One True Loves(59)

It’s one thing to break a heart. It’s an entirely different thing to break someone’s pride.

And I think I have done both to him.

“You’re right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Listen, you’ve been through something I can’t even imagine. I know it’s shaken you to your core. I love you enough to wait for a little while until you figure it out.”

I grab his hand and squeeze it—as though if I could just squeeze enough, hold it the right way, the gratitude I feel in my heart might run through my arms, out my hands, and straight into his soul. But it doesn’t work that way. I know it doesn’t.

“Thank you,” I say. “I don’t know how to thank you. But thank you.”

Sam takes his hand away. “But you can’t have both of us,” he continues. “I can’t pretend things are OK until they’re actually OK. OK?”

“OK,” I say, nodding my head.

He smiles. “That was a lot of ‘OKs’ at one time, huh?”

I laugh.

“I’m gonna go,” Sam says, putting his car in drive. “Otherwise, I’ll be late for rehearsal. And then, you know, I suppose I’ll just go home, eat some dinner, and watch ESPN Classic. A rousing good time.”

“Sounds like quite a night,” I say.

“I’m sure you’ve got big plans, too,” he says, and then I watch as his face freezes. It’s clear he wasn’t thinking when he spoke. He doesn’t want to know what I’m doing tonight. But now that he’s said it, I can’t get out of this without in some way acknowledging whether I do have plans. “I just meant . . . uh, you know what? Just don’t say anything.”

“Yeah, OK,” I say. “Not saying anything.”

But not saying anything is saying something, isn’t it? Because if there truly was nothing for him to worry about, I would have just said, “No, Sam, seriously, don’t worry.”

I didn’t say that. And we both know it.

Sam looks at me. And I can tell that he has reached his limit. He cannot do this anymore. “Bye, Emma,” he says, starting to turn the wheel. He stops himself and starts talking again. “You know what? I’m going to keep the ball in my court.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I’ll call you when I’m ready. But . . . don’t call me. I know it probably makes the most sense for you to tell me what you’ve chosen after you’ve chosen but . . . I’d rather you tell me once I’m ready to hear it.”

“I can’t call you at all?”

Sam shakes his head somberly. “I’m asking you not to.”

This is the smallest amount of control he can claim over his own fate. I know that I have to give it to him.

“Whatever you want,” I say. “Anything.”

“Well, that’s what I want,” he says, nodding, and then he puts his foot on the gas and drives away.

Gone.

I realize just how cold I am, how frigid it is outside, and I race back into the store. I remember that I left my sandwich on the front seat of my car and I don’t even bother to go get it. I’m not hungry.

I didn’t eat breakfast, either. It appears my appetite had been the first thing to go.

Tina is ringing up a pair of books for two older ladies when I walk in. “Hey, Emma,” she says. “Do you remember when we are getting more copies of the new Ann Patchett?”

“It should be next Tuesday,” I say as if today is any normal day, as if I can think straight. “Ladies, if you give your contact info to Tina, she or I will call you when the copies are in.”

I smile and then briskly walk into the back of the store. I sit down at my desk. I put my head in my hands and I breathe.

My mind races from Sam to Jesse and back.

I keep saying that I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. But the truth is, I know exactly what I’m doing.

It’s one thing to play coy with them, I suppose. But what I have to do is stop playing coy with myself.

I am going to choose one of them.

I just don’t know which one it is.





Love and Maine

Or, how to turn back time





The store closed about forty-five minutes ago. The register has been tallied. The sales floor is clean. Tina went home. I’m done. I can get in the car and go. But I’m just standing in the dark stockroom. Thinking about Sam.

My phone rings and I pick it up to see that it’s Jesse. Just like that, Sam flies out of my head, replaced by the man he replaced.

“Hey,” Jesse says when I answer. “I thought I’d meet you at the store.”

“Oh,” I say, surprised. I just assumed I’d meet him at my parents’ house once I’d grabbed my things.

“Is that cool?”

“Sure,” I say, shrugging. “Yeah. That’s good. I’m still here.”

“Well, that’s good,” he says. “Because I’m outside the front door.”

I start to laugh as I head toward the front.

“Are you serious?” I say, but he doesn’t need to answer because as I step onto the sales floor from the stockroom, I see him through the glass doors.