Lost in Love (6 page)

WE COULDN'T BREAK OUT OF
South Beach mode after we flew home this morning. And we didn't want to go our separate ways after having such a perfect time together. So we took a car service from the airport to D's place, dropped our bags off, got our beach stuff together, and came over to Soho House. D explained that Soho House has a ridiculous rooftop pool. He also explained that Soho House has an extremely exclusive membership policy. I wasn't surprised to find out that D's parents are also members. D can use the pool anytime he wants. Fortunately for me, he's allowed to bring a guest.

The backdrop of this rooftop pool in the Meatpacking District is strikingly different from our view in South Beach. Instead of gazing out over the ocean with palm trees swaying in the breeze, we are surrounded by buildings.
Not right on top of us. They're a bit in the distance, but close enough for you to know where you are. It's pretty cool to be up in this special place most people down on the street don't even know exists. It's like we have our own secret hiding place with some other exclusive members. D orders me a watermelon juice, and we sit in a prime spot on the lounge couch.

I cannot get over how drastically my life has changed since I moved here last month. How bizarre is it that D is treating me to the best restaurants and venues on the nights I see him, but I'm eating bagels for dinner and collecting coupons on the nights I don't?

D smiles at me. “It's like you were meant for this,” he says.

“You could say I'm having a decent time. I mean”—I fake-scoff at the rooftop with its insane pool and lush landscaping and beautiful people—“if you're into perfection or whatever.”

“What I love about you is that you appreciate it. All of it. Every last detail. Most people up here don't give their lifestyle a second thought. This is what they've known their whole life. But you . . . you're different.”

Um. Did D just say he loves something about me? As in a part of me he loves? As in he also loves other parts of me?

“Remember three days ago?” he asks.

We've been doing this thing where we reminisce about our trip like it happened a long time ago. On the plane
we were like, “Remember last night? Remember Friday morning? Remember Wednesday?” Our vacation was even more perfect than I imagined the perfect vacation would be.

“Let's see,” I say, pretending to have a hard time remembering. “That was . . . Thursday. Rooftop pool, bike riding, and another best dinner ever.”

“Remember two days ago?”

“Sunset beach walk.” D took me for the most romantic walk on the beach. I'd always thought the idea of a romantic sunset beach walk was too cliché to not be corny. But the beach at sunset in real life was breathtaking. It was my first time seeing an ocean for real. My first time walking on beach sand. My first time hearing the crashing waves, feeling the foaming water lapping at my legs, smelling the salt and tang of the ocean. Beaches in photos or movies could never have prepared me for the vast beauty of being there in person. It felt like a place inside of me that had been sealed tightly closed flew wide open. The ocean went on forever. We walked along the water's edge as the sky fused pink into purple. D held my hand the whole time. Even when he reached down to pick up a shell he knew I'd love, he didn't let go of me. The shell is small, white, and smooth, with light pink stripes. I'm going to put it on the windowsill in my room when I get home.

D shifts closer to me on the lounge couch, pressing his leg against mine. “Remember last night?” he says.

My face gets hot. I slept in D's room last night. I didn't mean to. We got back to the hotel late and D walked me to my room. He kissed me good-night outside my room, just like he did the night before. Only this time we couldn't stop kissing.

“Let's go to your room,” I said. The words came out of my mouth before I could think about them. Like I was someone who wasn't me. Like I was a girl who went to boys' rooms late at night.

We made out on D's bed for hours.

Making out with him wasn't scary the way I thought it would be. The only scary part was wondering how far we would go next time. And the time after that.

At some point I must have crashed. I'd been so tired when we'd gotten back to the hotel, I'd been running on a supercharged combo of lust and adrenaline. When I woke up, the first thing I saw were bright lines of sunlight around the edges of the curtains. For a second I thought I was in my own room. Except I didn't remember closing the curtains. I liked sleeping with the curtains and window open so I could hear the ocean waves as I fell asleep. Then it hit me that I was still in D's room. On D's bed. I was on top of the covers in my underwear. Nervous excitement zipped through me.

D woke up and turned toward me. He didn't say anything. He didn't even open his eyes. He just spooned me. I could feel his bare chest pressed against my back, his arm
slung over my waist, his legs bending against the backs of mine. I was afraid to move. I didn't want to wake him up in case he was falling back to sleep. After a while, D hugged me close. Then he turned me gently to face him.

“I'm the luckiest guy in the world for getting to wake up next to you,” he said.

I didn't want to leave. Ever.

You'd think after that stretch of intense time together I'd be okay with a break when we got back to New York. Going back to my apartment, unpacking, doing laundry. Finding out how Sadie was doing. Getting ready for the week. But I just wanted us to stay together for as long as we could. Going back to the real world will be weird after this extension of paradise.

“Do you want another drink?” D asks.

“No, thanks.” One drink at Soho House is my limit. Drinks are more expensive here than they were at The Hotel. “But I never want to leave this rooftop.”

“Don't worry. We still have mine. Minus the pool.”

D is opening my eyes to a whole new way of life. Not worrying about money for a few days has been amazing. Letting D treat me the way he wants to, the way he says I deserve, makes me feel like I can relax for the first time ever. I don't even think I need a Plan D the same way I used to. Having a Plan D means always having a backup plan for when catastrophe strikes. Scraping by in an expensive city and putting myself through college is not going to
be easy. My mental backup planning allows me to defuse the tornado of anxieties that is constantly whirring in my mind. Once I can visualize the worst-case scenario, I realize that my situation isn't as bad as I thought.

My new Plan D is all about D. Donovan D. He is integral to the shiny new version of myself I established when I moved to New York. Part of redefining myself means accepting the kind of love I want. And believing D when he says I deserve to be treated to all the good things he wants to give me.

I reach out to hold D's hand. He looks at me with his intense laser focus that makes my heart pound. What we have is more than physical attraction. It's more than an emotional connection. The way he's looking at me, it's like I can see him seeing the potential in me. Seeing my future. And being impressed with what he sees.

THE FIRST THING I NOTICE
when I emerge from my nap is a weird crack in the ceiling. Did that crack just get here? I never noticed it before. The crack is near the center of the ceiling with thinner cracks extending from it like tree branches. What caused the tree crack? Did someone in the apartment above ours drop something crazy heavy in the middle of their room? Is the crazy-heavy thing still sitting there? Will their floor keep supporting the weight of it? Or will I be sleeping one night when my ceiling splits open and the crazy-heavy thing falls on top of me and crushes me to death?

No. None of that is happening. It's a harmless weird crack.

I spring off the bed, yanking my sheet with me that somehow had gotten twisted around my leg. The sheet
pulls my leg back and almost makes me fall on my face. I recover my balance, throw the sheet back on the bed, and glance around as if someone who films these kinds of klutzy moments might arrive. Or there could be a hidden camera. How do I know the person who lived here before me didn't install a hidden camera in the crown molding? They could have been watching me ever since I moved in. They could be watching me right now.

No. None of that is happening. There are no hidden cameras.

Exaggerated negative thoughts like these have been harassing me for the past week. Normally I'm able to keep myself in eternal optimist mode. But Austin changed me. He was the harshest reminder that the world can be a cold, nasty place. That people you love can turn out to be poseurs. That life can be taken away in a random instant. That the one thing you believed in the most could be nothing more than a lie.

A girl is entitled to throw herself a pity party when she discovers that the boy she thought was her destiny turns out to be a lying scumbag. Austin had taken over every part of me: my mind, my body, my soul. For the rest of my life, I will never forget how consuming that heartbreak was. Not only did he steal a part of my life from me, but for a time he shattered my optimism.

Enough. I cannot waste any more time being angry. It's time to pick myself up and dust myself off.

My pity party is over.

The first thing is to put away all reminders of Austin. I'm not ready to throw out our mementos. Maybe I never will be. But leaving them out where I can see them is not an option. I scrounge around in my closet for an old photo box that's mostly empty. The box has some notes and ticket stubs and fortune cookie fortunes in it. I grab the box when I find it stashed behind a blanket on the top shelf. Then I go around my room filling it with Austin stuff. Our scorecard from mini golf. The tiny pencil I stole from mini golf. The photo strip we took in Bubby's photo booth. A game piece one of the guys in Austin's board-gaming group gave me that time I went with him. A dried flower Austin picked for me that night in New Jersey. Everything goes in the box. The box goes back behind the blanket in my closet. I close the closet door with a satisfying thud.

Cleaning is up next. My room is disgusting. I open both of my windows all the way to let fresh air in. The hardwood floor peeks out here and there from under the mess. I pick up everything that's on the floor, sorting into four piles: dirty clothes, garbage, recycling, and other. I drag the old vacuum cleaner my mom gave us from the front closet into my room. Running it a few times over my floor helps tremendously. Then I mop my floor until it shines. I push the mop forward and pull it back in slow, deliberate strokes, visualizing my problems being washed away with every swipe. By the time my mind is clear, the floor looks
better than it did when we moved in.

My dirty clothes get added to the hamper. I lug the heavy hamper down to the laundry room and start two loads. Back upstairs, I sit at the breakfast bar to make a grocery list. In my catatonic stupor I can't guarantee that I didn't eat some things that did not belong to me. I want to replenish everything that's missing or we're almost out of.

As I'm adding maple syrup to the list, Rosanna comes home from South Beach. She wheels her luggage into the living room.

“Hey!” she says when she sees that I am showered, sitting upright, and fully functional. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. But enough about me. You're so tan! How was it?”

“Amazing. We had the best time. I could have stayed there forever.”

“Tell me everything.”

Rosanna tells me all about relaxing by the pool, romantic bike rides and sunset beach walks, her new addiction to watermelon juice, and the incredible dinners they had. The more I hear about Donovan, the more I love him. I tear up when she tells me about seeing the ocean for the first time. D made that monumental experience possible.

“He sounds like the sweetest guy,” I say. “Super generous.”

Rosanna nods, her eyes sparkling. “He said that I
deserve good things and he wants to be the one to give them to me.”

“Aww!”

“We didn't want to leave each other when we got back. So you know where he took me?”

“Where?”

“Soho House.”

“What.”

“I know.”

“He's a member?”

“Yeah, and so are his parents.”

That is amazing. I've lived here my whole life and have never even seen the pool. “Dude. It's like impossible to get a membership there. Everyone wants to get in.”

“I know!”

“You're so lucky.”

“I would feel just as lucky without anything fancy, though. D makes me feel lucky just to be with him.”

That's exactly how I felt about Austin. It didn't matter what we did or where we went. Being with him was the best feeling in the world.

I hope Rosanna and D don't disintegrate like we did.

“I'm really happy for you,” I say, and I mean it.

“Thanks. I kept wondering how you were doing.”

“Today woke me up. Have you ever gotten to a point in your life where you've had enough?”

“You mean like when I moved to New York to start over?”

“Exactly. I kind of had a mental move from the corner of Miserable and Pathetic to Done and Moving On.”

“Awesome. Can I help with anything?”

“Nope. Enjoy being home. I have to put clothes in the dryer. Can I throw anything in the wash for you?”

Rosanna smiles at me.

“What?” I ask.

“It's good to have you back.”

“It's good to be back.”

By the time I've put my clothes in the dryer, added a Spring Fresh fabric softener sheet, and started the machine, I've made a resolution. Most people wait until the new year to make resolutions. Not me. I like to make resolutions throughout the year. I resolve to keep myself in the light. This past week was the worst. Trying to focus on anything beyond my heartbreak was like trying to see the world from underwater, gazing up at images wobbling above the surface, but being too weak to break through to them. Drowning was so much easier. But now there's no turning back to that dark underwater world. I will ignore boys for the foreseeable future. I will focus on taking care of myself and helping others. I will put more effort into planning for my future. I will make healthy lifestyle choices so I can feel good every day. These are the priorities that matter.

Coming up for air is a powerful thing. Like pressing an
internal reset button. Or replacing all of your groggy old cells with glittery new ones. I feel better right down to the core of me. I can already feel my internal light shining brighter than ever.

Sometimes to start feeling like yourself again, you just have to remember who you are.