He
certainly didn't give up on her right away. Aidan returned home to
find her belongings gone and her key shoved under his door, and he
called her right away, but she wasn't in yet. He called her again
the next morning, to no answer, so he went over to her house to see
her. It was her mother that answered the door.
“I'm
sorry Aidan”, she said, “she's always been very sensitive and
easily hurt. I'll tell her you came by, but that's all I can do.”
With
that she closed the door on him, leaving him to walk home, still
completely dumbfounded at what had happened.
He
tried calling her a few more times, once more at work, and he visited
her house one more time, but she was never willing to talk to him,
and eventually he had to accept that forcing her to talk wasn't going
to work. “She knows how to find me if she wants to talk”, he
accepted begrudgingly.
His
performance at work had been slipping terribly since that day, he had
been too depressed and unmotivated to get much work done, and if it
weren't for the confusion surrounding his boss's transition to his
new job he probably would have been fired by now, though at this
point he didn't really care. He could scarcely even imagine himself
having a future now that she wasn't going to be a part of it. He
tried to busy himself with menial chores, but one day he had been
cleaning up his apartment and he had come across that picture of the
moon over the bay that she had given him that first night and he just
couldn't bring himself to go on. When he thought about how he had
felt back then all he could do was cry.
Dan
was beside himself, he blamed himself for breaking up their
relationship, but Aidan knew it was his own fault. He had done so
many stupid things, and not a night went by where he didn't curse
himself for all of them. Most of all, he couldn't stop thinking
about the last conversation they'd had: What should he have said?
Should he really have told her about that dream he'd had, in front of
Dan and everyone? Would that have changed things? It tore him apart
inside, he knew that they were meant to be together, so there must
have been something he could have said or done to make it work. How
different would his life have been if he had just proposed to her in
the park when he had the chance? He screwed everything up and now
they were both going to pay for it for the rest of their lives.
Somehow
he managed to endure it for a couple months, but the stress was close
to breaking him completely. He was sitting in his apartment one
evening idly watching TV and feeling sorry for himself, when
something caught him completely off-guard. For the first time since
they had broken up, his phone rang. His heart leapt into his throat,
and he practically pounced on the receiver. He'd gone over this
conversation a million times in his head, and he knew exactly how
he'd apologize to her and what he'd say for any of a dozen possible
responses she might give.
But
it wasn't her.
“Aidan,
it's me, Tina. I heard everything from Dan. Are you all right?”
He
didn't even answer. His heart had sunk back into the pit of his
stomach, and he felt completely deflated, like a balloon where all
the air had gone out.
“Sorry,
I know you're not”, she continued. “Listen, Aidan, can I come
and see you?”
“When?”,
he asked weakly, though he definitely didn't feel up to it.
“Tonight.
I'm in town, I could be over at your place in fifteen minutes.”
“What?”,
he replied, shocked enough to have found his voice. “Tina, don't
be ridiculous, you're engaged.”
“...Things
haven't been going well between Frank and I for a while. I think the
wedding is postponed indefinitely. But listen, that's not the point.
Aidan, I know what you're going through.”
“No
you don't”. he responded, bitterly.
“How
do you think I felt that night when you turned me down? I thought we
were meant to be together, it broke my heart.”
“And
did it make you feel better to just go out and get another guy?”
There
was silence on the line. He couldn't believe he had just said that.
He hadn't meant to imply that she only got together with Frank to try
to get over him, but in that moment he realized it was true, and
despite his own heartache he felt terrible for hurting her.
“Look,
I didn't-” he started to apologize, but she cut him off.
“God,
you're right, I'm pathetic”, she said, choked up, “after all this
time I'm still not over you. I was trying to tell you I think we're
meant to be together, but it sounds so stupid now.”
He
might have been a broken man, but he knew he couldn't leave things
like that. “Listen, Tina, I didn't mean it like that. Stay with
Frank. He's a nice guy and you've got a lot in common, he's a much
better choice than I ever would have been.”
“You're
right”, she said, sniffling. “I'm sorry, Aidan, I shouldn't have
bothered you with this, especially now. I just hope you're going to
be okay.”
“I'll
pull through somehow, don't worry about me. And I'm glad we talked,
it did help me a little. We'll talk again soon, all right?”
“Okay”,
she said, not sounding at all okay. She hung up the phone, and it
was quiet in his apartment once again.
He
hoped she was going to be all right, at least now maybe she would
stop hoping that they would get back together and get on with her
life. He hadn't been lying, either, talking to her had helped him
see things much more clearly. He knew what he had to do now, and
that night he slept soundly for the first time since Nisha had left
him.
In
the morning, Aidan got up, had breakfast, showered, brushed his
teeth, got dressed, packed his briefcase, and left for work properly
prepared for the first time in ages. He took the 7:30 train and read
the paper to prepare himself for his day, just like he used to. At
work, he got to work on his in pile right away, making good progress,
and at lunch he and Dan talked amicably about sports, to the latter's
great relief. In the afternoon he made a few calls to the western
branch and polished off his stack of papers early enough to pop in
and wish his boss luck in his new position and greet his new manager,
every bit the model employee he had once been. Nisha was not there
on the ride home, so he took a window seat all to himself and watched
the train pass over the bay, then he walked home, made himself some
dinner, watched a bit of TV, and got ready for bed, and in the
morning he'd do it all again.
He
was going to get that promotion, and then someday when Nisha decided
to take the train again he'd apologize to her for everything and tell
her the truth behind it all. It didn't matter how long he had to
wait, he would just keep on moving forward with his life until he
finally got a chance to see her again.
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