Plans to Make & Hearts to Break

I didn't follow William. I sat, crying, at the edge of the lion exhibit in that stupid zoo for what felt like a century. It was only after that initial wellspring of emotion ran dry that I realized I did not drive to the zoo. Shit. Dammit. I slowly wandered towards the exit of the zoo before I decided to look at my phone. Three voicemails, all within the hour(ish) that was consumed in that blur of emotion.

Two were William. About fifteen minutes apart, neither were exceptionally long. I played the first and impulsively took a sharp breath when I heard him speak.

I'm leaving. I don't want to just… strand you here. Meet me at my car in a few minutes. Or don't. I don't care.

He sounded… upset. Pissed. Rightfully so. How could I do this?

My thoughts were stopped short by the second voicemail starting.

It's been like, 20 minutes. So I guess I'll… leave?

Anger in his voice seemed to have dissipated, but the vacant sound of the words was so much worse. I thought the second voicemail was just the two statements but after a relatively long pause he spoke again.

I don't know why I even called. This is fucking stupid. Get an Uber or take a bus or something.

It was as if taking a moment to think pulled the initial anger out of him that much stronger.

The message officially over, I hung up the call. Whatever that third voicemail was could absolutely wait. Tears welled in my eyes again, but the dam wouldn't break. I quickly used my phone to schedule a ride home.

---

“Nicole?” I heard my friends voice through the speaker but my voice froze. I'd been home for hours, doing everything I could to avoid thinking about anything at all. This had somehow resulted in laying on the couch, watching Say Yes to the Dress and dozing in and out of sleep. Needing to vent to someone, eventually, I dialed Jessica's number without considering the time. “Nicole!” She repeated, a bit louder. “If you don't talk in the next ten seconds I'm going to assume you managed to call me on accident and hang up. Considering it's THREE IN THE MORNING right now I'm super hoping a butt dial and not like… something bad.”

“I think it's bad.” I finally choked out. I was long past crying, whatever source my initial tears spilled from drying out long ago.

I heard my friend moving around on the other end of the line. “What's going on?”She asked. “Are you alright?”

I shook my head no. Words froze in my throat again. My brain felt like it was going to catch on fire.

Through the phone, my good friend heard nothing. “Are you hurt?” Her voice sounded legitimately worried.

I took a deep breath. “I'm not hurt,” I spoke slowly, “I'm just… systematically destroying anything good in my life, I guess.”

“That's.. not any better, Nicole. Did something happen with work? With Danny?”

“Not with Danny. Not yet, at least. I'm sure something will. Considering I've become a terrible person.”

Another long pause. “Did something happen with the guy you told me about the other day?”

“I've been hanging out with him a lot. Danny's been in California and he's been.. weird. I haven't talked to him in like, three days! He's never distant. Even if he's like, out of the country, I hear from him. But it's just been silence. And when we did talk, for any amount of time, we argued.”

“If his work had to fly him out there on such short notice, it's probably something pretty important. He's probably stressed and tense and doesn't want you to have to deal with that.”

“When we argued the other day, though… I don't know. He was being mean. It wasn't a rational discussion like we’ve had millions of times. I told him I was upset because he hadn't called despite the fact that I basically stay glued to my phone waiting for him. The times he did call I was asleep or still unpacking or whatever and didn't see he'd called and he got mad that I wasn't just, instantly available. I tried to tell him it wasn't fair to me that I had to just be on retainer until he found time for me away from stuff that apparently mattered more. He made a comment about my writing - basically saying I just wanted drama to have more shit to write about since I've written before about our relationship feeling like, half-long-distance.”

“Have you talked to him since then?”

I took a deep breath. I could tell this word volcano wasn't done erupting, pulling details from the past week from my mind quickly and violently. “He came home for a day. To tell me that he was going to be out there longer, that wherever it was he's assigned to is bigger than they thought. I dropped him back off at the airport. He said he would try harder to call. I said I'd do better to answer. That was… almost four days ago. I haven't heard his voice since. One text message, in four days.”

Jessica paused for a minute. “Honestly, could it just be that he's that busy with work? They don't even usually keep him in one location for that long, do they?”

“A few times, I guess. But he doesn't usually drop off the face of the Earth! I don't know. Maybe it's the timing making me so frustrated. I just moved and he hasn't even spent the night. He only saw the house when he helped move boxes in.”

“Okay,” my friend started, “I want to be devil's advocate here for a minute. I'm not trying to be mean, I just… had a thought.”

Somehow, her having a thought made me uneasy.

“You've been dating Danny for.. two years? And how many months now?”

I did some quick mental math. “Almost eight.”

“Okay. That's almost three years. Of what has, from the outside, seems like a pretty serious relationship. Could his attitude change stem from… I don't know. You just signed a contract to rent a house, yourself, for probably at least a year. That's a step in a direction pretty… different than a three-year relationship would take, in most cases.”

“We talked about that before I moved,” I said slowly, my brain wrapping around the idea. “You think he's mad that I didn't move with him? I was trying to get away from a shitty downtown apartment, he wanted to stay close to his work. It wasn't in the cards at the moment.” I hadn't even gotten to the depth of the issue I was upset about and I just wanted to vent some of my frustration, my… guilt. “That doesn't mean it was permanently out of the question.”

Another stretch of silence through the phone. “Okay,” she finally spoke. “I know this isn't why you called, just.. a thought that hadn't occurred to me before. How does this tie in with the harmless flirting with the new neighbor you told me about before? How much is a lot of hanging out with him?”

I couldn't help but let out a small sigh. “You would absolutely call it too much. Kinda… nonstop. It started out almost as a… distraction, as shitty as that now sounds to say out loud. I was frustrated about Danny but he'd been pulled into the black hole otherwise known as California and there wasn't much I could do about it but just.. sit and be sad until he called? Which you know damn well I am not about to do. So I was hanging out with William, and really, it was just harmless flirting. Until it wasn't.”

“I wish I could say I didn't see that coming,” Jessica chuckled. I pursed my lips, knowing she meant the comment in jest, but not seeing the humor. “Wow, shit. That.. came out kinda mean. I was just trying to make a stupid joke. Poor delivery, bad taste, shitty comedic timing, zero outta ten on that.”

I couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. “You didn't say anything I wasn't thinking. But, seriously, it felt like we were on a different planet. Or I was just… a different me. Everything just came easy. I'm so used to Danny, who - other than work sometimes forcing it to change - has everything planned in advance. Date ideas, family dinners, nights out, anything, he has planned with days to spare. He likes to plan what he's going to eat for dinners every week. Everything with him is measured and thought out and not surprising at all. Which… isn't bad. He's consistent. Rational. But consistent and rational doesn't lead to drunkenly eating the biggest pile of strawberry pancakes I've ever seen, which does lead to drunkenly making out in the back of a cab coming back from downtown. It doesn't lead to finding - and subsequently keeping - the cutest orange kitten I've ever seen.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, girl. I feel like you just glossed over a very important detail. And maybe tried to distract me with the idea of an orange cat, which you know are my favorite. Take a step back.”

“Dammit, I really thought that would work. We did find a cat. He's asleep on the back of the couch right now.”

“Okay, but did you also, and I quote, drunkenly make out in the back of a cab?”

“And outside of his house and on the porch and in his room and in my house and in the shower and… not all of them drunk.”

There were a few long seconds of silence. “Definitely not harmless flirting. Did you…”

Silence, again, now my fault. “I told you I'm a terrible person who just ruined anything good - yes. We did. All my cards are on the table.”

“Fuck,” my friend squeaked. “You really did dig quite a hole, huh? You really like, have feelings for him. Not just frustrated-at-my-jerk-boyfriend feelings.”

“Thank you for the… reassurance of how much shit I've dug myself into. But, and you may not believe this, it actually gets worse.”

“No.”

“William. He.. didn't know about Danny. Was not aware of any prior… attachments before this started.”

“I don't think this is going where I thought it would but the past tense of that makes me feel like it's just as bad.”

I took a deep breath, ready to catch my friend up on the final details of my thrilling story. “We went to the zoo. I saw an announcement about a baby goddamn giraffe and dragged us to the zoo. Everything was going perfectly fine until we sat down to eat.” I took a deep breath, mentally reliving the entire scene. “I don't even think he meant to say it, I really don't, but the entire facade built over a very eventful week crashed down. Instantly. I don't think he even realized he said it at first.”

“You haven't told me what he said but I have a feeli-”

“Yeah. Honestly your feeling probably isn't far off because he said love. He said getting to see the lady I love and I do not even know how he finished that sentence because every thought in my brain crashed from wherever it had been floating in space instantly. I fucked up. I fucked everything up. I told him he can't love me because I'm already in love with someone.” The tears I thought had dried were finding their way to my cheeks again, finally. “I just… ripped off the band-aid, told him I had a boyfriend.”

I gave Jessica a minute to absorb the final details but the silent seconds that passed felt like forever. “Shit, Nicole. Shit. What did he… what did he do? Or say?”

“He didn't. He just… left.”

“He left you at the zoo?”

“He did try to call - he said he didn't want to just leave me stranded - but I didn't see. By the time I saw his voicemails he was gone. It was probably more than I deserved anyways. I was mad at my boyfriend over something petty and stupid and I guess I decided I needed some collateral damage to ruin my life.”

“Slow down, slow down! Your life isn't ruined. Just… complicated.”

“Understatement of the century.”

“What are you going to tell Danny?”

My eyes widened. “Tell Danny? How would I tell him any of this? 'Oh hey, boyfriend, who I love, I was throwing an extended temper tantrum because you have a real job and can't set it aside to talk to me. I was also pretty upset at how secure and predictable our three year relationship was because the temper tantrum culminated into sleeping with my next door neighbor! Who, if you care to let me elaborate, I've only known for.. about a week? But it's not like he knows you exist, either, because I didn't do him the courtesy of saying a single word about you as any of this was happening! I'm so glad you're finally back from California, let's go get dinner!” Sarcasm dripped from every scathing syllable.

“That's… a start?” Pause for my friend to insert an awkward chuckle. “It isn't fair to him to just say nothing.”

“Jessica,” I sighed. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, I really do, but can you pull your head out of your own ass for just a minute? Be my friend, please. Be on my side. I know you're just walking through everything I told you the way you always do, but I don't need a therapist right now. Well - I mean - I probably do - but that isn't what you are.”

“I didn't want to make you mad,” my friend spoke slowly, weighing her words. “I am on your side. But I should probably go. I don't think I'm helping anymore.”
I sighed again. “Thank you for letting my vent. Any other day and I would appreciate having your voice of reason. I just need to sleep. Or research the most convincing way to fake my own death and move to Canada to live off the grid as a moose farmer.”

My friend let out a genuine laugh, and the tension vanished. “You wouldn't. You'd be way too cold. And… I don't think Canadians keep moose as livestock.”

“See, this is the reasoning I need from you. Sorry for waking you up.”

“Whatever you end up doing, Nicole, just be careful, okay?”

“Of course. I'll keep you updated the next time there's a major nuclear fallout in my life. So, you know, next week.”

We said our goodbyes, and as I hung up the call, the notification for that third voicemail from earlier caught my attention. Without checking who’d I opened it and lifted my phone to my ear to listen.

Hey, love. It's me. Um… god. I'm sorry about the radio silence. I got back and kinda.. dove in headfirst, ya know? I feel like such an ass. You were already frustrated and I felt like shit that I couldn't even help you move in. I haven't even seen your house other than full of cardboard boxes! You're probably mad, which I get. I fucked up. I should have at least said something. I get it if you just hate my guts. Honestly, though, powering through this was probably for the best because everything has been stable and I'm flying home tomorrow morning. Anything that comes up I'll be able to handle remotely. I mean, if you want to hear my pathetic apologizing in person. I'll call you when I land. I've missed you, I love you. Sorry, again.

My heart sank to my stomach. This was the man I loved and the man I've grown with for years and I was ready to throw that all away. I had to do better to try and fix this.

you can't just tell him nothing. Jessica’s voice echoed in the back or my head.

I took a deep breath. I can sure as hell try.