Page 5 of The First Love Myth
As I watch the sky darken, all the emotions of the past several hours crash down on me. Having sex made everything worse. I knew it would, but I hoped that maybe we would come out of it reconnected. Instead, desperation wafts off me, left behind from every touch and kiss. Julian clung to me, pulling me closer and deeper, moving our bodies as one until we exploded together. Desperation that deep isn’t connection—it’s goodbye. Julian is again fighting whatever part of himself refuses to let him stay with me. He lost the battle at eighteen and again at twenty-four. We were kids then, playing at love, and I overlooked the flaw. I demanded he make recompense, fully knowing that I would always take him back. But we’re not kids anymore. The stakes are higher, the break more complicated. That’s why it’s taken so long for him to succumb, but he will succumb. This time, I will be the one to go.
My hands shake as I grip the doorknob. Julian is the love of my life. And tonight, I will leave him so that he can’t leaveme again. I’ll break my own heart to save it. Sitting around and waiting to be left isn’t an option, not now after all these years and all we’ve been through. Not when he kissed another woman and lied to me and hid things and plotted. A resolve builds in me. This is about much more than Sheila Sampson and an airport kiss.
Ten minutes later, I’m still sitting in the driveway. My resolve hasn’t wavered, but I’ve spent too long in a storybook romance, and this is exactly when the sign appears. The small or big thing that makes me stay—Julian running out of the house, a meaningful and relevant song coming on the radio, a perfectly timed phone call that makes my troubles seem trivial. But nothing presents itself. With a last look at our house, I pull out of our driveway and say goodbye to the last seventeen years of my life.
Chapter 4
Liz
Things look just as murky in the morning, the truth more glaring in the sunlight streaming into my hotel room. I left my husband. Based on the ten missed calls on my cell phone, he noticed. As has his twin sister and my best friend, Jane. Jane and I met on the same cruise where I met Julian. And like Julian and me, we haven’t looked back since. We were college roommates, sorority sisters, and traveled together after graduation. Our friendship has more than survived my relationship and its breaks. Jane was the one who always put me back together. Except this time, she can’t. Jane was there for all the heartbreak Julian caused, but when he slid that ring on my finger, she made her allegiance clear. If I ever broke her brother’s heart, and not the other way around, she would pick Julian. In the same breath, she told menot to marry him. Julian has no idea about any of this, so it’s not surprising that he would assume the first person I would turn to would be my best friend and that, of course, Jane would give me refuge.
I lift the lid on the room service that I ordered for much too early in the morning. The pancakes look divine, and I’m glad my pitying self won out over sensible me when I ordered last night. The last thing I can stomach right now is egg whites. Ibarely slept, my mind is reeling, and the tears are flowing. The knowledge that I don’t know where to go is sinking in. My West Dover friends are an option, but too many of them are joint friends—our couple friends—and they don’t know the history, not really. I am not ready to tell my mother, and my older sister, Cecilia, lives halfway across the country. Jane is obviously out of the question, leaving me with one option. I really don’t want that to be my only option.
I scroll through my contacts until I find my father’s number. I haven’t called him in months. Daughter guilt sets in. We’re not particularly close, but we generally keep in touch on a somewhat regular basis. We aren’t at the perfunctory calls on birthdays and holidays stage or anything. But with my younger half sister, Zoey, away at college, the reasons to call have been fewer and far between. And my dad is not good on upkeep either. He probably hasn’t realized it’s been a few months. And even if he has, he won’t hold it against me.
My dad answers on the first ring. “Lizzie?”
I bristle at the name. He is the only one allowed to call me that, and even then, I don’t like it.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Everything okay?” he asks, using that preternatural sense he’s always had. My whole life he would walk into my room the moment I was about to lose it. He’d lean against my door jamb, an innocent look on his face.Everything okay, Lizzie?
“Well,” I say, feeling a bit more confident in my decision, “I need someplace to stay for a few... for a while.”
“Trouble in paradise, honey?” His tone is casual, but there’s an undertone of concern there. There always is when we’re talking about Julian. I’ve often wondered what my dad thinks of him, what he saw when he looked at Julian throughout the years. I’ve always been too afraid to ask.
“Dad.”
“You can stay for however long you need. You still have your key?”
Two hours and a sick day request later, I stand in front of unit 509 in Ardena Gardens. It’s one of those townhouse communities, the ones my mother helped take over Ardena and all the surrounding towns over the last twenty years, making affordable bedroom communities even more affordable. My dad moved to Ardena early in my senior year of high school after it came to light that he had a two-year-old daughter with his TA. Zoey—said illegitimate daughter and my half sister—was left with dear old Dad to his complete and utter shock when her mother decided to join the Peace Corps. For real. Zoey’s arrival threw all our lives into chaos, to say the least. To my mother’s credit, she did try to get past the cheating and the child—Zoeywasadorable—but in the end, it was too much. My dad moved into a townhouse thirty minutes east with Zoey, and they’ve been there ever since.
The townhouse is quaint, and while the space never felt like home to me, it’s better than if he lived alone in a dingy apartment on the other side of town. The situation might not have been ideal, but seeing both my parents thrive in their new lives made the transition better. It helped that Julian lived in the next town over. My dad’s place became a sort of haven for us that first year after they separated. My mom didn’t say much about it, which as an adult, makes me wonder exactly what she thought about it. But my sister Cecilia was vocal enough for both of them. She cut our father out of her life after the divorce and thought I should as well. Cecilia refused to get to know our sister, a sad truth that extends through today.
I fish around inside my purse for the Rutgers lanyard I’ve kept the house key on since high school. My dad will be oncampus for several more hours. He spends every summer doing research and writing papers, often traveling to other schools in-country and out. Sometimes Zoey goes with him. Other times, she spends the summer with her mother, who returned from the Peace Corps and promptly moved three states away. How Zoey ever forgave her for leaving in the first place is beyond me. But I know she has.
Inside, the townhouse looks like it always does. The living room is fairly clean, considering, but evidence of research papers and stacks of books are littered around the space. Zoey’s running shoes sit by the door. Her keys are in the tray. She isn’t supposed to be here. My dad said something about work orientation, but he must have been wrong. I follow the low tones of Wilderness Weekend—Zoey’s favorite band—to her room. The door is mostly closed, but I use the sliver as an invitation to enter with only a perfunctory knock.
Halfway through the door, I come to a screeching halt. I shield my eyes, but the sight is burned into my retinas. Zoey and her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, last I’d heard—covered by a sheet but clearly entangled and naked. I peek through the space between my fingers. Zoey stares at me with practiced annoyance. Andrew is detached like the asshat he is.
“You remember Andrew?” Zoey asks in a tone much too calm for this situation.
Remember him? Yes, I remember him. I also remember how they broke up because Zoey walked in on him sleeping with one of her best friends—except they weren’tsleeping.
Anger rises in me. Who does this boy think he is? I feel righteously angry for all the teenaged girls who believe in the power of first love, who can’t let the boy go. For the girls like me. Where would I be if I had let Julian go?
I pull myself to my full height—all five feet six inches of me—and give them my best imitation of a stern parent. “I expect youboth downstairs in less than five minutes.” I step back toward the door, pausing on the way out. “Do not make me come back here.”
Chapter 5
Zoey
Iwatch my sister pace the length of our living room as I pull my hair back into a ponytail. Andrew practically ran out the door after Liz’s interruption, so I’m well within her five-minute deadline. From this vantage point, with worry lines etched onto her face, Liz looks like Dad, which is not something that happens often given how much she takes after her mother. I should go to her, but there’s something off about Liz. The first thing being that she’s in my house. Sister or not, Liz hasn’t been in this house in a year. The second thing is that, sure, this situation is awkward, but does it really warrant pacing? I mean, it’s not like she caught us in the middle of the act or even saw anything uncouth. We were completely covered.
I clear my throat and step fully into the room. “Here I am as you demanded.”
Liz stops midstep and turns to me. She’s pale and not wearing any makeup. Her hair is in a messy bun. And her eyes, usually the same vibrant hazel as mine, are dark, and wide, and frantic. I swallow the rest of the sass I intended to give her. There might be more than a dozen years between us, years that can feel like an uncrossable chasm full of triggers and land mines and other people’s opinions, but I know my sister. I spent a lifetime studying her, sometimes wanting to be her and sometimes wishing she’d walk away and leave me be. Something is wrong.Something more than the shock of finding me in bed with my ex-boyfriend.