why I don’t feel like laughing.
“Car, you’ve seen what love can do when it goes wrong. I thought that’s why you stuck to the auctions and shit. Because you’d seen what love did to me and the others.”
“I’ve never explained my reasoning behind the auctions. Don’t ask me to do it now.”
“I’m not asking. I just figured you were the smartest out of all of us. But I guess even the smart ones make mistakes.”
I couldn’t even begin to explain the mistakes I’ve made. I’m not sure I could explain them to myself.
“Can you get her back?”
I would walk over hot coals, tear down the fucking world to make it so.
I need to find a way of explaining the unexplainable. To rationalise my actions to a woman who, a few days ago looked at me like I hung the stars and the moon just for her entertainment. Now all I see when she looks at me is pity and shame.
“I guess that was a no.” I raise my head. For a moment I’d forgotten Tucker was in the room. A blessed moment as it happens, as the asshole carries on. “Sometimes it’s for the best. If you’re already seeing cracks in a relationship that’s only a few weeks old, it doesn’t exactly—”
“Okay, Dr Phil. Say what you need to then fuck off.” Leave me to sort out my own problems. Because there has to be a solution. Some way out of this.
“At least Dr Phil’s patients acknowledge their problem.”
“Dr Phil’s patients also invite his assistance,” I retort meaningfully, my patience wearing paper thin.
“Fuck it. I just want to say that what you’re feeling right now seems like it’s never going to go away. That it’ll never get better. Like it’s the biggest thing in the world and that you’ll never feel joy again.”
“Tucker—”
“I’m just here to say you’ll get through it.” His shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath. “And if you try to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I’m gonna take you outside and administer the ass kicking of your life. Because friendship goes both ways.”
I pause then. In his own way he’s trying to help.
“Okay, so how do I make this go away? How does anyone get over it?”
“There is no making,” he says with a sad looking smile. ““You gotta fake it. Fake it each and every day.”
“Pretend I feel okay? That’s your big piece of advice?”
“Fake it ’till you make it. And meantime, get back on the horse, so to speak.”
I huff a chuckle.
“Think of it as ripping off a Band-Aid. The longer you wait, the more painful it’ll be. Casual fucking is where it’s at, my friend. All of the pleasure and none of the pain.”
“What if I can’t move on? What if she’s the one for me?”
“We all think that at one time or another. You can’t resist her. Can’t think of anyone but her, like she was made only for you. But then later, you find out she was no siren. She was just a false alarm. Come back to Ardeo. You’ll see.”
“Those days are over for me. No more auctions. No more money exchanging hands, not matter how altruistic.”
“Noble exploits? Is that what you’re calling it?”
“What would you call it?” I ask, my voice dark, my hands tightening against the chair arms.
“Car, it was never about donating money to starving kids. It was just a way for you to torture yourself.”
34
Fee
Life returns to some semblance of normal, outwardly at least. On the inside, I feel brittle, like if someone were to lean on me, I’d shatter into a million pieces. But I don’t have to worry about that because I won’t let anyone get too close. Not again.
We’re settling into a new way of life that’s less than perfect, and Lulu makes no bones about her displeasure at the change. Though I can’t blame her, her crabbiness is wearing.
The apartment isn’t warm enough. Agreed.
She hates waking early and she detests the commute. So much this!
Her teacher is a poo-poo head. Mainly because he’s not Carson.
She hates sleeping with me. So I relegated myself to the couch.
New York is stinky and she wants to go back to France.
And that makes two of us, not that I’ll admit this out loud to anyone. Mostly, I just want to retreat somewhere where I don’t have to pretend to be okay. Where I could just hole up for a little until my aching heart heals. Where I could think of