His Change of Heart: Unexpected Pregnancy Romance (7 page)

     She was more than certain that he wasn’t eating because he was in so much emotional turmoil that food didn’t appeal to him anymore. And he wasn’t on the phone at all times crying his eyes out to his friends about the break up, trying to find a way to deal with what he was going through.

    And she was certain that Will hadn’t sat in his car in the garage and bawled his eyes out for a good five minutes before going into work and pretending that everything was fine, blaming his non-existent allergy when someone asked about his red, swollen eyes.

   She was more than certain that he hadn’t made up excuses for missing work, because he was too torn up to go in and face his students and co-workers, choosing instead to spend the entire day in his pajamas in bed feeling sorry for himself. She was certain Will hadn’t done or been through any of those things.

   She was mourning the loss of what they once had together and she wanted to do it on her time, on her terms, at her pace, her way. She most definitely didn’t want him calling her. The best thing for her right now was to try to forget about him, though she wasn’t certain how she was going to do that. Because, in spite of everything thing that had happened between them, she still loved him. She wished she didn’t, but she had fallen so deeply in love with him that it was going to be extremely difficult for her to just turn that off in couple days or weeks. She needed time, lots and lots of it, by her calculation, because, sadly, she was yearning for someone who had both stolen and broken her heart.

   “I can never forget about you, Ave. No matter what you think of me, what we had was something very special. I’ll never stop loving you. What we shared was real.”   

  Will was very close to her, hovering over her, his body touching hers. He had her cornered to the wall where she had ended up to put some distance between them. “You will always be the one woman I love—the love of my life.”

    Avery turned and looked at him, more appalled than angry at what she was hearing from him, what he was saying to her. And before she realized what she was doing, her hand went up and she slapped him hard against the cheek. “Don’t you dare use those words with me!” she told him, in a heightened voice. “You don’t have the right. What do you know about loving me?”

    She could see the shocked look on his face. He clearly didn’t expect her to slap him. She had never done anything like this before. There had never been a reason to. There had never been any physical altercation between them. But Will had driven her to this. He had no right to play games with her heart, her emotions, with her. She glanced at him, not knowing what to expect. His face was expressionless, drained. At least she had wiped that ridiculous smirk from his face, she thought, as she saw the red marks appearing on his cheek, and for a second she wished that she hadn’t lost her temper and smacked him.

    She was sorry that she had been forceful with him, but part of her wanted to believe that he deserved it. He shouldn’t say one thing to her and then do another. How could he confess to loving her? He was leaving her, for Pete’s sake! He had broken her heart in the worst possible way. She was hurting. People didn’t just move away from the ones they love or hurt them the way Will did. A man didn’t leave the woman he claimed to have loved. He made sacrifices so that they could be together. She didn’t see Will doing any of that for her. He wasn’t giving up anything, including going to Chicago to be with her. So, clearly he had no right to gave her that little absurd speech about loving her.

   “I will call you when I get to Chicago,” he said to her in a very calm voice. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or just downright disappointed by her action. “Whether or not you chose to answer my call or return my messages is entirely up to you.” He bent and kissed her full on the lips, catching her completely off guard. “Goodbye, Avery. Take care of yourself,” he said to her, and walked to the front door.

     It wasn’t the response Avery was expecting from him. In fact, she didn’t know what she was expecting him to do. He had never lost his temper with her before, not even once. And God knew there were times when he should have. She suddenly felt light headed, as if she was about to pass out on the floor. She leaned back against the wall to steady herself, and gazed silently at Will’s disappearing back, tears running down her face.

    She stood long enough to see him getting into the waiting car, and it driving away down the street at full speed. Then, her hands went up to her cheeks and she brushed away the hot tears that were running down her face and onto the collar of her coat. She didn’t even know why she was crying. She wanted to feel angry, but she didn’t. Instead what she felt was an overwhelming feeling of sadness at losing the man she loved.     

   She turned and stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to her floor.

Nine

 
 
T
he weeks after Will left were the hardest Avery had ever experienced in her life. She was nursing a broken heart, and she didn’t know how to deal with it. She had read somewhere, probably in one of the self help books she had been buying, that it was harder for women to get over break ups. Maybe there was some truth to it, because she was having such a damn hard time. She wasn’t doing such a
good job getting over Will. It was a difficult, long process—a daily struggle—both emotionally and physically.

    There were days when she felt like taking refuge in bed, and staying there forever. But she couldn’t, because whether or not she liked it, her life, as she knew it, went on—she had a job to go to, daily routines to keep, things to do. She had people, including her students who depended on her.

    Unfortunately, she realized that this break up wasn’t entirely about her—there were other people who counted on her to get things done. And she felt she couldn’t let them down. She had thought about taking some personal time off work, but quickly decided against it. She wasn’t dying, neither did she have any serious health problems nor urgent issues that required her to do so.

     And, she didn’t think spending time alone, moping in her apartment or in a hotel room all day long was the best thing for her right now. She needed to be around people—she also needed to keep herself busy. She wished that someone had told her, warned her even, that getting over someone you loved was going to be this painful and exhausting.

    She probably would have stayed away from relationships all together. But, from her experience, you didn’t choose the people you fall in love with, even if you tried to. You just loved that person. So, yes, mending her broken heart was excruciating.

  There were times when she heard a song they used to listen to, make love to, and she would choke up with emotions. And there were the occasional times when she would walk or drive by places they had been together, and she would burst into tears. And there were the times when she would reach for Will during the night, only to find that he wasn’t there.

  When that happened, she would sit up suddenly in bed, switch on the lamp and stare longingly at the empty space on the other side of the bed, remembering the times she had watched Will sleep there, his head planted firmly on the pillow, an unconscious smile on his face, his hand flung across the bed touching her body.

     Then she would reach for the pillow and hugged it tightly to her chest, burying her face into its softness, breathing in the lingering scent of Will. For reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she still hadn’t gotten around to tossing the pillowcases into the wash because she liked the light whiff that still remained of him. It was comforting in an odd sort of way.

    And she wasn’t eating. In a way, she was grateful that she wasn’t burying her sorrows in bowls and bowls of her favorite ice-cream and boxes of chocolate and pizza. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about struggling to lose the weight after. And she wasn’t sleeping. She was literally sleep deprived. She slept a couple hours at nights at most, getting up intermittently, sometimes on the hour, being unable to fall back to sleep. When that happened, she would either pace the floor with her bare feet, wandering restlessly and wide eyed through the apartment, going from room to room. Other times she would go online and browse for deals.

    And on the nights when she was up and couldn’t sleep, she would climb out of bed and go stand in the doorway of the extra room she used as an office and looked longingly across the room, hoping to find Will sitting there, at the large mahogany desk, his head bent over the stacks of papers and documents for cases he was working on.

     In the last weeks, she had bought clothing, including a twelve hundred dollars Moncler designer jacket, underwear, shoes and bags she knew she didn’t want or need. The unopened boxes that had arrived for her were still sitting in a far corner of her office, stack on each other. By her calculation, she had completed her Christmas shopping—she had bought gifts for everyone on her list.

     Other times she would just stay in bed and watched old romantic movies on Netflix until the early hours of the morning, and cried her eyes out. And on the rare occasions when she felt like talking to someone, she would call Kat, Julia or Sara, the friends she was closest to, and who knew about the break up, and talked until the wee hours of the morning.

     Last week she had lashed out at Will to Kat about a photo she had seen of him online with a young woman who looked like a model. Will had his hand wrapped cosily around the woman’s waist and there was a huge grin on his face. And according to the accompanying caption, they were attending an auction at the Chicago Arts Museum.

  She had cried in frustration and said that she couldn’t believe Will had moved on with someone else, not even quite three months after they had broken up. Kat had listened, adding the occasional sympathetic words to make her feel better, and criticizing Will for being insensitive.

She didn’t know why she had reacted so strongly to seeing Will with another woman. She knew eventually he would start dating again, but she just didn’t expect it to be this soon. She was hoping that he would have at least waited, gave her time to get over what she was feeling for him. But he clearly wasn’t thinking about her in that way.

    He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, while she was here struggling to get over him. He probably didn’t think she would see the photo. God, how could he be that heartless!

She wondered how long he had known the woman. Did she follow him to Chicago, or did he meet her there? Did they work together? She didn’t look like a lawyer. She looked more like arm-candy, someone men took to parties to show off and have a good time with.  

   She was making herself crazy thinking about Will and this woman. They weren’t together anymore. He could date whoever he wanted. And from what she had seen, he was already doing that. She wasn’t that naïve to think that he was going to remain single for long.

   Eventually, Avery realized that she was spending way too much time venting about Will and crying her eyes out over him. Her friends were super supportive, but she also felt that they deserved better. And she hadn’t exactly been much of a friend to any of them lately. In fact, she felt all she did was cried and complained about Will to them. And they had listened to her without complaining or avoiding her. She hardly knew what was going on with them anymore, because the last couple months had been all about her and the break up.

   She was extremely grateful that the girls had been there for her. They had been exceptionally supportive—holding her hand every single step of the way. But now she thought that they needed a much deserved break. And looking back at the way her girlfriends had rallied around her, Avery felt that cutting them some slack was the most she could do. She decided to find other ways to cope with what she was going through without having to call her friends all the time. And staying true to her words, she went out the next day and signed up for swimming and Zumba classes at a wellness centre in Manhattan she had found during one of her online searches. And one evening on her way home from work, she stopped in at a hobby shop and bought six yards of wool in three different colors, and a variety of knitting needles.

   She had read somewhere that taking up a hobby, especially knitting helped relieve stress. And at this point she was willing to try anything, including self help books to help her get through this.

And she began knitting, using tutorials she found on YouTube, and from the craft books she had checked out at the library.

     Her first experiment was a multicolored scarf. And much to her surprise, she found she enjoyed knitting. It was way easier than she thought. And contrary to popular belief, knitting wasn’t only for old and retired ladies, as some people seemed to think. She got the hang of it within days, and spent hours on end in the evenings after work, and on weekends when she didn’t go out, mastering the craft. She completed the scarf in a matter of days, and was already trying her hand at a wool hat for herself.

  She also offered extra conferences and after school tutoring for students who were struggling in her classes, which kept her busy for a couple hours after work. And she accepted invitations to plays and functions from friends and acquaintances which she normally would have declined.

     She also volunteered at a food bank and community kitchen on 51
st
Street. And in the process, she found that she was thinking less and less about Will, and more and more about getting back to her old self before the break up. And she was slowly, but surely getting to the point where Will was beginning to feel like someone in her past—a wonderful and sad part of her past. And although she wasn’t entirely over him, she knew she was getting there.

   And there were actual days where she didn’t cry as much, or got overly emotional just thinking about him. And it didn’t take her long to realize that keeping herself extremely busy and surrounded by positive and caring people were helping her in more ways than she could imagine. More importantly, she was beginning to feel like herself again. She was beginning to heal. She was on her way to forgetting about Will once and for all. She was finally on the mend.