Unbreak My Heart(11)

She opens her eyes, sees me staring. But she doesn’t look away, and neither do I.

“Have you reached the fully-cooked stage yet?”

She shakes her head. “A few more rays of sunshine are necessary for me to achieve that state of nirvana.”

“It’s either sunshine or sriracha that’ll get you there,” I say, since those are two of her favorite things.

She wiggles her eyebrows. “You know it.” She dips her hand into her purse. “May I present exhibit A?”

She clicks on a video, and I catch the tail end of the robot fisticuffs. “That is excellent. And for the record, the gold one already contacted me. I’m considering taking his case.”

She pumps a fist. “I knew I could find clients for you by wandering around here and observing local altercations.”

The waiter arrives. She orders a sandwich, and I do the same. Same orders, same choices, same food we used to pick when we came here before.

So much is the same, and so much never will be.

Except this.

The way we talk.

The easy slide back into banter, about robots and sunshine and sandwich toppings.

When the waiter leaves, Holland makes a ding like a timer.

“Fully cooked now?”

She stares at her arms as if assessing them. “It appears that I am. Also, in case you were wondering, I’m still allergic to cold.”

“And fog,” I add, because I know this riff.

“And wind chill. The worst. Seriously. Who thought wind chill was a good idea?”

“The same person who thought icicles made sense.”

“That’s why I’m soaking up all this sunshine while I’m here.”

“Did you find a new job yet? Are you going back to Japan?”

She holds up crossed fingers. “A few things are looking good. One in particular, but it doesn’t start for another month.”

One month.

The part of my brain still capable of logic knows it’ll be for the best if I leave for Tokyo stat and figure shit out without her there, without me here. She smells so fucking good that I want to abandon everything and spend the summer bantering and watching her sunbathe.

But it’s hard to plan with her around.

It’s hard to think straight when she’s the only thing I’m certain I want. When I’m positive her touch would erase the pain.

Her bare legs are close enough I could run a hand over her knee, watch her shiver and smile. She’d ask me to do it again. My palms ache to touch her, like her skin is a magic potion, a pill to make me happy again. I’m filled with complete emptiness and complete longing at the same time, only there’s not enough space in me for both.

Longing wins. Longing always wins with her.

She’s the last time I was truly happy, and I want that again so badly I’ll do nearly anything to get it, like spending time with her in this “just friends” state that I don’t understand. But I’m powerless to resist it.





8





Holland



We wander along the Promenade, popping into gift shops and checking out random items like candlestick holders and jewelry racks that are as big as bureaus. We dart into a soap store and sniff spruce-and grapefruit-scented ones, giving them a thumbs-up, then turning up our noses collectively at one that smells like leather. When we reach the end of the Promenade, I gesture to the cinema down the block, grasping for one more chance to spend time with him. One more moment that won’t be too raw, too risky.

“Do you want to go to the movies?”

“The movies?”

“Yeah, that thing where they project famous actors in impossible situations on the screen?”

In a perfect deadpan, he answers, “I’m familiar with the concept.”

“The more stuff that blows up, the better,” I add.

“No Oscar contenders, no quiet dramas, no period romances with English accents.”

“No way. We want fires, and we want chase scenes, and we want dudes jumping out of tenth-story windows and then running through the streets like it didn’t even hurt.”

Life is full of enough family drama. We don’t need it on the screen.

We. We. We.

Here I am, acting like we’re a we again, going through the same motions, playing our parts.

It hardly feels like playing.

“There’s a new Jason Statham flick at the theater down the block, I hear,” I say, flashing back to the last time we were there three years ago.

We didn’t watch the film at all.

My cheeks flame.

We were animals. We were practitioners of PDA. His hands were up my skirt—the same skirt I’m wearing now—and he made me see stars as a building on screen blew up.

Heat flares through me.

I wave a hand in front of my face before I go up in flames. Spending time with him is dangerous. I like him too much, I want him too much. The trouble is his grief is too new, too raw. I don’t want to be his crutch, and I can tell I am.

“I forgot. I have an appointment. Another time.”

“Another time?” he asks, like those two words are alien.

I turn away so he can’t see my face. “Yes, I have somewhere to be.”

He says my name more urgently. “Holland.”