Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“No, I know you, I overreacted and… I just don’t want you to think that there’s been anyone at all since we’ve been apart.”
“Okay.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“It’s not really any of my business,” I reminded him.
He coughed. “I’ll get on the first plane out and—”
“Don’t. There’s no need. I’m really all right. Just come home on Friday like you planned.”
“I won’t be in until late, or I’d come by and see you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Could I see you Saturday night?”
“Actually, I’m supposed to go out with Matt, Ira, and Eric on Saturday. We’re meeting some of Ira’s new girlfriend’s friends at Mabon.”
“What?”
“Ira has a new girlfriend, and we’re meeting her friends for the first time on Saturday.”
“Ah, okay. Got it,” he said, then asked, “Can I come?”
“Um…sure. But you have to remember that Matt’s still Matt, right?”
“Meaning he still hates me.”
“Correct.”
“And probably always will.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “I told you to tell him we were just taking a break. He didn’t need to know the why. No one but you and I needed to know that.”
“No, he didn’t need to know. That’s my mistake. I thought he would appreciate my honesty and we’d still be friends.”
“I think in any kind of breakup, people take sides. I haven’t seen any of your friends either.”
“Yes, but we’re just taking some time, not breaking up. We’re not done.”
He kept saying that, but I didn’t believe him, and I wasn’t sure he believed it himself anymore either. When he’d first moved out, there had still been hope, but now, half a year on, both of us settling into our separate lives, it was time to use the word over because that’s what we truly were.
“Okay,” I said quickly, not wanting to reiterate, again, that we were through. I had told him that day, that week, when I moved in with Matt and Eric until all his stuff was out of my house, and I told him again when he’d come by once for his mail before the change of address kicked in. We were finished.
I had always figured myself the type to forgive an infidelity, but it turned out that trust was the issue, not the actual act. I could forgive him fucking his friend on our couch, in our bed—I’d bought a new one of each after he left, which had made me feel infinitely better—but wondering if he was going to do it again, that was where the problem lay. Out of sight, I always wondered what, or whom, he was doing. So whereas he was talking about us getting back together, I was simply working on remaining friends. I hoped he’d get on board soon before even that became impossible. “I gotta go. Do you want to talk to Katie again?”
“No, that’s okay.”
I was going to hang up, but he stopped me.
“Hey, real quick.”
“Yeah?”
“You know we’re going to talk about Dimah Mashir when I get home, right?”
Something else he had no say in—where I worked and with whom—but I didn’t have the energy right then to deal with it. “Sure.”
“No, Tracy, really.”
“Okay.”
“Good. I’ll see you Saturday.”
What was I supposed to say? Thanks? I couldn’t say I loved him because it wasn’t true anymore. “Great.”
Apparently that was enough because he hung up, leaving me to sit there and wonder if trying to be his friend was really in my best interest. Maybe cutting him out of my life altogether would be, as Matt said constantly, the smartest thing. Hard to know what the best answer was: cut your losses and run, or stay and try to build something new on what had been. Everything would have been clearer if I just had some coffee.
TWO
A new nurse came in and dressed my wound, gave me a tetanus shot that hurt even more than getting grazed by the bullet or the numbing agent, then told me to hold on for the doctor. Translation: sit tight for the ice age. When my phone rang, I was relieved it was my buddy Ira Kohn and not my brother Alex.
“Hey, my mom just called me. She was watching the news and said your office was shot up? Is that right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“What the hell is going on?”
“You know what’s going on,” I answered, my voice dropping. “Think about it.”
He was quiet a second, and then came a long sigh. “Oh, I get it. Wrong office.”
I grunted.
“You guys should move down to the diamond district. People have to be buzzed in if they even want to look at a stone. Or Chinatown—you can work over a dim-sum place.”
“How would that be helpful?”
“You like dim sum.”
“So clever today, when I almost fuckin’ died,” I growled at him.
“Did you really, or are you screwing with me?”
I had to lie or he’d be really pissed. He’d wanted me to quit since he found out whom I worked with. Ira and I had been friends since a chance meeting four years ago at the gym. When he’d found out about Dimah Mashir, that we were partners, he nearly had a seizure. He, like Alex, never let it go. “It was mostly just noisy.”