The Rest Will Come Page 11

“Tim is great. On paper, he’s absolutely perfect. I’m comfortable with him. I like spending time with him. But…”

  “You don’t feel anything.”

  “Right. And I don’t know how to make myself.”

  “Oh honey, you can’t make yourself.”

  “There’s just no spark.”

  “The spark is a load of crap.”

  “Damn it! Ronnie again!”

  Gladys laughed. “When I met my husband, I couldn’t stand him. The man drove me insane. There was no spark between us unless you count my desire to punch him square in the nose. We worked together back then. He was persistent. Gradually, I got to know him. Slowly, all that hate changed. We made our own spark. Been married for a lot of years now. Good years and bad.”

  “So I should keep trying with Tim?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Eminem. All I am saying is the spark is a myth, but only you know how you feel. If you feel there is nothing, there might be nothing.”

  “The guys I do feel something for turn out to be awful.”

  “Well, sweetheart, that’s a whole other issue. My opinion, you’re hung up on something that won’t let you really give this guy a chance. That’s only my opinion.”

  “Great. Now I’m even more confused and feel even worse about myself.”

  “Never feel bad about how you feel. There are no laws in the mind. You can think and feel whatever you want inside yourself. Things only become good or bad when you turn them into actions. Feel how you feel, and eventually, you’ll figure out what it means.”

  Emma sighed and slumped down on the counter. “Thanks, Gladys.”

  “Don’t know that I helped.”

  “You didn’t,” Emma said with a chuckle.

  ***

  Tim pulled up outside Happy Beans to pick up Emma after her shift. She balled her apron up in her hands and gulped as she reached for the handle. She took a deep breath and forced a smile as she eased in.

  “Hello, beautiful,” Tim said, buttered in his thick accent. He touched her hand and placed a gentle, tongue-free, dry kiss on her lips. “How was your day?”

  Emma beamed genuinely at the affection. “It’s always a good day when I only work one shift.”

  “Emma, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” Tim said as he navigated the car back toward his house.

  “Sure.”

  “I was thinking we should go away, take a quick holiday for the weekend. I’ve never been to any of the ski towns here. Breckenridge or Aspen.”

  The flashing thought of an entire romantic weekend caught in Emma’s throat. She nearly choked on the idea of the hours of faking her way through lackluster sex, moaning halfheartedly beneath him. Imagining it, the grimace contorted her face before she could catch it. From the way he stiffened in the seat beside her, he had seen it.

  “Emma, tell me the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you’re not into this, just tell me.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Emma, it’s okay. You can just tell me.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Emma said, dropping her head into her hands. “I like you, and I like spending time with you, but I don’t think I feel the same way you feel about me.”

  “So I’m really awesome, but you’re not into it.”

  “Oh my God,” Emma breathed.

  “What?”

  “I’m the douchebag,” Emma whispered into her hands.

  “What?”

  “I’m really sorry, Tim. I wanted to make this work.”

  “Look, Emma, I would rather you be honest with me. I want to be with someone who truly wants to be with me.”

  And that’s what you deserve, Emma thought. Only, it’s not what I deserve.

  “I’m sorry, Tim.”

  “It’s okay, Emma. How about I take you home?”

  “Please.”

  It made Emma feel worse that Tim responded so reasonably. She envied how easily he could accept her rejection, how it made no impact on his self-worth, how he was able to know what he wanted and accept she was not it. She was not a failure to him the way all the men in her past were to her. She found him more attractive then, and that made her even more frustrated and lost within herself.

  What am I doing?

  The thought repeated in her head until Tim’s headlights receded from her driveway.

  Emma did not use a light in the house. She shut out the light with the door and embraced the darkness, letting her fingertips linger on the cool surface on the door for a long time, somewhat at a loss as to what to do. Her first instinct twitched to contact Ronnie; however, she did not want to hear what Ronnie had to say, did not want to hear how she had squandered the one decent guy.

  She already knew.

  She could not always run to Ronnie. She was alone, and in the dark after Tim left, she felt like maybe it was where she needed to be.

  Chapter 10

  The months after Tim passed like a monotonous blur. Something about rejecting him, and more his calm acceptance of it, lingered in Emma. She lost herself in the anonymous revolution of identical days.

  A heavy hollowness weighed in the pit of her stomach. Different from the betrayal and the heartbreak, different from the embarrassment and the regret, different from the disappointment and frustration. The hole in her stomach grew deeper, extending out below her, where hope used to be.

  As she drove between jobs and sat on the couch in front of mindless television, Emma was plagued by cyclical thoughts.

  I am going to die alone. I am never going to find someone. I might as well go pick up five cats from the pound and get a fuzzy bathrobe and some slippers. There has to be something wrong with me. Justin didn’t want me. Justin was having sex with some bar skank while I was working to pay off his debt or at home alone. Still alone. Always alone.

  None of them want me. They use me then disappear. I am awesome, but there is always something better. Why couldn’t I want Tim? Tim wanted me. Tim was a good guy. But I’m too broken to want Tim. I am disgusted by the one decent guy I could get. I want the ones who do not want me and do not want the ones who do want me.

  I am going to die alone because I am crazy and damaged. I am never going to have a family. I am never going to have a baby. It is going to be me and my cats that probably won’t want me either.

  On some level, Emma knew that the ideas were half-crazed and desperate, mostly depression talking. At the same time, some thread of truth rung off her bones. She could not wrap her head around why dating was so difficult now. It had not been challenging when she met Justin. Though she did not date extensively, it came easy. She had plenty of opportunities while she was married, which she, unlike Justin, declined. Other people got divorced and into new relationships. People her age were onto their third marriages by now.

  What was wrong with her?

  After whirling around the drain of depression in her mind long enough, Emma would either retreat into sleep or plunge headlong into work. In either case, she strove only to quell the thoughts and focus on anything else.

  She unenthusiastically brought a forkful of noodles to her mouth. Ronnie no longer had to coax and guilt her into eating; still the food in her mouth was tasteless. She absently noted the smooth texture of the noodles, the heat of the sauce, while the physiological reaction was muted, detached. Her limbs felt heavy when she moved, only matched by the weight of her skull and her eyelids. Every cell in her body was weighted and stripped of the motivation to fight gravity.

  Ronnie’s gaze pressed on her cheek as she chewed then trailed her next bite.

  “Ronnie,” Emma said. “What?”

  “Are you okay, Em?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You are not yourself at all lately.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Emma, if there is one thing I know, it’s depression. And you are terrible at hiding your emotions, especially from me.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, I’m sad. And angry. And frustrated. And lonely. And about a million other things. But I’m sick of talking about it. It doesn’t change a damn thing. I’m trying to focus on anything else right now. Take a break from all the dating bullshit.”

  “So is that working out for you? Are you not thinking about it or beating yourself up over it?” Ronnie raised her eyebrows and sipped from her wine.

  “Of course not.”

  “Weird. It’s almost like you suck at all of that.”

  Emma laughed into her spaghetti, the one dish Ronnie was capable of cooking.

  “Emma, it’s okay to be depressed. It’s okay to be sad and pissed and all of those things.”

  “I could have sworn I said I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “Yeah, but you’re still thinking about it, so let’s get it out there.”

  “Aren’t you sick of hearing it yet?”

  “Yeah, so that’s why I’m going to help you fix it so you can shut up about it for real.”

  Emma giggled again. Ronnie was relentless.

  “Well, if you insist.”

  “Why are you sad?”

  “I feel like the answer is always the same. I’m sad because I’m divorced and alone.”

  “Angry at Justin and the string of assholes after. Frustrated at the dating bullshit. Lonely and turning on yourself because you’re the common factor.”

  “Yes, all of that. Thank you, Ronnie! Hearing it again makes me feel so much better.”

  “Oh, some venom. We’re finally getting to the angry stage.”

  “So we know what I feel; we know why I feel it; now what? How do I make it stop?”

  “You don’t.”

  “What do you mean I don’t? What the hell does that mean?”

  “You can’t fight it, Emma. That’s not how depression works. Resistance, denial, all that shit only makes it worse. This is your life right now. All the anger and sadness and whatever won’t change what it is.”

  “Holy crap. That is even more depressing. So what am I supposed to do? Give up on everything I want and deal with this bullshit life that I don’t want.”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “That sure sounds like what you’re saying.”

  “Let me try to explain it another way. Your marriage to Justin was always going to end. Maybe he was going to cheat on you, like he did. Maybe you were going to get fed up with his bullshit and decide to leave him. Maybe one of you was going to die. In all scenarios, it ends.”

  “Still waiting for the less depressing part…”

  “Emma, I spent a lot of time in therapy. You remember what a mess I was when we were young, right?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I wasted all those years, all that youth being fucked up. I can’t have that time back.”

  “We’re not that old, Ronnie. It wasn’t that much time.”

  “Still. Let me try to save you some time by sharing what I learned.”

  “I’ve been to therapy too.”

  “Yes, as a child. Apparently, to stop hitting kids in the head with pipes! Thanks for keeping that from me, by the way. And for your parents’ divorce. You haven’t gone as an adult with these problems.”

  “Okay, Ronnie. Hit me.”

  “When I was dealing with my father dying, the most comforting thing became knowing that all things in life end.”

  “That doesn’t sound very comforting.”

  “Wait for it,” Ronnie chuckled. “All of it is just chapters along the way. Right now for you, this is merely a chapter. A very shitty chapter, but a chapter that will still pass. Everything in life changes, one way or another, eventually. Instead of being miserable trying to get out of this chapter or thinking about other chapters, live it, knowing that it will eventually end, and there will be new chapters after it.”

  “Well, shit.”

  “A little less depressing, right?”

  “Maybe marginally?”

  Emma sat stunned for a moment, her mind reeling around the book imagery Ronnie’s belaboring of the chapter metaphor conjured up, tangled around the sharp edges of the reality Ronnie threw back in her face. She wanted to tell Ronnie to go to hell. She wanted to cry again. She wanted to not talk about it, like she had said.

  She hated the words, but she hated more that they were true. How was she supposed to accept this chapter? How was she supposed to sit by and be alone when all she wanted was a family?

  Emma set her plate on the table. She could no longer shove the tasteless food into her mouth. Somehow, she felt even heavier. She wanted to close her eyes so she did not have to see Ronnie, so Ronnie would stop telling her things she did not want to hear, so that all this reality she was supposed to roll over and accept would fade into the darkness. She would prefer her nightmares tonight, the garish exaggerations of this unfortunate chapter.

  “I’m sorry, Emma,” Ronnie said quietly. “But you do need to hear this.”

  “That is what you say every time, but it doesn’t make it hurt less.”

  “We aren’t guaranteed happiness, Emma. The happiness we get is fleeting, random, and surrounded by bullshit.”

  “You really are making me want to kill myself right now.”

  “No, no. That is exactly why you have to suck any enjoyment you can out of life. When you get something good, fucking love it.”

  “You sound like a self-help book.”

  “Ouch. I am serving as your therapist here, and technically, paraphrasing my own therapists.”

  “I just want to be there. I want to skip all this crap and have my family.”

  “There is no ‘there,’ Emma. Just like there is no spark. Those expectations are making you miserable. While you may not want the life you have right now, it’s the one you have, so you have to find a way to not be miserable in it. Exactly like those years you wasted with Justin. You don’t get them back.”

  “So what do I do now?”

  “I can’t tell you what to do. That’s the point. You need to find something that makes you happier. Focus on anything else that brings a little joy to your life so you’re not simply shambling through the dark days until Prince Charming miraculously fixes everything.”

  “Holy shit. I sound like a twit.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Eeew.”

  “Uh huh. You should know from Justin that some guy is not going to fix this for you. Your happiness is in you. Your life is under your control.”

  “Jesus, I’m such a mess. How did I become such a mess?”

  “Conveniently, you have all this time to now figure yourself out. I don’t think you got to do that before you got married.”

  “No, I married Justin and thought I was done. I figured I had the husband and was going to have the house and the family and that my life was all figured out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I am an idiot.”

  “No, you are a girl.”

  “How the hell do you know all this?”

  “I’m crazy. I should bill you for the gold mine you are saving on therapy sessions right now.”

  “I don’t think I ever appreciated your bat shit crazy until now.”

  “The more you know.” Ronnie laughed and lifted her glass.

  “So I should figure myself out before I try dating again.”

  “Did you even listen to any of my ridiculous rambling?”

  “So I should forget about dating?”

  “Emma, I swear, I am going to murder you with that fire poker over there.”

  “Hey, I used to fantasize about killing Justin with our fire poker while we were splitting up.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t do it.”

  “He would have deserved it.”

  “Maybe that’s what would make you happy! Cold-blooded murder.”

  “Oh! That’s what I’m supposed to do. Find something that makes me happy.”

  “Ding! Ding! Finally. Now can we please eat this food, drink this w
ine, and watch something stupid on TV?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Emma pulled the plate back into her lap, noticing that it did not feel as laborious as when she had abandoned it. She might have even tasted the spicy bite of marinara as she chewed her next bite.

  ***

  Snow fell in large, fluffy flakes during Emma’s drive home from work the next night. Rolling slowly through the streets of her neighborhood, she listened to the snow pack down and crunch under her tires. Her headlights carved through the vacant roads where snow had begun to heap on top of parked vehicles. With her neck tight and her feet whining from standing so many relentless hours, Emma thought about flannel pajama pants, hot tea, and starting a fire in the neglected fireplace. With her trusty fire poker.

  She turned onto her own street and started to creep toward her driveway, her house rising so dark and empty in front of her. The accumulation of snow on the roof made the windows look drooped and despondent, the blackness pouring from every opening heavy and consuming.

  The loneliness swelled out from the pit of her stomach, inflating her chest, pressing uncomfortably against her ribs. Thoughts crawled on the edge of her mind. She should be coming home to a family. She should not be working so many jobs and hours. She should have someone to take care of her. She should not have to be alone.

  Should. Should. SHOULD.

  Emma pulled the car to a stop with the headlights reflecting back against her garage door, fat snowflakes dancing lazily in the beams. She gripped the steering wheel and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  Something to make me happy. Something to distract me.

  Emma burst through the front door, flinging snow in behind her. She chucked her purse, apron, coat, and marched up into her bedroom, stripping her clothes as she ascended the stairs. She forbade thoughts, throwing a wall between the back of her mind and the commands she issued to her body. She rifled through her drawer, tossing out a heap of clothing onto her bed.

  Thermal tights under running tights, warm core shirt under a long-sleeved tech shirt, topped by a running jacket. Two pairs of socks, flip top gloves, a neoprene headband, and a beanie. She tugged her headlamp over her head and anxiously laced up her running shoes, pulling her traction spikes on over the soles.