Kiss Her Once for Me (100)

We were going to celebrate together.

“I don’t know what to do about Jack. Nothing? There’s nothing I can do, right?

Meredith reaches up to give my face a not-so-gentle pat. “Let me know when you figure it out.”

I’m pretty sure there is nothing to figure out. I screwed things up with Jack beyond repair. One Christmas, I ghosted her. The next Christmas, I got fake-engaged to her brother, lied to her about it, and slept with her anyway.

It’s not the kind of thing you come back from.

I don’t even have any means of getting in touch with Jack. We never exchanged numbers, and she’s not on social media. And if I did reach out, what would I say?

I’m sorry?

She hadn’t wanted to hear that on Christmas Eve, and I can’t imagine her wanting to hear it now. No, any attempts to reach out at this point would be selfish, in service of my own needs, alleviating my own guilt.

So I don’t try to reach out. I get a job working at an art-supply store, part-time for now while I finish the new webcomic series I’m working on. I eat family-style dinner with the Brideshead housemates. I go to brunch with Ari and her amazing girlfriends on the weekends. I go to Winslow’s art shows. I figure out my state health insurance so I can find a therapist who isn’t awful—but only because Ari and Gardenia sit on my legs and blast deep tracks by the Pussycat Dolls until I finally complete the application. Apparently, this is an effective method of unfreezing me.

Then I make an intake appointment with a non-suck therapist. No Nicole Scherzinger required. Every single Brideshead housemate is in therapy, and they all refer to their therapists by their first names and talk about them in casual conversation. It’s weird, but in a good way.

When I get a reply from the editor, Meredith is the first person I tell. But then I tell Ari—I tell Winslow, Bobbie, Ruby, and Gardenia—and they take me out for cocktails the size of my face at the Bye and Bye to celebrate the start of something new.

A month passes, gray days become grayer, and every night as I fall asleep, I try not to think about the woman who could make a gray world feel vibrant.

I think about her every night as I fall asleep.



* * *



“You have a visitor,” Ari announces one Friday night, sticking her head through the open door into my closet. I’ve got my iPad on my lap, and I’m working on a fanart commission for two characters in some queer book I haven’t read. I’ve started doing commissions again, too, as a side hustle until I get my first check for the new graphic novel. Even if it’s just fifty bucks for a single character and seventy-five for two, it feels good to create this kind of joy again.

“What kind of visitor?” I ask without looking up from my line sketch.

“A knockoff copy of the person you wish it was.”

“Thanks for that,” a male voice grumbles, and I jerk up to see Andrew Kim-Prescott’s head floating over Ari’s in the doorway. “Uh, hey, Oliver.”

I push the iPad out of my lap. “Hi. Andrew.” I have nothing better to say, so I go with “Hi,” again.

“Can I get you anything?” Ari offers. “I think Winslow has some matcha powder.”

Andrew shakes his head, and Ari leaves us to talk. Andrew attempts to take a step into my room, but his loafers immediately hit the edge of my mattress. I point to the small cubby Ari helped me mount to the wall. “Shoes go there.”

He toes off his shoes, slides them into the cubby, and then gets down on his knees so he can awkwardly scooch his way onto my bed.

“Wow. This is cool.” Andrew gestures to the rainbow lights I’ve strung up around the ceiling, the curtains framing the one window, the prints of my own art on the walls of my tiny closet bedroom. “You’ve done a lot with, um… very little.”

“How did you know where I live?” I ask as I make room for his large frame. He shifts until he’s cross-legged across from me in an Armani suit.

“Greg,” Andrew answers. “You gave him this address for forwarding your final paycheck.”

“And he gave away my address? Dickweed.”

“I was also… perhaps… a bit of a dickweed.” Andrew pinches the bridge of his nose, and that gesture fills me with a potent cocktail of affection and heartache. “It’s been a month. I should’ve reached out. I dragged you into a ridiculous situation—got us both into a situation that was way over our heads—and when it blew up, I just… I ditched you. I felt so much shame and guilt about the way my family blamed you, and I was scared that if I got back in touch, you’d be furious with me, and I’m really sorry, Ellie.”

I didn’t know I needed an apology from Andrew until he waltzed into my closet offering me one. It’s not because I’ve been harboring any anger toward him. More than anything, I’m hurt. Andrew and I were virtual strangers when we agreed to become spouses, but over the course of our short time together, I thought we’d become something closer to friends, and I don’t have many of those. Then, when it all fell apart and Andrew ghosted me, it sent a pretty clear message: our relationship was always a business transaction, and without the money, I was no longer of use to him.

“I’m not furious,” I finally tell him, and I watch his shoulders unspool from up by his ears. “Just a little bit hurt. If I’m being honest—” Honest, even when it’s hard. “I missed you.”