I plaster a smile on my face and follow Jessie into the restaurant, the heavy scent of steak seasonings like garlic and onion hanging in the air, and there’s only one question echoing through my mind.
How the hell am I going to do this?
“There they are,” Jessie says, pointing to a back corner.
I swallow hard and follow her into the dimly lit dining area.
It turns out, Kya is lovely.
She’s beautiful, funny, and kind. I’ve only known her for a couple hours, but I like her a lot.
Also at the table, besides Jessie, are Davis and Guy, a gay couple Jessie’s known forever, and her sister Celia with her husband, Jeffrey. Jessie is the only one without a date, but that’s typical of her. I actually don’t know a ton about her love life, and while I’ve never really thought of it as odd, looking around the table now, it kind of is.
“Does she ever date?” Kya whispers the question to me as I’m watching Jessie laugh with her sister. “I’ve known her for years and have never seen her with another person.”
“I’ve known her for years, too, and she’s never even talked about another person,” I whisper back.
Kya picks up her water. Her fingers are long, her nails polished a deep purple. “Sometimes it makes me sad, and other times, I wonder if she has the right idea.”
“About?”
“About staying single. Love is hard.”
I raise my wine glass to her water. “Amen to that.” We both sip, smiling. “Been hard on you?” I ask, setting my glass down. The others are having a conversation amongst themselves, so Kya and I are free to talk to each other without extra ears.
She gives me a sad smile. “Very. In fact, I’m still in the midst of getting over my last girlfriend. Just when I think I’m about to step completely out of the mire, something grabs me by the ankle and drags me back in.”
I blow out a breath and nod my understanding. “I get that, totally.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, grasping my forearm in her warm hand. “I shouldn’t be talking about that when I’m on a date with you.”
“Listen, you have no need to apologize. I’m in a similar boat.”
Her grip tightens. “Oh, God, tell me so I don’t feel quite soalone.”
“I’ll share if you will.”
“Deal.”
I let her go first, and she proceeds to tell me all about Deborah, her most recent girlfriend. It seems Deborah had both a jealous streak and an assumption that once they became official, Kya’s job would magically stop taking so many hours in her day.
“I did my best to curb my time at the office,” Kya tells me. “But it’s hard in my line of work. John’s got a lot of clients, and they’re demanding. Things need to be done when they need to be done. So not doing as much in the office sometimes meant answering calls and emails from home.”
“Which Deborah didn’t handle well,” I surmise.
“Which Deborah didn’t handle well.” Kya sighs and switches from her water to her cabernet. “She was wonderful in many ways. But the job thing became a constant source of angst for us.”
“Oh, I understand that,” I say. “I dated a woman once who said I talked too much about my writing, which I then internalized until I didn’t talk about it at all, and she never asked about it. Took me longer than it should have to realize what a narcissist she was. Everything was about her. If I didn’t bring something up that related to me, nothing about me was ever discussed. But when I did bring it up something personal, I was made to feel self-centered. I spent much of the relationship utterly confused. Once I figured it all out, it just made me so sad.”
“Ugh. That’s hard. Is that the one you’re getting over now?” Kya asks, her voice gentle.
“No.” I shake my head and sip my wine and find that I am surprisingly not hesitant to talk about Marina to Kya. “No, she’s more recent and has just reappeared after about four months totalk.” I widen my eyes for a second—because even just saying it out loud sounds nuts—and have another sip.
“What?” Kya is understandably confused, and before I even realize it, I’m telling her the entire story of me and Marina. Every last detail. How we met, how it started, how amazing it was, how it was casual, but also not, how it became almost domestic in its comfort and warmth, how it ended, the subsequent months since, and her showing up out of the blue to chat. “My God, your head must be spinning,” she says when I finish, and laughs a soft laugh. “Mine is.”
“Understatement of the year, right there,” I say with a slightly bitter laugh.
“What will you do?” Kya’s dark eyes are wide, and she’s leaned in slightly, clearly invested.
