The Fortunate Ones
Page 48

Though my usual emotional support system has not included girls that still use a Barbie toothbrush, I’m tempted by her offer. Ellie is exhausted with hearing me talk about James and how much I miss him, and nobody else knows about the things we’ve gone through.
I don’t go into any of the PG-13 details with Luciana, but I tell her enough to make her nod sympathetically.
“Star-crossed lovers,” she concludes with a long sigh. Then she taps her chin like a thoughtful psychologist. “I know you’re really sad, but Olive and I think it’s boring when you’re sad. So you should just stop.”
“What?”
“Stop being sad.”
Oh, okay. I hadn’t realized it was that easy.
“I miss Collin too, but I don’t let it ruin my day. I still play with Olive and smile and stuff. And I can still read. You just pretend to read.”
I thought I was being more convincing with that…
“What do you think I should do?”
I tell myself I’m humoring her, when really she’s giving me the best advice of my life.
“Just smile.”
“Smile?”
“Yeah, even when you don’t feel like it. My dad says smiling is infectious. It’ll make you feel better.”
I spread my lips, straining my face into an odd caricature of a smile.
She erupts into a fit of giggles. “No! Not like that!”
I contort my features into another silly face. “How about this? Am I doing it now?”
She claps her hands over her face and shakes her head fervently. “Ugh! That’s not even close!”
“No, no.” I reach for her hands to pull them away from her eyes. “I got it now. Look.”
…
It takes me a long time to get my genuine smile back. For weeks, I wallow in regret, scared to admit to myself that I might have made a mistake in coming to Spain. The thought keeps me up at night, long after the rest of the house has gone to bed. I lie awake, listening to the sounds of Barcelona outside my window, imagining what my life might have been like if I’d stayed back home in Austin. It’s a painful game to play, and some nights, I come close to calling James. I pull up his contact, hover over the green button, and my heart starts to pound in anticipation. I think he will answer, especially in those early weeks when our heartbreak is fresh and the possibility of reconciliation within reach.
There’s one incident, a night that starts with pure intentions. Diego finds a few bottles of wine at the market on his way home from work. It’s apparently a steal, some really fancy shit he scores at a bargain price. He wants to celebrate, so after the girls go to sleep, we stay up watching bad TV and guzzling down glasses like there’s no tomorrow. We finish off the good stuff and then dip into the cheap bottles. Honestly, it all tastes the same to me.
Bad TV gets boring, and they decide they want to relive their teenage years with a game of truth or dare.
I go first and choose dare.
They dare me to call the guy I’ve been so mopey about.
“No,” I insist, suddenly feeling the wine churn in my stomach.
Nicolás reaches for my phone on the coffee table and slaps it into my palm. “A dare is a dare!”
I shake my head. “Something else. Anything.”
I look to Diego for a lifeline, but he’s giddy from the wine and can’t stop laughing long enough to come to my aid.
“Fine.”
I pull up James’ number, trying to ignore my shaking hand. I’m pretending this is a huge inconvenience, something I’d rather not do, but deep down I’ve been wanting to do it for months. I want to hear his voice and listen to him tell me to come home. I’ve replayed our last conversation at Twin Oaks so many times that it’s like an old record, warped and distorted. Did he really ask me to stay, or have I imagined he did so many times that now I think it’s reality?
“CALL!” Nicolás says, punching the button for me.
It starts to ring, and it feels like I just leapt out of an airplane. My heart beats wildly. My stomach flips and then clenches tight.
“Speaker, speaker!” Diego insists.
I oblige, and the last two rings reverberate loudly across their small living room.
My palms are sweaty. For that matter, so are my pits.
Finally, the call clicks on and a soft, feminine voice starts to talk.
“Hey! Brooke! Is that—”
I don’t hear the rest of the sentence because I press the red end button so fast and so hard, I nearly crack my phone’s screen.
Diego and Nicolás both groan in protest.
“Come on!” Diego says. “Why’d you hang up?!”
“Because some woman answered!”
My phone vibrates in my hand and I look down. James is calling back, or at least his phone is calling me back. It’s probably the woman. His wife? Girlfriend? I’m not in the right state of mind to handle this. I’m going to spew wine all over their distressed leather couch. Shows them for getting me drunk—they had it coming.
“Answer it!” Nicolás shouts.
I do, holding the phone to my ear with a shaky hand.
“Brooke?” the woman asks.
It’s the same voice from a second ago.
“Uhh, yes?” I answer hesitantly.
“This is Beth, James’ assistant?”
Relief floods my veins and I sag against the couch.
“Oh, right. Of course.”
Makes sense, I guess. Americans are still at work at this time.
“James is in a meeting at the moment so he redirected his personal calls to me. Would you like me take a message and have him call you back?”
A message?! How mortifying.
“Oh! Dear god no.”
I think I hear her chuckle, but I can’t be sure.
“Brooke, I think he’d be happy to hear from you.”
How would she know that? And what would I even say if I did leave him a message?
Nothing poetic comes to mind, just a lot of drunk rambling about the potential for love and maybe a possible reconciliation. She hangs there in silence for a few seconds as I ponder an impromptu proposal. No. Hell no.
Then it gets worse, because I hear James’ voice in the background. He’s bidding someone farewell, and then his attention turns to Beth.
“Who’s on the line?” he asks.
I pinch my eyes closed and try to keep my calm. His voice is just like I remember: confident and hard, all business. I leap into action when Beth stammers, “Oh, umm…”
“No message!” I plead, “and Beth, please, please don’t tell him it’s me.”
Then I hang up and toss my phone across the couch like it’s on fire.
I was so close to talking to him that my body shakes with an embarrassing amount of adrenaline.
Diego and Nicolás sit there staring at me in shocked silence. Their eyes are wide and their mouths are hanging open. Diego pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. Nicolás clears his throat. Sounds from the street drift in through the open window.
“Happy?” I ask, reaching for my wine glass and polishing off the last few ounces in the hopes that it’ll calm me down.
“Oh my god. That was…something. Are you still in love with him?” Diego asks gently.
“No!” I insist with a hard shake of my head, and then I emphasize, “I never was, I don’t think.”
He tilts his head, studying me thoughtfully.
“I wasn’t! Probably!”
His eyes widen in a mixture of fear and shock, and then he holds up his hands in innocence. “Of course. Right. Whose turn is it?”
I exact retribution by forcing Diego to drink a jar of pickle juice, and I force out hearty laughter while he does it. In reality, I’m seconds away from losing my shit. This distance I’ve put between James and myself has been a safeguard against my feelings, and calling him was a terrible idea. It’s like I opened Pandora’s box, and though I may try to cram all my half-baked feelings back inside, they don’t quite fit. The box is lumpy and straining at the seams. Mentally, I try sitting on it like an overstuffed piece of carry-on luggage, but it doesn’t work. That night when I go upstairs, I pull James’ Caltech t-shirt and gym shorts out of their spot in the top drawer of my dresser and slip them on. I don’t wear them often, fearful that the cotton will get too worn. In the beginning, they still smelled like him, but the scent is fading.