The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Would you rather be a romance meme or break your hand hitting a punching bag? As far as Derelie was concerned, yoga was dead to her, dog and cat people had no common ground, and bring on the bandages.

Bring on the love for Artie Chan too. He was easy to fall for. He was intelligent and humble and quick-witted. He had a sense of humor that made you instantly warm to him. He wasn’t reticent or difficult or moody disguised as complex like a certain other person Derelie had tried the love experiment with.

Like that other person, Artie’s family had been upset when he dumped medicine for journalism, but they’d adapted, got with the program, loved and respected his choices.

“It was the fluids thing,” Artie had said. “I couldn’t handle the blood and pus and poop, you don’t want to know what else. I feel a little sick if I have to say the word—” he’d shuddered “—viscera.”

They’d laughed, trading answers, sharing information joyfully. Around the time Artie said he sang opera badly in the shower but K-pop in his car, Derelie thought it was a tragedy he was single. When he said the greatest achievement of his life was not murdering his annoying baby sister, and blushed when admitting his relationship with his mother was very close, she wanted to hug him. Artie hadn’t met the right girl yet because once he did he’d have to pry her off with his cold, dead hands. Artie liked a good cliché and he knew a lot of ten dollar words and he knew Derelie was pissed off.

It wasn’t so easy to learn how to deal with a punching bag, but it made her feel better. Despite the aching arms, abs and a stiff neck, it felt fantastic to whack something, to go full-on Wonder Woman does Supergirl on a leather wiener. Violence was an antidote to being humiliated and having your heart broken, who knew?

Well, the whole newsroom, that’s who.

And that was her own fault. If she’d said no to that newsroom kiss, if she hadn’t practically fallen into Jack’s arms in front of everyone, she wouldn’t have had to explain that they were no longer together. Not that she’d explained in words so much as action. She showed up to work tired and worn, took her first sick day when a stress headache got the better of her and generally acted like she had a thorn in her paw.

When Phil asked how Jack was getting on, she might as well have stabbed a sharpened pencil in his throat by telling him exactly what he could do with that question. She told him if he was so concerned he could call Jack himself and that she had no idea since her skillset had not been aligned with his strategy going forward and he’d dumped her a month ago.

Way to take your private life to work. You go, girl.

And that was humiliating too.

But it would pass. She knew it. Mom kept reminding her of it. Phil brushed her apology away as if he’d expected to get grief from her, Eunice brought her good coffee, Spin insisted on patting her on the back in a “we’re on the same team” manner every time they crossed paths, and Annie Berkelow invited her to lunch and neither of them mentioned Jack. And the only thing she could do to feel better was take it out on a punching bag, enjoy her new friendships and write up her story with Artie.

Relaxed and friendly where Jack was intense, fun where Jack was reserved, ambitious but not to a fault, and secure in his choices where Jack was conflicted. Artie was the control group. He proved the experiment worked, that thirty-six questions answered honestly and an unnerving stare-off contest could create intimacy.

But they weren’t enough to make you fall in love.

They both wrote their impressions from the exercise, and the story was scheduled to appear, while Derelie learned the basics of throwing a punch at the gym, Spin taught her how to drink beer like a pro journalist and lunch with Annie became a regular thing.

She bought a new plant for the window ledge in her shoebox apartment and remembered how to grocery shop for one. The city seemed louder, dirtier, faster, though that couldn’t be real. There were no more or less stars in the sky than there had been when she was with Jack, it’s just that he’d stopped her from feeling the need to note their absence.

She didn’t call Jack. He didn’t text her. His name got taken off the internal email and messenger systems. Stories he’d written were slowly on their way to a digital archive and his dinkus no longer appeared anywhere.

There was little satisfaction that hers did.

None of that made it easier to forget how alive she’d felt when Jack’s guard had come crashing down, when he’d teased her, made her laugh, let her into his life and shown he cared for her. At night, she hugged the red pillow she’d bought for his couch as if that might make not having his arms to fall into, his lips to tempt her feel less tragic. That pillow soaked up tears as well, not over Jack, over the fact Ernest had most definitely forgotten her forever.

That was the lie she told herself.

It didn’t help.

On top of it all, she missed cuddling Martha.

She could only be grateful she hadn’t given Jack her ugly tears, because he wouldn’t have known what to do with them.

She fitted in the city now, knew its rhythm and grind, felt secure at work despite regretting she could be a news headline. “Ten Easy Ways to be a Loser at Love.” Her heart might hurt, but that’s what living a bigger life was about: operating beyond your comfort zone, stretching yourself and overcoming obstacles, buying nice clothes, thinking outside the box, dumping yoga because you really hated the peaceful resistance of it, having straight teeth and not needing your aligner anymore, eating all the ice cream in the world and feeling sorry for yourself.

The one thing she was proud of was that nothing about losing Jack made her want to tuck her tail under, ditch the city and head for the familiarity of home. She was home, even if it was less cozy, less exciting than it had been when it included Jack.

And that was her new normal until her email delivered an unexpected story. It was headlined: You Won’t Believe What Happened When I Did a Love Experiment.

That made her want put to her fledgling punching skills to use. You couldn’t get on with getting over a person if he was going to show up suddenly in your inbox.

She didn’t have to read it.

But he’d clickbaited her.