Dear Heart, I Hate You

Tami raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that what you would do?”

“No! Of course not. But I’m not looking for anyone else; I don’t want to date anyone else. I really like Cal. I don’t want to be with someone who isn’t him.”

She toyed with her drink, seeming deep in thought. “I don’t think he met someone.”

My eyes widened, my heart suddenly a fraction more hopeful than it was two seconds before. “You don’t?”

She looked up at me and shook her head. “I don’t. I don’t think that’s what happened at all, and I’d be surprised if it had.”

“I wish I could read hearts,” I all but slurred as I downed the last of my drink.

The waiter paused at our table and looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I shook my head. I wanted another lemon drop, but I certainly didn’t need one.

Tami laughed. “Don’t you mean minds?”

“Why on earth would I want to read minds? No. Hearts. Hearts don’t lie. Okay, well, maybe they do. But you can’t talk yourself out of feeling the way you feel in your heart the way you can in your mind. Hearts feel things whether you want them to or not. They aren’t logical, trying to make sense all the time. They just do.”

“So you’d read Cal’s heart if you could?”

“In a heartbeat. Pun intended.” I laughed at my own joke. “If I knew how he felt about me, then I’d be okay with his silence. It would at least ease some of the pain, or help me get over it altogether. If I just knew what was going on in there.” I jabbed at my chest with my finger.

Tami shrugged. “You should just ask him how he feels.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause you took my phone.”

“I didn’t mean tonight!” she exclaimed. “No. I take it back.” She pointed at me, looking all bossy and lawyer-like. “You don’t ask him anything. You don’t reach out to him, you don’t text him, you don’t tweet him, you don’t call him or send him an e-mail, or Snap-whatever. Nothing, you hear me? That was a bad idea from me. Don’t you dare contact him ever again.”

“I hear you,” I said, nodding at her.

“You aren’t going to listen to me, are you?”

“Who knows. I clearly enjoy the torture of putting myself out there and getting nothing in return.”

But it wasn’t about the torture, really. I wanted answers. Hell, I wanted something from him. Anything was better than the silent treatment.

Cal had grown on me way quicker than I’d ever anticipated, and felt his absence like a loss in the worst way. The pain in my chest reminded me how undead my heart truly was with each beat it sputtered out. It had simply been an organ that existed inside me for so long, feeling nothing, and now all it brought me was a constant ache.

“You know, I wonder what’s wrong with me,” I said, my heart spilling out of my mouth.

“What do you mean, what’s wrong with you?”

“Let’s just say that everything he said to me was a lie.”

“This again?” Tami leaned back in her chair and groaned.

“Yes, just listen. Say he lied about everything. Then how messed up is my truth meter if I had no idea the whole time?” I glared at her, begging her to help me make sense of my heart.

“Because he wasn’t lying?”

“If he meant the things he said, then where is he right now? How could he walk away so easily like I never existed and ignore me?” My eyes welled with tears, and I swiped at them before any dared to fall.

I had meant every single thing I’d said to Cal since I met him. Everything I had confessed to him was said with a full heart, and I’d believed everything he had said back to me. I’d smiled when he contacted me, every part of me jumping for joy.

But now I simply felt like a fool, as if somehow I should have known better. If he misled me, why hadn’t I sensed it? Why didn’t I know this could happen?