An Ex for Christmas(32)

“Are you seriously comparing me to Doug Porter right now? That because I don’t want to watch you throw yourself at the feet of men who either hurt you or were wrong for you, I’m in the same category as a guy who doesn’t have an ounce of decency?”

“You’re right,” I say, closing my eyes, suddenly very, very tired. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

I open my eyes in time to see him nod, accepting my apology. And offering none of his own.

“I’m going home,” I say quietly, taking a step back. “I’ll see—” I almost say I’ll see him tomorrow, out of habit, but I correct myself. “I’ll see you later.”

Mark says nothing as I walk out of the bathroom and down the hall.

Rigby follows me down the stairs and across the yard to my own house, and the little dog’s loyalty is just about the only thing that keeps me from crying. I don’t even know why. It’s just a fight. They happen between friends all the time, we’ll probably forget it tomorrow, it’s just . . .

I turn back to Mark’s house and look up at the second floor, even though I know his bedroom window faces the opposite way.

As expected, there’s nothing but still darkness, and I can’t stop the sinking sensation that things are somehow changing between us. And I don’t know why, and I don’t know how to stop it.





December 19, Tuesday Morning


I made the ultimate East Coast rookie move: I made plans in winter without checking the forecast first.

Moron, I think with a groan as I turn away from the blur-of-white window. I know better. I’ve lived in New York all of my life, and my college stint in Boston had even more winter weather to contend with.

It speaks to how distracted I’ve been that I made plans to go into New York City, a two-hour trek, without checking the weather first.

Remember that bitter wind I mentioned last night? Turns out that icy breeze was the precursor to one hell of a nor’easter.

I turn on the news, thinking that maybe it was a freak storm they didn’t see coming. I turn the TV off again once the plastic-haired meteorologist announces that the “magnitude of the storm is on par with what we’ve been predicting for days.”

With eighteen to twenty-four inches predicted over the next day here in Haven, and nearly that much in the city, there’s exactly zero chance of me making it into Manhattan today.

I pull out my phone, knowing I should send a text message to Stephen. Of all my exes, Stephen Hill was one of the good ones. So I’m confused, and more than a little frustrated. I mean, this lady tells me that I’m going to reunite with my one true love before Christmas. I’ve got only a few more days to do it. And with Stephen leaving tomorrow, not to return to New York until after Christmas . . .

It means it’s not him. Stephen’s not The One. That’s the thing about trusting things outside yourself: if you’re going to trust, you have to trust all the way. You have to trust that things like snowstorms happen for a reason, and that your real destiny lies elsewhere.

But man, I wish the stars and the fates and whatever could be just a little more obvious sometimes. I wish that people with the Sight didn’t just tell you little bits and pieces.

I wish I wasn’t both freaking out about the fact that my ex list is shrinking and yet simultaneously feeling . . . relief?

None of this has gone the way I thought it would. At the start it seemed like a grand adventure—an easy adventure, honestly, since it’s not like I was trying to find the love of my life among random strangers. These are guys that I know. Guys that I’ve loved, at least some of them. I thought I’d come face-to-face with a familiar guy and realize that I couldn’t remember why I’d broken up with him—that I’d want him back, and he’d want me back, and happily ever after and all that.

Instead, the closest I’ve got to thinking maybe was Jack, but our physical chemistry apparently had a major expiration date.

I’ve got two exes and six days to go.

The suspicion that’s been lurking since the very beginning of this is feeling increasingly true—that my ex list is more or less due diligence, to make sure I don’t tempt fate by not exploring all my options. I mean, did I really think I’d reunite with a guy I’d barely thought about since high school? Not so much. And Doug? I think maybe I knew he was a douche all along.

The rest? Meh. And that includes Adam, one of the two remaining guys.

It’s the last one that’s giving me sweaty palms.

Colin.

I’ve mentioned him before, but only briefly, and, okay, a little vaguely. The truth? I avoid talking about him. I avoid thinking about him. Because of all the guys, he was, well . . . I thought he was it for me. Sure, we were in college and perhaps too young in the grand scheme of things, but I’d been blindsided when he’d ended it with a gentle yet brutal “This just isn’t working for me.”

I’d also been hurt—crushed.

Colin is that guy, you know? The one that deep down you worry you never got over? The one you wonder, what if?

And yet it’s because he’s the most likely candidate that I haven’t been trying all that hard to find him.

If I’m wrong with the other guys, no big deal.

If I’m wrong with him? I don’t want to go through that kind of pain all over again.