Kiss Her Once for Me (9)

I hate dating, I correct her.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Meredith says as soon as I accept her FaceTime. “Dating is a necessary evil for people who want a relationship.”

“Who said anything about wanting a relationship?”

On my cracked screen, Meredith simply glares. Her pale cheeks are flushed, her red ponytail bobbing and swishing over her yellow legal pad. The bar exam is in two months, so she’s studying and chastising me at the same time. I shouldn’t be surprised. Meredith O’Reilly could study for the bar while simultaneously answering every question correctly on Jeopardy!, knitting me another scarf, and Instagramming photos of her tabby, Kagan. That is Meredith in a nutshell: a smart-as-hell, attractive version of a cat lady. I miss her terribly, but I also can’t handle a lecture from her right now.

“I’m having a really bad day, Mere.”

“So it would seem. Are you crying on a toilet again?”

“Crying on toilets is not a thing I do.”

“You know what would cheer you up?”

“Pie?”

“Leaving your apartment,” Meredith says bluntly.

“I’ve never heard of that kind of pie. Do they sell it at Fred Meyer?”

“When was the last time you went on a date?”

“You sound like my mom whenever she remembers to actually pay attention to my life.”

“Linds is an anti-feminist succubus with your nose,” Meredith counters. “I am your loyal, loving best friend of seven years who thinks it might be time for you to put on your good bra and try making connections with some new people.”

“You never date either,” I say very maturely from my toilet seat.

“Yes, but the difference is I don’t date by choice, because I’m prioritizing different facets of my life right now. You, on the other hand, don’t date because of past heartbreak and a fear of failure.”

“Did you and Ari coordinate these interventions? Are you in cahoots with Greg and the half-assed snow and the TriMet public transit system to make this day as humiliating as possible?”

Meredith grunts unsympathetically. “Is this still about that woman from last year?”

I play it cool. “What woman?”

“You know what woman I’m talking about,” she snaps, because I’ve never played anything cool in my entire life. “The woman you met at Powell’s on Christmas Eve and fell madly in love with, only to have your heart smashed into a million pieces.”

I don’t let myself think about fiery eyes and freckles. “I did not love her. I barely knew her. We spent one day together. And that’s all it was ever meant to be. One perfect day. How pathetic would it be if I were still hung up on a random woman from a year ago?”

Meredith sees right through me, all the way to the core of my pathetic heart. “Girl, you completely U-Hauled.”

“First of all, as a straight, I don’t think you’re allowed to say that,” I deflect nimbly, “and second, sure, I fell hard, but we were never going to last beyond that one day. I haven’t even thought about her since.”

Much.

“Did you or did you not write an entire webcomic series based on your relationship with her?” Lawyer-Meredith asks me.

“That was… catharsis. That was turning pain into art.”

“A-ha! So you admit that she caused you pain?”

“Very briefly,” I concede. That is the downside to needing emotional connection to feel sexual attraction: there is no physical intimacy without the risk of having my heart broken. “But then I poured my pain into the fictionalized Snow Day webcomic and promptly forgot the entire thing.”

“You’re so full of shit. You haven’t dated anyone in the past year. You’ve barely left your apartment. At some point, you’ve got to confront the fact that the whole thing messed you up more than you’re willing to admit.”

Last Christmas, I gave someone my heart.

And the very next day, she gave it away.

I would be happy to never ever hear that song again.

“What fucked me up was moving across the country for a job and getting fired three months later.”

Meredith sighs, as if our friendship is the most emotionally exhausting part of her day. “Do yourself a favor, Ellie. Go out to a bar or swipe right on some Tinder himbo. Meet someone new. Strike up a conversation. You need emotional intimacy, and you’re not going to find it on your futon.”

“I don’t know… I really feel like me and my left hand have reached a new level of connection.” On that note, I hang up on Meredith and step out of the bathroom. And step directly into Andrew Kim-Prescott’s chest.

“I was coming to check on you,” he explains, staring down from about three inches above me. Then he adds: “And I did not hear that last part of your phone call through the door.”

It’s almost poetic that this day would end with Andrew Kim-Prescott overhearing me discuss my masturbation habits.

“Everything all right?” Andrew asks slowly, still staring down at me with concern twisted into his inky eyebrows. He has an embarrassment of eyelashes, and he’s putting those to good use at the moment, too. The whole tableau is one of smoldering concern.

Usually, I would be into it, but I don’t need pity about my financial woes from a man wearing a Gucci belt. “I’m fine. Thanks.”