I don't allow myself to break down in the cab. First, because the driver keeps staring at me as if he can't decide whether to take me to a mental hospital or ask me out to dinner. And also, because I think if I let myself break down, I will never stop hurting. So I take it out by biting my poor nails off on the ride home.
When I open the door to my apartment, it becomes apparent that I will have to relive my night of hell minute by minute because Jess raises her eyebrows, scrutinizing me from head to toe.
"Spill everything," she says.
I don't attempt to brush her off, because I know she'll nag me for weeks, if necessary, to tell her what happened. The sooner I get it over with, the better. So I sit on the couch next to her and start recounting the events of the evening. Funny, with every word I speak, a weight I didn't realize I was carrying lifts off my chest. Jess doesn't interrupt me the entire time, though I can read the disapproval on her face. When I finish, she lets out a huff.
"You don't believe he didn't get involved with anyone else since you broke up?" she asks, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers.
"No, I do believe him, but…"
"Then I don't understand. Why did you run off?"
"You don't think the fact that he showed up with Natalie sort of defeats whatever he did, or didn't do, since we broke up?"
"Well, you went there with Parker. What did you expect?"
"I don't know," I say, and I mean it.
"You know, Serena," she says and the gravity in her voice startles me, "it's very rare that people want to change, and even rarer that they want to change for someone else. James is trying to change for you. I think that's beautiful."
"Waiting for him to change is proving to be a risky business so far."
"Of course it's risky. But isn't everything that is really worth it in this life risky?" Jess snorts, looking away from me. "Maybe you should contemplate changing some things about yourself, too."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, standing up.
"You're so uptight, you know, that I'm afraid you'll end up in your safe little corner, where nothing risky can harm you. Where you'll never allow yourself to live."
"Wow, that was… profound," I say flatly, heading to my room. "Thanks for your concern, Jess."
"You know I'm right," she calls just as I shut the door to my room.
I climb in my bed, but instead of falling asleep, I start crying. Pain has a way of creeping inside me without me realizing it. It always starts with my mind. Pain throws it in a swirl of dark thoughts and dire memories, until I cannot separate reality from pain. Then it takes over my core, hitting it hard, mercilessly, until the pain becomes physical and my heart seems ready to give in. But it never has until now, because I've always fought back. Always kept myself on the edge, on the surface. But this time it throws me into the abyss I have narrowly avoided time and again. When Kate died. When Michael left. Even when I broke up with James. I can't climb back out of the abyss, as hard as I try. It hurts so badly I start wishing for something I never wished before: for my heart to stop. Maybe then, the pain would stop too. Though deep down, I know it would carry on. I think pain is the only thing powerful enough to carry on in the afterlife.
I don't leave the apartment at all during the next few days. I miss my weekly volunteer visit at the hospital. For the first time ever, I also miss classes. Two days of them, no less. I stay in my bed most of the time, crying or sleeping, barely touching the food Jess religiously brings me three times a day. I don't make any attempt to squelch the pain by exhausting myself, as usual.
I hurt.
Life decides to completely mess with my mind on the day I finally snap out of my funk and return to Stanford. Not life, actually. Just my phone.
The ventilation system in my favorite cafeteria on the whole campus is not working. Either that, or I'm suddenly suffering from ultra-acute anxiety. Probably the latter. I'm holding my phone in my shaking hands, afraid to even look at it. Half an hour ago I received an email from one of the banks I interviewed with in San Francisco. And I still haven't opened it. I was in the middle of a class when I received it and first tried to ignore it, thinking that such an email is best read without thirty people around me. But I started tapping my fingers on my desk and shifting in my chair until I could no longer sit,
so I slipped out of class. And dragged Aidan with me.
"Will you calm down," Aidan says, staring at me with wide eyes as I flutter my palms in front of me, desperate for air. Aidan is, along with me, at the top of the class in most courses. And, as Jess reminds me every time I bring Aidan up, his social skills aren't nearly as impressive as his intelligence. But he seems even more nervous now than usual, jiggling his foot under the table. I have a feeling that my dragging him out of class contributed to his exponential nervousness. He sits opposite me at a window table in the cafeteria. "Just open the email."
"You open it," I say, shoving my smartphone to him.
"You're being ridiculous." He turns bright red as I begin to flutter my hands again, and I think that my almost see-through top is a bit too much for him. He looks away, passing his hand nervously through his dark hazel hair.
"Please, Aidan."
"Fine."
The next minutes pass in slow motion. I'm suddenly glad that it's not Jess sitting in front of me. She'd use this moment to torture me, just for the fun of it. I watch Aidan light the screen of my phone and then press the mailbox app. The one unread email is still there. Deep down, I feared I imagined the email. The bank wasn't supposed to get back to me for another week, so I’m not sure what the early response means. I stop fluttering my hands and cover my face when Aidan opens the email.
What feels like hours later, the much-coveted announcement comes. "You got the job."