How to Fail at Flirting(72)

I took a deep breath and opened the text window again.

    Naya: Hi.



Three dots blinked immediately. My heart somersaulted into my throat, and my stomach dropped. The wait felt interminable, and the dots disappeared and didn’t come back. After a few minutes, I couldn’t take the wait anymore. Maybe making him laugh would break the thick layer of ice.

    Naya: Gladys, I hope this isn’t too awkward. Is Jake at your place?

Naya: Can you tell him I miss him?



Nothing. I refreshed the window, hoping to see the moving dots. He might be away from his phone. Maybe he’s trapped under something heavy. Maybe he’s on a date. I ran through every horrible scenario, and my anxiety was on ten. I refreshed the window again, tapping my fingers against the side of my phone, nerves on edge. Finally, the moving dots appeared on the screen, and I held my breath.

    Jake: funny.

Jake: U miss me?

Naya: I do.

Jake: you suck at showing it



I winced. He’d never said anything so curt before, even during our fight.

    Jake: soyour talking t me now?



He was always so precise, even when texting. The typos worried me.

    Naya: Are you ok?

Jake: Do yU care?

Jake: I told you I love you andyou Stoppd talking to me

Jake: no NOt ok. drunk tnite tho.



Jake rarely had more than a drink or two, and I hadn’t seen him drunk since the first night we’d met.

    Naya: Jake, I’m so sorry.

Jake: Fr what?

Jake: Ignring me fora week or for being so goddam scared

Jake: Its what you do. You gt scared then you run.

Naya: We should talk when you’re sober

Jake: Why? When i’m sober will you stil care more abt work than me?

Naya: I never cared more about work than you.

Jake: liar. Thats wht I get tho. I cared abt work too much to realise my wife was fuccking the neighbor

Jake: And I fell inlove too fast with the 1st woman I met

Jake: Tyson said slow dwn but nope, I was so sure, sosureyou were The fcking love of my life.

Naya: Jake, can we talk tomorrow? I don’t think you mean this.

Jake: I mean it. Just wouldn t say it to u sober

Jake: I told you I love youu and you said itwas jst sex. Do you know what that felt like? Like all iam to you is a hard dick?

Naya: You’re not. I’m so sorry for everything. We can fix this.

Jake: You mde it very clear you dont want to fix anything.

Jake: I get you got dealt a shitty hand, but Im a person. U cant just throw me away and pick me bck up latr whn u feel like it

Jake: Why do wmen think thats allowed?

Naya: Jake, please. Can we talk tomorrow?

Jake: No. I’m done tyring to talk toyou.

Jake: U ignored me fr a week lk I meant nothing. you said ur broken, but maybe you r just heartless.



My breathing stuttered and my stomach clenched at the biting words. He’s right. Regret swept through my body, and I clutched the phone. He had it right, and I replayed the argument, knowing how I’d flown off the handle. It hadn’t been about him or even the job; I’d felt unsteady again. But I was so screwed up, I’d just kept putting it on Jake, and he deserved so much more. I swiped my hand across my cheek and bit back a sob, moving my wet thumb over the screen of my phone. I should have typed I love you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t make my fingers move to form the three short words. It was too much, and maybe he was right.

    Naya: I’m sorry.

Jake: You want temporary. You g ot it.





Thirty-eight





You know I love you, but you look like shit.” Felicia opened the front door and wrapped me in a hug. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Bull, you’ve been a puddle of sad since everything went down.”

“This is the first time you’ve seen me.”

“Am I wrong?”

She wasn’t, but I wasn’t planning to admit the amount of time I’d spent rereading old text messages from Jake and crying. At night when I couldn’t sleep, I replayed every moment we’d spent together, searching for every clue that being apart was the right thing. That didn’t stop me from creeping on his social media.

The day before, there had been new content, and my stomach flipped, seeing him tagged in a photo, a selfie reposted by Gretchen dated seven years earlier. The two were smiling and sitting at a candlelit table. Jake was holding the camera while Gretchen kissed his cheek. They looked kind of perfect together. The caption read Going out for Italian food with this guy tonight. Not quite the same as the honeymoon in Florence, but I’ll take it #TBT. I remembered how much he had avoided this meeting, how being around her put him on edge. But he agreed to go to dinner, so maybe not anymore. I’d added terminate social media connection with Jake to my list but immediately crossed it off, knowing having no connection with him would be worse than seeing things like that on his feed.

I put on my coolest, most confident-sounding rational professor voice. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to be,” Felicia shot back. “You trusted a guy for the first time since Davis, and no matter what you say, that was a big deal and I know you’re not fine.”