Dear Heart, I Hate You

“Tell me more about him. What’s he like? Did you see him before you left?”

“He drove me to the airport.”

My final kiss with Cal replayed in my head and I shivered, thankful the car was dark so Tami couldn’t see. I pressed a finger to my lips, wishing I could still feel his.

Shaking my head, I dragged myself from that delicious memory long enough to fill her in on my weekend, and answered all her questions about Cal and his brother. It was nice to have someone to talk to, but it also made my brain start working overtime. When Tami commented how awesome it was that I’d finally met a guy who didn’t make me want to run away from him, I almost cried.

“I don’t know, Tam, it’s just—” I stopped short, not knowing what to say. There was so much going on inside me, I wasn’t sure how to organize my thoughts into something remotely coherent.

“It’s just what?” she asked.

“It’s just a bad idea. All of it.”

Now that Cal and I were separated by distance and time, worry had begun to creep in. Not only did my heart long for him, but every part of me missed him, and it scared me. I’d always been such a take-charge kind of person, in control of my own destiny, and now I was being swept away by something I had no control over. Common sense told me I should probably forget about Cal instead of craving more of him.

Tami glanced at me, her brows scrunched in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m going to get hurt at some point with this one.” The realization hit me so hard, I felt the unwelcome truth of it settle into my bones.

“Why are you saying that?” Her voice softened with concern, sounding almost sad.

I took a minute, thinking about how to word it in a way that made any sense. “He lives in Boston and I live here. We’re both workaholics who don’t normally date. There’s no way this doesn’t e

nd badly for me. Just remind me that I knew this would hurt and I still did it anyway. Remind me that I thought he was worth the impending pain.”

Tami drew in a long breath and shook her head. “You’re sick, you know that?”

“I think I’m just being realistic.”

“I think you never know what can happen. He might prove you wrong.”

“Who are you,” I said in disbelief, trying to tamp down my irritation, “and what have you done with my best friend?”

Tami dated a lot, but she never seemed to settle down with one guy for too long. She was pragmatic rather than a hopeless romantic, and I liked that about her. She was the only one who understood when I decided to close off my heart to love, and didn’t give me a hard time about it.

She shrugged as she signaled to exit the freeway. “I’m just saying that you never know. You obviously met him for a reason, right? And you had fun when you were with him?”

“Yeah, I really did. I had a great time.” My voice went all dreamy as I indulged in my memories for a second.

“When’s the last time you had fun with a guy?” she demanded. “I can’t even remember, Jules. Honestly.”

“I know, okay? I know all of this.”

“Did you two talk about seeing each other again?”

A lump that was certainly filled with disappointment lodged in my throat. “No. We didn’t talk about anything like that.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah,” I said softly. “It does sort of suck.”

I looked out the window as we neared my apartment complex, my mind filled with so many thoughts I didn’t know how they all stayed in. I was half-convinced that if I dipped my head a little lower to the right, some of them might spill out of my ear.

Tami sighed as she pulled into my gated complex and punched in the security code she knew all too well. The heavy gate swung open and she drove to my building and parked behind my car, blocking it in its assigned covered space. After putting the car in park, she turned to face me and studied me for a moment.

“I feel like it can’t be over. I mean, why meet him if that was it?” Then her face lit up. “Unless his whole purpose was to wake up your dead black heart for the next guy,” she said with a laugh.

Three days ago, I would have laughed too, but I didn’t laugh tonight.