Broken (23 page)

“No more
anything,
Paul. This visit will be my last.”

I don't get up from my chair when he does. “Hold on. You're not going to come by? Not going to be my dad anymore?”

His face crumples for a second before regaining its indifferent expression. “I'm in Boston. I'm always there if you want me. Always.”

His expression tells me he won't be holding his breath for a visit.
Nobody
will holding their breath for a visit from me. I've made sure of that.

“You're just walking away?” I say, raising my voice as he starts to leave.

My father gives me a bland look over his shoulder. “Isn't it what you've always wanted?”

I have my own place.

As in my very own
I-pay-the-rent
apartment, for the first time ever.

It's a tiny, ancient studio on the border of the Upper East Side and Harlem. It smells like Thai food
always
and looks out onto a halfway house.

But it's mine. I pay for it using my paycheck, which I get from an actual company, not an anonymous businessman who can't be bothered to take care of his own problem child.

This time, I got a job working for Ethan's dad. (I know, right?)

Like a total idiot, I'd gotten so wrapped up in my obsession with Paul that I hadn't thought at all about what I'd do when the three months were up. And when I'd walked out the door I had a broken heart but absolutely zero prospects for getting a job.

So I'd done the unthinkable. I'd called Mr. Price and begged for a job…an internship, anything. After my spectacularly disastrous experiment with caregiving, I'd decided maybe the business world was the right fit for me after all.

I'm also taking a few night classes at a community college to get my degree. My parents are totally exasperated that I've come full circle. They're right on one level: It would have been easier to just finish my senior year at NYU with my friends. But I don't know how to explain to them that that simply wasn't my path. There were things I needed to do first. Stuff about myself to discover before I could realize that, yeah, the original idea of entering the business world was the right choice for me all along.

Anyway.

The starting salary for a marketing assistant doesn't leave much room for luxuries. Consistent hot water is a thing of the past, and the heat in my building seems to have two settings:
off
and
try to start a fire.

But I'm doing it. On my own.

However…truth? When I see my parents for dinner once a week or so and they ask if I need any money, or mention that their friends are spending the rest of the year in Paris and wonder if I want a paid-for place on Park Avenue for that time, I'm tempted. Just a little.

There's supposed to be all this pride in doing things for yourself, and I guess there is that, but I miss the trendy restaurants and endless clothes fund of my past life. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't easier before. But
easy
also feels hollow.

My time in Maine, while 95 percent disastrous, also showed me that I'd rather be doing it
wrong
on my own than doing it
right
for someone else's sake.

That's why things went amiss with Ethan. I was with him because I was supposed to be. It also happened at NYU. I was there because I was supposed to be the perfect little coed.

And now?

I'm on the right path.

Well, truthfully, I still feel a
little
lost. But at least I've started to figure out what I
don't
want, and that's a start.

I volunteer at the soup kitchen over on Eleventh Avenue every Sunday. Not because I want to continue punishing myself for past mistakes, but because it feels right.

I figure the best any of us can do is make amends the best we can to those we've wronged, and try to do better next time. One day at a time, and all that.

Now if only I could forget Paul. I push thoughts of him out of my head. I've been doing a lot of that lately. Or trying to, anyway.

It's Friday afternoon.
So
not the time for moping. If I thought Fridays were awesome when I was a full-time student, they're downright euphoric now that I'm part of the regular workforce.

Don't get me wrong, I like my job. As marketing assistant, I'm really more like the assistant to the assistant to the associate marketing manager, which essentially means I make copies for a living, but even three weeks in, I can see a clear-cut career path, and that's kind of cool. I don't know that I'll stay on this path, but so far it's a hell of a lot better fit for me than caregiving was. I think it'll be pretty difficult to get my heart broken in marketing, so already that's a plus.

Still, great job or not, an end-of-the-week cocktail is sounding pretty perfect right about now.

Once I'm out of the subway tunnel, I pull out my cellphone to text Bella. As with the best of friendships, we picked up right where we'd left off, as though I hadn't been in Maine and barely responsive for three months.

As always, she's read my mind, texting me before I can text her.
Wine tonight? I'm thinking a bucketful, at least.

I smile and text her back.
My place?

Her response is immediate.
God, no. My sweater still smells like pad thai from last time I came over. Heard about a cheap new wine bar in Hell's Kitchen. Will text u details.

I don't even bother waiting for the elevator in my building. On a good day and at off-hours it's slower than molasses. At six o'clock on a Friday I don't think I'll ever see it, especially since there's a moving truck outside. Some poor soul is about to realize that their bed, couch, dresser, and every other heavy item they own won't fit in the shoe-box elevators. Poor thing.

I take the steps two at a time. I like to pretend it's my exercise. I'm winded by the time I reach the sixth floor, probably because I haven't gone for a run once since I left Maine. It's stupid, but running makes me think of Paul.

So do turkey sandwiches.

And books.

And military uniforms.

And anyone with blue eyes.

I round the corner toward my unit and nearly collide with a pile of moving boxes. It would seem the new resident is on my floor.

Please, please, please don't let them be a weirdo.

As long as it's not an aspiring musician, I'll be fine. I already have one of those living next door. She claims to have future in “folk rap.” Yup. That's apparently a thing. And I get to hear her practice.

Like I said, I need that wine.

A burly-looking guy with tattoos comes out of the newly occupied apartment to pick up a couple of boxes. He gives me a blatant once-over and licks his lips. I give him a drop-dead look. He blows me a kiss.

Gross.
I'm so not on Park Avenue anymore.

Bella still hasn't texted me back, but I pour myself a glass of wine and settle onto the loveseat with my Andrew Jackson book after kicking off my shoes.

Yeah. I'm back to that.

See, I went to Bar Harbor, Maine with two goals: (1) heal Paul Langdon and (2) read this damned book. I'm determined to do at least one of those, and it
certainly
won't be the first. He's made that much clear in the weeks that have passed.

It's not like I've been expecting him to chase after me or anything like that. I mean, if he's too chickenshit to go to a movie in Maine, he's definitely not going to show up at my office with some romantic gesture. To do that he'd have to
care.

To do that, he'd have to love me the way that I love him.

Ha.
Loved
him, past tense. I need to put that behind me.

There's a knock at the door. It's Maria, the folk rapper.

“Hey. I need some cornstarch,” she says, snapping her fingers in a
hand-it-over
gesture.

Seriously?

“I don't have any cornstarch,” I reply.

Maria wrinkles her nose in irritation. “That's supposed to be a neighborly thing. A cup of cornstarch or whatever.”

“Actually, I think that's a cup of sugar. Which I have, if you need it.”

I have a ton of sugar. I've been determined to duplicate Lindy's cookie recipe, but so far I'm not even close.

“Well, okay. Hand over the sugar, then.”

I frown. “Wait—do you need sugar or cornstarch?”

“Cornstarch, but I'll take the sugar.”

I shake my head in confusion. “They're not substitutes for each other, you know.”

“What?” she asks.

Oh my God. I should have brought my wine to the door.
“Sugar and cornstarch. So not the same thing.”

“Well, what
can
I sub for cornstarch?”

I start to tell her to Google it like a normal person, or just run down to the bodega and get some freaking cornstarch, but I try to keep my expression pleasant. Who knows, maybe I really will need the proverbial cup of sugar from her someday.

“Are you using it as a thickening agent? You could use flour,” I say. Lindy would be so freaking proud.

“A thickening agent?”

I smile, trying to keep it friendly. “Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you should just order takeout.”

“Yeah, maybe you're right.”

“Okay then,” I mutter, already starting to close the door.

Her face gets in mine. “Did you see the new neighbor? He's yummy.”

“Yeah, I saw him. Beefy and lecherous isn't really my thing.”

“Not mine either, seeing as I like the ladies, but anyway, that's not the new guy, that's the mover. His name is Bruce.”

“The mover or the new guy?” I asked, wondering why the hell I'm still having this conversation.

“The mover, obviously. He's a creep.”

My head is spinning.

“The new guy could totally turn me,” Maria whispers, leaning in.

“Good luck with that,” I say, glancing over my shoulder in a deliberate,
well-I-should-r
eally-be-going
kind of way.

“Well, thanks but no thanks on the cornstarch,” she says, giving me a little wave. “Guess Tasty Thai is where it's at again tonight. Oh, and before I forget…I'm performing at a little place on 96th and Lex tomorrow, if you want to come. Don't know that it's your scene, though,” she says, giving my work dress pants and pink cardigan a once-over.

“Yeah, maybe not. Thanks anyway, though.”

She puts a hand on the door before I can shut it, and I stifle a scream of irritation. Maybe
this
is why Paul goes out of his way to avoid neighbors. They're
annoying
.

“You could ask the new guy to take you.”

“Yeah!” I make my eyes go wide and eager. “I'll think about it!”

Not
.

“He asked about you,” she says, her face coming in the door before I can shut it.

I frown. “Who?”

“The new guy.”

My heart gives a little thump, and not in a good way. That a new neighbor is asking about her is one thing a girl living alone doesn't want to hear,
ever
.

“That's…disturbing.”

She shrugs. “You wouldn't think that if you saw him. Well,
half
of him anyway. One side of his face is Hollywood gorgeous, and the other is…well, something happened. No judgment here, though. I think it's sexy.
If
I liked men. But—”

“Hold on.” My heart's kicked into overdrive. “Hold on just a second. Half of his face is scarred?”

“Totally.” She holds up three fingers like a claw and makes a swiping motion. “Wicked scars.
Sexy
wicked.”

Without a word, I shut the door in her face. Rude? Yes. Necessary? Definitely. Because I feel like I'm going to throw up.

“Hey!” she shouts through the door. “Don't tell him I told you about him. He told me not to!”

I close my eyes and slump to the ground, leaning my head back against the door as I try to get it together.

Paul is here. No, Paul's
living
here. In my building.

The question is, how do I feel about it?

Stunned? Check. Elated? Maybe. A little pissed that he didn't just pick up the phone and call first? For sure.

But none of that matters, because while my brain is registering all of those reactions, my heart clings to only one: wariness.

See, not so long ago, I was a bona fide romantic. I believed in true love and happy endings.

And then I grew up.

I kissed my boyfriend's best friend, and then went and tried to steal my ex back from his new girlfriend.

And
then
I thought I could make amends for all of that by fixing some poor fool who never really wanted to be fixed in the first place.

I single-handedly messed it all up.

In other words, romance? Disney and the romantic comedies can keep it. If it even exists.

Self-preservation feels infinitely safer. Self-preservation doesn't allow you to go bounding down the hallway to throw yourself into the arms of a guy you love more than anything.

Self-preservation knows that by keeping to yourself, you won't give someone the chance to push you away and tell you
you're not worth it.

Self-preservation means that you don't have to worry about when
you
inevitably hurt
him
.

No. No. I'm so not doing that. I'm not going down that path of berating myself for what I've done in the past.

But
…

Neither am I going down the path toward him.