“I don’t,” I toss back. “I’m just emotionally drained from today. Cut me some slack.”
She sighs. “I’m glad you came back here.”
Her reference to me not moving to North Dakota with my parents is thinly veiled. She knows I don’t have a terrific relationship with them and had I followed them north to the oil fields where my father is now working, I’d be miserable. But coming to Savannah, the place I call home even without my parents, was a risk.
“Me too,” I whisper. “I just hope this doesn’t end up on the list of ‘Mal’s bad decisions.’”
“It won’t. Things will work themselves out. They always do. Look at me, having a job and all. Who’d’ve thunk it?”
“True,” I giggle. “But I certainly don’t know what I’m doing right now,” I sigh. “But what choice did I have? Stay in nursing with a guy that made it clear he doesn’t see a future with me or suck it up and move on? This whole thing isn’t what I wanted or thought would happen, and I’m not sure where to go from here.”
“You’ve started that by taking the job with Graham. I think you’re doing great,” Joy says softly.
“If only I can stop thinking about him in a purely unprofessional way,” I giggle.
“If you figure out how to do that, share the knowledge. I’ve battled that almost my whole life!”
I sink further into the water. “You know what I really want?”
“Besides Landry naked?”
I roll my eyes. “I want to feel . . . like the me I used to know. I want to feel alive. I want to wake up and smile. I want to accomplish things, to feel powerful. I want to have things to look forward to, have goals, find someone th
at wants to laugh with me, go hiking, or get ice cream. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”
“No, no, it doesn’t,” she says.
Swirling the water around the tub, I think about what I just said. It’s the first time I’ve been able to really verbalize how I feel. I miss feeling like the girl with the drive to get into private school. I don’t know her anymore; I sacrificed her for a relationship in which I was little more than a plot device.
“You know,” I say, sitting up, the water splashing onto the floor, “Now that I think of it, I can’t remember a time when I was with Eric that I was truly happy. I just kept thinking that I would be happy, things just needed to line up the right way.”
“That sounds stupid.”
“I know.” My shoulders slump. “I kept thinking if I do this or do that or this happens that we would be happy.”
“Then why did you stay with him, Mal?”
I shrug. “We had fun together. Especially at the beginning, we saw movies and played euchre and had great sex,” I laugh. “It always felt like something was on the horizon. It just never materialized. Before I knew it, years had gone by and I felt like I didn’t even realize who I was.”
“I had no idea.”
“Me either,” I sigh. “I knew I felt sort of depressed and blah, but I didn’t realize why until he told me he didn’t see a future together. That sent a spark of reality through me. I thought, ‘How did I, Mallory Sims, get here?’ I don’t remember him holding me or asking me how my day was,” I say, the words coming faster as all of it hits me, “or caressing me. He didn’t ask my opinion or tell me he was proud of me or encourage me to do anything.”
“Love makes you do funny things.”
“I guess.”
She doesn’t even try to conceal her frustration. “The moral of this sad, depressing story is fuck Eric.”
“Fuck Eric,” I whisper.
“On that note, I need to go. I have a packet to read tonight before I go in tomorrow. It looks lame as hell, but I’ll give it a quick skim. Otherwise, I’ll regret it tomorrow. ”
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” I tease. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye!”
I toss my phone on a pile of towels and let my face dip beneath the water. Holding my breath, I’m reminded of the last time I couldn’t breathe.