Chapter Twelve
Two months later and doing my best to settle into my rented bungalow home, I’d come to the conclusion that losing Chance felt a lot like a death. Not only that, I’d pretty much experienced the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.
Back in Vegas, at the first realization that he’d left, I was definitely in denial. Throughout the rest of the ride to California, though, anger had started to set in more and more as I focused less on the idea of losing him and more on the simple fact that he’d ditched me.
The bargaining phase hit me shortly after arriving in Temecula and stayed for about a week. “If only I hadn’t thrown myself at him.” “If only I’d told him how much he meant to me.” I blamed myself for his leaving.
The fourth phase didn’t take long to overshadow all the other stages. Depression was the hardest. It got the best of me for at least a month and a half. Aside from work, I did nothing but come home and wallow in the fact that I would never meet anyone that made me feel like Chance did. Despite how things ended, I truly felt that he’d ruined me for all other men. I’d wake up sweating in the middle of the night, painfully aroused from vivid and recurring dreams of being fucked hard by him as he told me over and over how sorry he was, that he loved me, that he’d made a mistake. I’d then cry myself back to sleep. While the depression never fully went away, as each day passed without any word from him, it gave way to the final stage of grief: acceptance.
As hard as it was, I finally reached a point where I had to accept the fact that he was never coming back for me. I had no choice but to move on with my life. That meant considering getting back into the dating scene even if it killed me. One thing was for certain. There was no way I was going to be able to get over him by continuing to lie in bed at night, reliving how it felt to have him inside of me.
I still longed for him. That might never go away.
If there were such a thing as a sixth stage, it should have been aptly named, Purge that shit. I decided that just being in my car was too painful. More than half of our relationship took place inside that BMW. Every time I would look over to my right, I’d hear his laughter or see him sucking on a Pixy stick. Sometimes, I swore I could still smell him. The spirit of Chance would always be alive and well in that car.
When I got to the dealership to trade it in one sunny Saturday afternoon, I was feeling very emotional.
I’d finally settled on an Audi S3. As I was leaving to get into my new car, the woman who’d assisted me with the trade-in called after me.
“Ma’am!”
I turned around to find her holding the Barack Obama bobblehead in her hand. My chest tightened.
“You forgot something. I just pulled it out of your old car. There’s a little adhesive left on the dash, but we’ll remove it. I thought you might want it.”
I almost took it from her. Almost. Fighting the tears that were starting to sting my eyes, I held out my palm. “Keep it.”
In the months after Chance, letting new things into my life seemed to be a bigger challenge than throwing old things out.
Jeremy Longthorpe was the CEO of a tech company and also a client of mine. We’d spent countless hours together working on a patent application for one of his recent inventions.
Even though he’d made it clear that he was interested in me, I pretended not to notice any of the hints he threw my way. He was really sweet and good-looking enough in a quirky-with-glasses kind of way. Going out with him could have also been a slight conflict of interest, even though the firm had no written rules against dating clients.
The truth was, I just didn’t feel ready. My mind was still very much preoccupied with memories of Chance. As much as I tried to rid the physical evidence of him, what remained thereafter couldn’t be destroyed as easily no matter how hard I tried. Although he’d hurt me, Chance was still taking up residence inside my head and in my broken heart.
Spending extra time with Jeremy was at the very least, a distraction. He was supposed to be meeting me at the office one Friday evening for a late-night work session. He’d called from the road to let me know he was running a little late and to ask me what kind of takeout I wanted him to bring.
My response was, “Something fast-foodish and really bad for me. It’s been that kind of day.”
“You got it,” he said. He was so nice.
The smell of something fried made its way to me before I even noticed him walking through the maze of cubicles and into my corner office. Jeremy was carrying two grease-laden bags. “Since you weren’t specific, I got a few different kinds of bad food.”
“Thank you. I’m starving.”
He slid some papers to the side to make room. “Why don’t we just enjoy our dinner before we get to work?”
“Okay,” I said, rummaging through the bags.
He’d brought food from Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Popeyes.
Popeyes.
I just couldn’t escape it. Chance was everywhere. Calling dibs on the chicken bites, I started to dig in when Jeremy reached over and grabbed one. “Hey, lay off my bites,” I joked. I remembered saying something similar to Chance the first day we met. Little reminders that came in waves unexpectedly like that always seemed to bring the pain back in full force.
I suddenly stopped eating.
Jeremy put his sandwich down. With his mouth full, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Were you mad that I took one of your chicken bites?”
I half-smiled. “No, no. It wasn’t that at all.”
He leaned in. “What is it?”
Looking down, I said, “It’s nothing.”
“Aubrey, clearly it’s not nothing. You were eating like a machine, and you suddenly stopped. What happened?”
The look on my face probably gave me away.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he said.
I wanted to tell someone. I hadn’t told anyone. Not one single person knew about what happened to me.
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Over the next hour, I told Jeremy everything that went down between Chance and me. He listened intently without passing judgment, and it felt so good to let it all out.
Nodding slowly with his arms crossed, Jeremy’s mouth curved into a sympathetic smile. “Well, this explains a lot.”
“Meaning?”
“Why you shut down whenever I insinuate that we go out.”
“You noticed that, huh?”
“Yes. I notice everything about you.” He looked down, almost embarrassed for having admitted his feelings in a roundabout way. When he looked up, he said, “I really like you, Aubrey.”
“I like you, too. I don’t want you to think my hesitation has anything to do with you.”
He placed his hand on my arm. “Look…now that I know the reason why you’re closed off, I think it’s even more important that we go out. I promise, I’m not going to expect anything. Let me just be your friend. And if things turn into more, fine. If they don’t, worst case scenario, we’ll have had a good time together.”
I smiled. “So, you’re asking me out more directly this time.”
“Yes. I’m asking you to take a chance. Go out with me.”