The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2)(93)

Naomi pushed her dirty hair out of her eyes. She was talking to Ethan, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.

She didn’t expect him to wait for her to come to her senses and beg for him to take her back. Didn’t expect a cordial card on her birthday. If he wanted to hate her—she really hoped he didn’t hate her, but if he did—she’d allow it. If he’d broken up with her, she’d never have forgiven him. She was a hypocrite like that.

“Okay, here’s the breakup ritual.” She scanned the note. “I’ve been doing it for about a week now.” Naomi took the mic off the stand and started pacing a little. It was harder to hit a moving target, right?

“That’s the thing. About ritual or religion. Sometimes just going through the motions, even when you’re struggling to believe in them, sometimes that’s enough. To keep you going. Keep you sane. Keep you tethered to the disastrous fireball spinning toward destruction that we call earth.”

She cleared her throat. “Right. Here we go. ‘Wake up,’” she read, “‘wash your face, and brush your teeth, even if you don’t want to, even if it seems like it doesn’t matter. Like nothing has ever mattered or will again.’”

Reading was a little easier than just talking off the cuff. “‘Drink two glasses of water. Make it a challenge. Make it a race.’” She made eye contact with a guy in the first row. “You like to win, don’t you?”

Don’t think about Ethan.

“‘Light a candle and let it burn as long as you like. Down to its wick, even.’ I’m always saving candles for special occasions, hoarding them like I can’t buy ten more on sale at TJ Maxx.” She found another face in the audience, a student with tears tracking down their cheeks. “You’re the special occasion, baby, take what you need.”

Her voice got a little steadier as she kept reading, a little louder.

“‘Boil hot water and add your favorite aromatics, handfuls of fresh mint or curls of ginger and lime.’ I like cinnamon and cloves, with a pinch of cayenne. ‘This is not for drinking. Put your head over the pot. Breathe in the steam. Try to wake up your senses.’ I promise you won’t be numb forever.”

Students were reaching into their backpacks, pulling out pens and notebooks like this mattered. Like it made sense and they wanted to remember it. Some cell phones came out, held up and steady, probably recording.

Naomi kept going.

“‘Wash your sheets. Masturbate, but only if you can do it without thinking about your ex.’”

Hey, they’d asked for sex ed.

“‘Put a pair of socks in the dryer for ten minutes, take them out, and put them on.’” She didn’t know why literal cold feet were a physical symptom of sadness, only that they were.

“‘Find a book you loved in your childhood.’” Naomi pictured her dog-eared copy of Anne of Green Gables. “‘Read it. Let it soothe the parts of you that were broken before you found the person who’s no longer yours. Let it touch the hurts they couldn’t fix. No one else can ever save you. It’s okay. You don’t need saving.’”

She was talking to Hannah now, to her younger self, as much as these students.

“‘Follow your feet until you find nature. Mountains or a body of water or a field of wildflowers. Lie down on the ground. Let the earth carry your weight for a while. Let your tears mix with the soil. Lie there until you feel lighter or until the sun sets, whichever comes first.’” Naomi didn’t mind crying when no one could see her.

“‘Then go home. Make or buy some soup’”—obviously she bought hers—“‘and a loaf of fresh bread. Eat it.’ I don’t know why soup is so soothing, but it is.”

Her fridge at home was full of them right now: noodle soups, curries, stews of all shapes and sizes.

“‘Find a piece of paper and a pen. Write the person you broke up with a thank-you note. Even if you hate them.’”

She lowered her phone. “Now, we don’t send this note, so if you want to write, ‘Thanks, Jeff, for making it easy to leave your tiny dick,’ I’m not gonna stop you.”

That earned a brief round of applause.

Naomi scrolled again. Ran her fingertip across words so painful they pierced several vital organs.

“‘Pour everything into the note. All your dead dreams of a future together.’” She swallowed a few times before she could keep going. “‘Every tiny moment that you’ve been saving in the safe of your mind, collaging for children you thought—just maybe—you might someday make.’”

The first time we met, he said my name like he’d known me his whole life.

“‘Thank them for the way they made you feel.’”

Like I was the dawn, driving the light, inviting a new day.

“‘For the way they let you love them.’”

Wild and eager. Ravenous. Rapturous.

“‘Thank them for waking up dead parts of your soul. Tell them how lucky you feel that even for a moment, even if it was only for one brilliant second, you got to have them, you got to breathe the word mine against their skin. Got to climb into bed with someone who somehow made your heart beat a bright, brilliant gold.’”

She took a deep breath.