bottom of my stomach tightened further and I felt a cold sweat coming on.
Selfishly, I’d hoped he might have picked up on what I planned to do. But whatever gods existed out in the universe had no plans of helping me now.
“Welcome to my humble abode!” He swept his arm out, gesturing to a condo that was anything but humble. I was getting smacked in the face by luxury and James calmly watched as if my stunned reaction was normal.
“I’m so glad you finally came over.”
Even saying “me too” would have been a lie so I just pushed out my most convincing smile and stepped inside. As I expected, the inside was simply beautiful. High ceilings and tiled floors were connected by windows showing a breathtaking view of the city. The walls were a crisp white and the furniture looked concerningly stainless. Whether that was because they had maids working for them or were just new enough to the city was a small mystery.
James ushered me further inside but the deeper into his home I got, the more uncomfortable I became. It was just too empty. There was so much space and so little dust. James’s hand had naturally fallen to my lower back but his touch didn’t help. The stark reminder of what I was about to lose had me feeling nauseous.
“Can we sit?” I asked, pointing to the couch like it wasn’t the obvious choice. James led us to his beige-white sofa. The cushions were more comfortable than they looked so I leaned into them with a sigh.
“Wait here, I have something for you.”
I opened my mouth to protest but James was already rushing out of the room and down the hall. I was alone for half a second, dreading the sight of whatever bouquet of flowers or box of chocolates James had decided to gift me. This was the worst time for him to become an acts of service kind of guy.
Then, the mounted flat screen TV flickered to life. It went from the home screen to youtube before James re-entered the room, a tan fedora perched on his head.
My jaw dropped when the video started and James proceeded to sing along to Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney. With his TV remote clutched firmly in hand, James performed the entire thing. I never thought my boyfriend was much of a singer and my prediction was confirmed as his vocal chords rattled, struggling to match the notes of the blond teen performing behind him.
Within seconds, my hands flew up to my face and on my face is where they stayed. Covering my mouth became a necessity. As James tried and failed to hit any note that required the faintest amount of falsetto, I could pretend to be happy while I died inside.
A 17-year-old Jesse talked about commitment and faithfulness and James didn’t hesitate to sing along. I could tell he didn’t take the words lightly which only made it harder to watch. James, in his blond-haired, British glory was promising me something I’d already failed to give him. That thought alone almost made me cry four times in the span of 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
The screen faded to black with Jesse and his video vixen holding hands on the beach. James lowered his mic (the remote) expectantly, waiting for my reaction.
“James.” I reached for his hands, tugging him down to sit beside me on the couch. I could see how badly my own hands shook. “You need to know that I . . . I-“
“I love you too.” He flipped my hold, his hands enveloping mine tightly. “Sorry, I’ve just been holding that back for so long. I’m so glad you feel the same.”
“James.”
James heard the desperation in my voice. He saw my guilty expression. He felt my energy shift. Finally, the smile that had been glued to his face the entire day melted away.
” . . . you do feel the same . . . right?”
I shook my head. His hold on me loosened. That’s when I shut my eyes. I was too much of a coward to see his reaction to what I was about to say.
“I’m in love with somebody else,” I croaked out. He made a sound that sounded like a choke or gasp but the flood gates were open. I couldn’t stop.
“I came to tell you that I cheated on you.”
“Fuck.”
I opened my eyes long enough to see James stare at the ceiling. His hands were pushed deep into his own hair, tugging harshly at the strands.
“It was Rin, wasn’t it?”
It was pretty embarrassing that he guessed it so easily and the hot feeling of shame swam down my throat. Maybe Rin and I were obvious about it. Or maybe cheating with my best friend just made sense. Either way, I had a strong urge to explain.
“I realized I had feelings for him right before I started dating you.”
“So I’ve always been a distraction, then?” he laughed, pushing off the couch to pace around the room. “Way to make me feel special.”
“I thought he was straight!”
“So you had to replace him?!”
“No!” I stood up too. My body itched. My skin felt too tight for my own body. I wanted to be understood. I wanted to be forgiven. I wanted the terrible thing I’d done to make sense.
Sighing, I let all the fight leave my body.
“I’m saying this all wrong.”
“You think?”
It took a while for me to collect my thoughts but James was patient. He let me marinade over the words, even though I definitely didn’t deserve it. With that extra silence, I could have come up with words that would make him feel better. Words that made it sound like I was rejecting myself, not him.
Instead, I told him the truth.
“When I realized I liked a guy who could never love me back, a guy who was practically family and who I expected to be close to for the rest of my life, I thought that I needed to move on. Then I remembered the sweet, funny, really attractive British boy who helped me realize that I like men in the first place and so I thought that he-you, would make an amazing boyfriend.”
Memories of our lunches off campus, his random texts in the middle of the day, and his obsession with learning Canadian pick up lines to use on me made me smile.
“And I was right. You’ve been the best.”
“So my reward for being so amazing is a boyfriend who goes behind my back to sleep with his best friend?” James asked rhetorically. If he wasn’t using that line against me, I probably would have given him a high five.
“We didn’t have sex. But we kissed and it was still wrong,” I corrected him softly. James pursed his lips and the thought that he might believe me, even for a second, spurred me on. The words were almost pouring out of me.
“It was selfish of me to do it. It was selfish of me to let things go that far when I had you. It was selfish of me to even ask you out when I wasn’t sure if I could ever get over him.”
“You guys just kissed?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to act like that doesn’t matter.”
“But it was just a kiss,” he echoed. His words grew soft, like he was scared to let them out. “We can . . . we can still make this work.”
“James . . . ”
“Fuck my life,” he groaned, dragging his hands roughly through his hair once more. “I’m in love with you and you don’t even want to give us a chance.”
“Because we already gave it a chance, James.”
The words echoed endlessly in his too large living room. We didn’t speak for a moment, letting their painful meaning float in the air.
“I could stand here for hours going over the what ifs. What if I wasn’t in love with somebody else when I met you? What if I got over Rin before I did something I regretted? What if I just met you first? But that doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t change the truth.”
I don’t know where I got the audacity, but the next thing I did was walk up to my now ex-boyfriend and put my hand on his shoulder.
“James, you deserve a guy that’s going to be as sure about you as you are about them and I can’t be that. I’m sorry.”
James refused to look at me. He burned a hole through the floor, his focus strong and unwavering on the space between his own two feet.
“I don’t forgive you.”
I wouldn’t either.
“And if I see Rin, I’m punching him in the fucking face.”
Oof
His eyes rose from the floor and that’s when I saw the tears pooling within them. My own eyes started to burn.
“Goodbye.”
It was hours later that I realized James wasn’t just asking me to leave. He was saying goodbye to us and goodbye to our relationship. It was a goodbye to what we had. He was mourning what was and what could have been. Funnily enough, I mourned that too.
“Bye.”
I left and made sure never to turn back.
—————
As a newly single man, my schedule was embarrassingly empty. James didn’t spend even half the amount of time yelling at me as I thought he would. Even when I deserved it most, he was nothing but kind. So I had the day ahead of me to do homework and wallowing.
I’d gone through a breakup after all.
The door to my ribcage was swung open. My heart sat there, open to the harsh winter chill and anything else that wanted to come by and harm it. Everything was just too raw and sensitive for me to be anything but a moping mess. I needed time to recover and close that damn cage.
With a few taps on my phone, I got the directions to the nearest bus stop. Without a car, getting back home would take 40 minutes instead of ten but calling my mom was the last thing I wanted to do. On the way, a two-story grocery store caught my attention. Ice cream always soothed sitcom characters after a break up. Maybe it could help me too.
The grocery store had locations across the country but this one felt distinctly more expensive and trendy than the one near my house. There was a separate escalator to slide grocery carts into and I eyed the mechanism with equal amounts of fear and intrigue.
On the second floor, I searched for the freezers but got lost in their clothing section. I didn’t even know they sold clothes but within minutes I was surrounded by slippers and out of style workout shirts.
Two male mannequins hung side by side in the center of a display and I swear they looked like Rin and James. The taller one’s hands were tucked into its pockets the same way James did. The shorter one stared down at me. It didn’t have eyes so I imagined Rin’s filling in the empty spaces. God, it looked just like him.
I was seconds away from breaking down in the store. It’s a miracle that I pulled myself away in time to avoid embarrassment.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I made the right decision. I rejected Rin’s invitation to become his friend with benefits. I broke up with a man who treated me well and made every plan to make me a part of his future. And so, within a day, I was completely single with no hopes of losing my virginity any time soon.
I know I did the right thing but that didn’t make it any less lonely.
Another minute of wandering finally led me to the freezer section where I could stare at walls and walls of frozen delights. Seeing vanilla and cookie dough ice cream from dozens of brands in dozens of sizes felt like coming home. My lousy job and even lousier paycheck would finally do me some good.
In that moment, I treated money like the social construct it was. Anything with a pretty enough exterior was worth my consideration. The word artisanal piqued my interest so I pulled open one of the freezer doors and threw the pint into my cart.
“Of course.” The words were said loud enough to catch my attention. I turned instinctively and my eyes widened in surprise when I found Stephanie standing beside me.
“I have the worst luck,” she muttered.
“Stephanie, hey.” I turned around, noting the family sized tub of frozen yogurt sitting in her basket. “Are you also craving ice cream?”
“Am I craving ice cream? Seriously?” Her eyes grew fiery and she stepped up to me, poking a press-on nail into my chest. “You know you really have some nerve going-“
Then all at once, the fire went out. She shut her eyes, clenched her fist, and sucked in a concentrated breath.
“Never mind.”
I watched her storm off, entirely confused. I didn’t know what happened but I had a good feeling she didn’t want to talk to me about it.
I could have spent some time trying to figure out how I’d upset the usually sweet Stephanie. But I didn’t want the ice cream to melt and moping over my new singleness felt much more important.
———————————
Other than bonus chapters, there are only 2 chapters left!
What’s your reaction to the break up? Did you like James’s heartfelt performance?
I LOVED writing about that performance. Thank you, James.
Anywho,
Please vote, comment, share, follow, anything else you can do for this book and I will see you next week! Bye!
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