Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
“Yeah, Laz loves him,” I say, almost dreamily and for a split second I’m back in time. I’m thinking of us as still together.
The reality…
Tears fall from my eyes.
“Oh no,” Naomi says, getting out of her seat and putting her arms around my shoulders. “I didn’t think you were a Bukowski fan.”
“It’s not Bukowski,” I sob. “It’s Laz. I love him, Naomi, I really do. I still do. I miss him. I want him back…but I need him to love me first. I need him to want to love me.”
“Oh honey,” she says, reaching for a napkin and handing it to me so I can wipe my nose, dab beneath my eyes. I haven’t worn makeup in forever for this exact reason. “I know, I know. I wanted Robert to want to make it work. I wanted him to want to stop cheating. He never did.”
I’m full on sobbing now, tears falling onto her arms. People in the café are staring at me and I have half a mind to get up and demonstrate the waggle dance for them, just like I did on that date with David when I started choking on linguine.
Oh god. That’s what I have to look forward to now.
I’m going to have to go on dates again.
Dates with men that aren’t Laz.
How do I go on, how do I live knowing I can’t have him, won’t have him, that no other man will ever measure up?
I won’t.
I will just become an even crazier bee lady. A spinster. I’ll revirginize myself. Maybe Barbara and Naomi and I can all live together and have an even more bitter version of the Golden Girls.
For some reason, that makes me cry even more.
“We should get going,” I finally say, looking around the café.
“Why? Because you’re crying in front of these strangers? You’re human, Marina. People should know by now that life is hard.” She turns around and yells at everyone in the shop. “Life is hard!”
“Damn right!” someone yells back.
“Naomi,” I whisper, pulling her back around. “It’s okay.” I grab another napkin and blow my nose.
But it’s not okay.
And I don’t think I ever will be.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LAZ
“COME BACK”
“I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Scooby raises his brows, his forehead crinkling as he has a swig of beer. “You don’t say.”
I run my hands down my face, feeling absolutely exhausted. It’s the kind of exhaustion that comes from your soul, when you’re emotionally spent and don’t have anything left to give.
I have been grappling with my stupidity for over a week now and it’s not getting any easier. If anything, it’s getting harder because the longer I go without talking to Marina, without touching her, seeing her, the more irreversible I feel the damage is. Like everything we had, everything we were to each other, is being erased. Her love was once so clearly imprinted on my heart and now it’s fading, dissolving, day by day, until one day I won’t remember what that felt like. To have her, body and soul.
Which is why I want to reach out. I want to say something.
I need to do something.
I can’t lose her.
And I know I already have.
“What do I do?” I ask him.
Scooby and I are sitting in a very dark and empty bar in Sherman Oaks, drinking beer at one in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful day outside, sunny and warm, the smog has cleared and there are blue skies. But I can only observe it like I’m looking down from a satellite. That’s how I’ve been observing most things these days, with distance, like I’m not even here. Just a ghost trying to escape another ghost.
The only thing I’ve been doing is writing. Pages after pages of poems. Poems I won’t post, I won’t share. My self-loathing over what I did to Marina has opened up old wounds, wounds I’d rather ignore, that I usually ignore.
But I’m not ignoring them this time. I’ve spent my life doing that. I’ve tackled my father, growing up with him. Boarding school. Feelings of worthlessness. Of being unlovable. I’ve tackled my relationship with my mother, then my relationships with every girl that crossed my path.
I’m dealing with all of it, head on, in words that are just for me. They aren’t even beautiful. They don’t make much sense. They’re words that no one else will ever see. But I’m feeling it. I’m ripping open my heart and dipping in the pen and writing it down in blood.
And it all comes back to Marina.
The hardest thing to write.
That wound is still too fresh.
It still hurts too much.
And the worst part of it all is that it’s my fault.
I can clearly see the pattern, now that I’m letting myself look at it. I probably should have started seeing a shrink years ago because the pattern is so obvious, I would have been able to work on it right away.