Look Again

I want to jump up and down.

I let out a tiny squeal. I hope Joey didn’t hear that.

She turns and looks at me. Why is she not jumping and squealing?

She smiles at me, but not in a giddy way. She looks peaceful. Confident. Gorgeous.

Professional, that’s what I meant. She looks professional.

And I should be, too.

But I can’t help it. “She wants to see original scripts.” It comes out as kind of a whisper-shout. My hands might have flapped. My feet are definitely tapping.

“That’s awesome,” she says. “Do you have three scripts? Or time to write them before the end of the week?” She is not as excited as I am. Fine. I’ll be excited for both of us.

My legs want to run. I can barely contain myself. “I have a bunch of projects. Some that I started years ago in school. Some nearly finished. Stuff I work on in my spare time.” My arms itch to punch the air.

“What do you think about putting together a timeline?” she asks, her hand on her forehead again. I wonder for a second if she feels sad that I’m so clearly winning. But she doesn’t look sad.

I can’t keep it together much longer. I want to burst out laughing, I’m that excited. “Sure. Whatever.” I want to pick her up and spin her around. How can she be so calm about this? Doesn’t she understand what an amazing opportunity this is?

“Okay, then. I’ll take care of that,” she says, turning to head in the other direction.

“Wait,” I say. “Where are you going?” I can feel the smile practically splitting my face in two.

“Home,” she says. “I have a lot of new work to do.” Not a hint of a return smile.

“Right. Okay. See you later,” I say. She’s taken a few steps when I jog over to catch up to her. “Original scripts!” I try not to shout it at her, but I can’t hold in the laugh. “This is going to be amazing.” Looking down, I realize that both my hands are on her shoulders. I hurry to move them away because I don’t want to be a creep, but I can’t hide the smile, and I don’t want to.

Watching her walk away, I know something I almost never know: everything is going my way.

And I deserve it. I sacrificed a lot to get here.

I pick up my phone and text Hank.

‘Dinner, please. It’s your turn to buy.’

He answers quickly. ‘Agreed. Thirty minutes.’

I drop off my things in my apartment and glance again at my phone. There’s a text from Candace Holland. I know, because her contact name in my phone is a Canadian flag—a memory of my nickname for her.

Do I want to read it? Do I want to go there?

No. Of course not.

Nothing good ever, ever comes from revisiting the land of the ex. Especially not when the ex is The Ex.

She was The One. And then she wasn’t. And now she’s texting me as if she has any right to appear in my cell phone.

I throw the phone onto the couch.

That lasts about half a second. I open the message. Can we talk? I miss you.

I can’t tell if I’m angrier or sadder. No, I think toward the phone. We can’t talk. And she doesn’t get to miss me. She gave that away when she broke up with me.

I’ve been working hard and paying a great therapist to get me to the point where I don’t answer her text. But no therapy in existence can make me not think about it. About her. About us and how we ended.

I have half an hour to organize my thoughts on my life plan and my feelings about my ex. I don’t look forward to discussing Candace with Hank, but Hank is the only one who knows the whole story, and there is this self-destructive piece of me that requires me, every three or four months, to relive the madness that was the end of our relationship.