Life Goes On
A lot had happened since Kevin’s cruel disappearing act of 2002. As Flight 287 lifted me away from all the memories that had kept me company in Philadelphia, I thought of how much my life had changed since that Halloween morning when I fell through the glass.
First, there was Izzie. He was extremely attentive after my accident and even skipped out on a couple of his Guys’ Days. I thought it was a turning point in our relationship, that however unfortunate, my fall had brought us closer together, making us like Alison and Anthony—one of those couples that just couldn’t be kept apart. But after a while, we settled back into our old routine—Izzie gone on Saturdays, me waiting patiently to be consumed under the pathetic shadow of loneliness. Though I do admit to missing him, it wasn’t so much the fact that he spent his Saturdays with Marcus and Adam that bothered me at this point. I’d gotten used to that. What I did worry about was the fact that the only time my boyfriend seemed passionate about me was after those days were over. That was what made them so lonely—knowing that what I looked most forward to in my week, my main event, was merely his finale before bedtime. I didn’t think Izzie was using me for sex, though. How could he be? We hardly even had sex anymore. By the time our one-year anniversary rolled around, it was pretty much just those Saturday nights. We still had the friendship, but even that seemed a little distant. Or did it only seem distant because I was ready for more? Because I was always comparing us to Alison and Anthony? I didn’t know. Analyzing things only made them worse. And I couldn’t talk to Izzie about it. The one time I tried, I hated the sound of my own voice. I felt like one of those women who have everything, but can’t ever be happy unless they’re unhappy, so they must find something to nit-pick. Besides, Izzie seemed to think we were fine. But fine wasn’t perfect. Then again, what was? Here I had an adorable, talented, almost-live-in boyfriend who hadn’t broken my heart yet. What more did I want? The world?
But then came the muggy summer night when Izzie said he had too much work to do and wouldn’t be able to see me.
“Well, I’ll just come over and kiss you good-night before I go to sleep, then,” I said.
“Don’t,” he told me. “I mean, seeing you would be too much of a distraction and I can’t afford it. I love you, though. I’ll call you tomorrow.” It was the first night we went without seeing each other in more than a year.
A week later, the same thing happened again. When I asked him why he wasn’t finishing his work during daytime hours like he used to, he said it was hard to explain to me because I wasn’t an artist.
The third time it happened, I went down the hall and knocked on his door, terrified of what I might discover, only to find Izzie, Marcus and Adam listening to music and acting the same way they had the one time I intruded upon Guys’ Day—nervous, paranoid, and like they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Izzie said that Adam and Marcus were going to the bar soon and that he was just taking a little break from his work while they were still there. That was the night I made the ungodly mistake of asking Adam what he was doing up from Center City on a Wednesday. Izzie completely reprimanded me for it over the phone the next day, saying I should never interrogate his friends like that.
“It’s embarrassing, Stella. And it makes people anxious.”
I apologized and told him I’d meant nothing by it, but at this point, I knew that everything wasn’t fine. Sometimes, I worried that he was cheating on me. But why would he pick on me like that if he were cheating? Wouldn’t he be extra nice because of the guilt? But if he wasn’t cheating, what was his excuse? Why was he pulling away from me? Why was he acting so different? Why would he be completely excited to hear from me one afternoon, talking a mile a minute about his day, and the next afternoon not answer the phone at all? I told myself he was just busy with his cartoon column—because that’s what he told me. And I never did catch him with another woman. How could he be cheating if there was no other woman? I found out in August that there was another way to cheat, that Izzie had been cheating since we started. Only now the affair had gotten too big to hide. Izzie’s mistress was cocaine.
Alison was the one who told me, after Anthony told her, after Marcus told him. It all happened at a party we threw for Emily. Two weeks earlier, Anna had decided to drop the “Anna by Emily” label in exchange for “Emmie,” which meant more recognition—and more money—for our friend, and was definitely something worth celebrating. We hadn’t had one of those crazy, drunken bashes in an exceptionally long time, considering that Alison’s and my idea of bliss had changed considerably since we’d settled down with our McIntyre Suites boys. But it was fun recapturing old times, and it warmed my heart to see Emily so happy in light of what was going on with Katherine, who’d suffered her third miscarriage since Eli just three days after the good news about Emmie came along. But at least she had Damien by her side for this one. Yes, for the first time in a long time, my best friend was actually dating somebody who seemed worthy of her. Damien Esposito was thirty (a mere four years senior to our twenty-six but more than twice the man Rob Sellers had been), lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and worked as a computer programmer for a major software corporation in Manhattan. He met Emily when he accidentally cut in front of her in the deli line on his lunch break. It was her lunch break, too, but she didn’t mind—she liked the view from behind. And he liked the way her face lit up like a tomato when he turned around to apologize and caught her staring at his butt. They ended up getting a table together and exchanging numbers. That was around Christmastime. They’d been together ever since.
Even Warren liked Damien, and he was always critical of the men Emily showed interest in. But then again, how could he not be after seeing the whole Rob thing blow up in her face for a second time? Besides, Warren was like Emily’s New York dad. If he endorsed the guy, I knew he had to be quality. And Damien definitely was. My only wish was that I knew him better. I’d only hung out with him three times in the eight months he’d been dating Emily. But that was because he did so much traveling on the weekends and was rarely around on the Sundays that Izzie and I came up to visit. Emily said Damien really liked me, though, and that I should never take it personally when he wasn’t around, like the night of Alison’s and my party, for instance—the one we threw in honor of Emmie. I didn’t take it personally. Damien was an actual businessman—a mature and welcome change from the likes of Emily’s past. And besides, all that really mattered was that she and Warren were there. That’s what made the party feel so much like old times.
I was the warm-fuzzy-tingly kind of almost-drunk, sitting on the couch with Warren and Emily, gushing something to the effect of how much I loved them, when from across the room, I saw Alison and Anthony having some sort of huddle. It looked serious, but I figured it was none of my business. Adam had come to the party, and he, Marcus and Izzie were on their way to the door. Izzie called out to me that they’d be right back. They were going down the hall to grab a CD he wanted to play.
“It takes three people to carry one CD?” Emily asked once they were gone.
“Well, Adam probably just felt weird staying here without them,” I said. “And Marcus and Izzie, I don’t know…maybe it’s a cousin thing. Where one goes, the other follows.”
“Hey, Nelly Whiteman used to say that about us in high school and we’re not cousins. We’re S&M.”
“I remember that!”
“Uh, I don’t,” Warren said. “But I’d like to.”
Emily shoved him away. “Did you hear that she had a baby?”
“Nelly Whiteman had a baby?” I asked.
“I ran into Fred Corrie at the train station yesterday, and he said she had a baby girl last year.”
“Oh, my God! That’s so great! Is she married?”
“Okay, remember that twenty-seven-year-old lawyer she started dating after we graduated?”
“The one we thought was so old?”
“They’ve been married for four years.”
“Wow,” I said, a sudden wave of sadness washing over me. “And I can’t even tell you why my boyfriend needs six hands to carry one CD.”
By this time, Alison had drifted over to the couch. She asked if she could speak with me privately, and we went into her bedroom.
“Honey, Izzie didn’t go back to his apartment to get a CD. He and Marcus and Adam…they do coke. Adam comes up on Saturdays to deal to them, and they just spend the whole day getting high. That’s what Guys’ Day is, Stella. That’s what it’s always been.” I remained quiet as she explained, my eyes full of tears about to fall. I wasn’t as shocked as I should have been. It all made sense now. Everything. Their nervous energy the times I intruded, Izzie’s mood swings, the distance. “Izzie’s gotten more into it lately,” she said. “It used to just be a weekend thing, and now he does it almost every day. He says it helps him work.” Skipping nights together, not answering his phone in the afternoon, talking a mile a minute when he would get on the phone with me. The distance—I’d never really known him at all.
I started to cry pretty wildly—raw, runny tears of distress—and Alison cradled me against her shoulder. “I had to tell you, sweetie. Anthony wanted to have a talk with Izzie first. He said he wanted to give him a chance to get his act together, and that if he didn’t, then I could tell you. But how could I know something like that about the person you love and not tell you?”
“How long has Anthony known about it?”
“Marcus just told him tonight. He actually invited him back with the three of them to get high.”
“What? What did Anthony say?”
“He was shocked. You know Anthony doesn’t really know Adam that well, so even before me, he never did that whole Guys’ Day thing. But for the past three years, he’s considered Marcus his best friend. He can’t believe he never knew what he was doing. He said Marcus talked about cocaine tonight like it was nothing. He got defensive, though, when Anthony acted weird about it. He said it was no big deal and that he only does it on Saturdays and ‘special occasions.’ And then Anthony asked about Izzie, and…I’m so sorry, Stella. Anthony thinks the only reason Marcus invited him along tonight was because they’ve drifted apart since we started seeing each other. He thinks he was just reaching for something to bond them again.”
“So…he tried to get Anthony hooked on drugs? Alison, that doesn’t make any sense! Why is this happening?”
“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know. Anthony feels awful. He says if he’d paid more attention to his friends, then maybe he would’ve—”
“It’s not Anthony’s fault,” I cried. “It’s mine! I’m so stupid!”
Alison held me tighter as I continued to sob. After a few minutes, I asked her to go get Emily, who burst into tears as soon as she came into the room and saw what a hysterical mess I was. It was then Alison’s job to comfort both of us, which she was still doing when Anthony and Warren knocked at the door, wanting to know if everything was okay. I could tell by Warren’s face that Anthony hadn’t filled him in on what was happening, so I decided to do it myself.
“My boyfriend is a coke addict,” I said. And for the first time since the discovery, I felt angry. There, ringing back at me, straight from my very own words, was the undeniable truth of how badly I’d been deceived. My boyfriend was a coke addict and I’d never had any idea. But instead of feeling hurt by his betrayal, I suddenly had the desire to hurt him. “I’m going over there.”
“I’m going with you,” Warren said, and I could see by the look in his eyes that there’d be no changing his mind.
“I’ll go, too,” Anthony said. “I’ll wait outside if you want me to, Stella. I just want to be around in case things get out of hand.”
The three of us walked down the hall and stood knocking at the door, but nobody answered. I knew they were all in there—cleaning up the lie—and it wasn’t long before I’d had enough. I tried the knob and found the door unlocked. Izzie jumped up from his desk to greet me, sniffing hard as he wiped rigorously at his nostrils with the back of his hand, his nose bouncing from side to side like rubber. His grin was goofy and transparent, and I hoped his damn nose would start bleeding right in front of me just so that obnoxious grin would falter, just so he’d know I wasn’t buying it. Marcus and Adam disappeared into the kitchen almost immediately, and Anthony and Warren followed them. When Izzie and I were face-to-face, he hugged me, kissing my cheek with an intensity that would have seemed like passion if I hadn’t known he was on drugs.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“Then why didn’t you come back to the party?” I asked, pulling away from him.
“I told you—we were getting that CD to bring back.”
“And how long does that take?”
“Oh, baby,” he said, hugging me again. “Did you miss me?” This time, I pushed him away—hard. “What’s the matter with you?”
“You have to ask?”
“Am I supposed to be able to read your mind? I know you pretty well, baby girl, but I don’t think I know you that well.”
“And I don’t know you at all.”
“Come on. What are you talking about?”
“What do you, Adam and Marcus do on Saturdays?”
“I told you. We watch movies, play video games…you know it’s the one day a week I get to be with my friends.” He took my hands. “Does that bother you? Because if it does, you just say, ‘Izzie, I need you to spend more time with me,’ and Izzie will spend more time with you.”
“And if I say, ‘Izzie, I need you to stop doing cocaine’?” Izzie let go of my hands and looked down. “You can’t deny it, can you?”
“Shh,” he said, still looking down.
“What?” I asked, raising my voice.
“Shh, Stella, come on,” he pleaded, lifting his eyes to meet mine.
“Does that mean ‘be quiet’?” I yelled. “Are you telling me to be quiet? Well, fuck you! How dare you lie to me for a year and three months about who the hell you are and then tell me to be quiet?”
“I didn’t lie to you,” he said softly.
“You didn’t lie to me? Izzie, what fucking world are you living in?”
Izzie took my wrist and started leading me toward the bedroom. “Just come here, Stella, please. Can’t we just talk in private?”
“Let go of me! I don’t want anything to do with you anymore!” But he didn’t let go. “Get off of me, Izzie! I swear to God, I said let go!”
Just then, Warren rushed out from the kitchen. “She said to let go of her, Izzie.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m trying to have a conversation with my girlfriend,” Izzie told him, never taking his eyes off of me.
“I’m not your girlfriend, Izzie,” I said, freeing my wrist. The look in his eyes made me cry. I had hurt him, just like I’d wanted. But it didn’t feel good. “I don’t want to see you anymore,” I said. “You made a fool out of me for way too long.” Warren came over and stood beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder.
“You’re moving in kind of fast there, buddy,” Izzie snapped.
“It’s not like that!” I cried. “You don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about! Warren is the only guy who’s ever bothered to stay in my life and be there for me, no matter what! You know, I was actually dumb enough to think you’d joined that exotic group of one. Shows how little I knew about things.”
“So, you’re just gonna leave me, then?” Izzie asked, raising his voice at me for the first time that night, and the first time ever. “I make one mistake in a year and three months, and you’re gone? That’s pretty fucking compassionate of you, Stella!”
“Hey,” Warren cautioned. “You wanna calm down?”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Izzie,” I said, softening a little as I realized for the first time that he truly had no concept of how much he’d hurt me. “It wasn’t one mistake in a year and three months. It was a constant series of mistakes—of lies—over and over again, the entire time we were going out…I don’t even know who you are.”
“Someone who loves you.”
“That might be true,” I said, looking down. When I looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. I turned to Warren. “Would you mind if—”
“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” he said.
As soon as Warren was gone, Izzie started to cry. “Please don’t do this, Stella. I can’t lose you. Please.” He moved to hug me, and this time, instead of pushing him away, I hugged him back. “You’re the only thing in my life that’s real.”
“That’s sad, Izzie,” I said, rubbing his back. “That’s really sad.” He looked at me questioningly. “We weren’t real, Izzie. Do you even realize how much you hid from me? A relationship surrounded by that much deceit isn’t real. Izzie, I care about you, and there’s going to be a huge void in my life now, but I can’t be with you. And if you see that as me being a heartless bitch because you think you only made one mistake…well, Izzie, that’s like cheating on me with another woman for over a year and calling it one mistake. I’m…I’m sorry, Izzie.” I started to cry again. “I don’t want you to think I don’t love you anymore because I do. But I have to leave you. And I know that because, one, people who say they’re going to change rarely do. And two, because not once during this entire conversation did you even offer to give up drugs.”
“Drugs aren’t a problem for me.”
“Well, obviously they are,” I said, breaking away from him. “Because they just cost you the only thing in your life you thought was real.”
“Wait,” he said, pulling me close again. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry it has to end this way. I thought you were gonna be the one, Izzie. I really did. You were supposed to be the one.”
“I was never good enough for you,” he said. And that killed me. “I think I’ve always known that. But I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. You can call me a liar all you want, Stella. But you can never say it wasn’t love. No matter what you think of me after tonight, don’t ever wonder if I loved you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered. And then we hugged for a while in silence until Warren came out of the kitchen and asked if I was ready to go. I told him I needed another minute.
“You deserve to be happy,” Izzie said once we were alone again. He nodded toward the kitchen. “If I couldn’t do it for you, maybe the boss can?”
We both smiled sadly. “Don’t make fun of Warren,” I said. “He’s just protective. And besides, it never would’ve worked with us. I was never in love with him. And he’s long since gotten over me.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he could help me out with that. It’s gonna be hard—getting over you.”
“Likewise.” We were quiet for a few seconds. “Listen, Izzie, I’m not gonna be able to do the whole ‘just friends’ thing with you. It would just be way too hard, and I don’t want to get sucked back in unless you’ve really changed.”
“I kind of figured this was it.”
“All right,” I said, hugging him one last time. “If you ever decide that drugs are a problem for you, and you think you want help, call me. Just because we won’t be hanging out doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be there if you needed me.”
“Thank you, Stella. And don’t forget me, okay? I mean, don’t try so hard to forget me that you can’t remember what was good about us.”
“I’ll never forget you,” I said. “You were supposed to be the one. Remember?”
And so we broke up. Marcus and Anthony didn’t speak much after that. As far as Anthony was concerned, Marcus had lied to him and, in the process, had helped contribute to the destruction of something extremely precious to me. As far as Marcus was concerned, Anthony had betrayed his trust by telling other people about Izzie, and it didn’t help that he’d acted like Mr. High and Mighty, either. Besides, they hadn’t been close in a long time anyway. Things had ended pretty disastrously for the five of us. Alison and Anthony remained unscathed, and of course, Marcus and Izzie still lived together, but as for that group of five that had been such good friends for two years, it was over. Our close-knit pseudo-family had died. And we’d never be together in McIntyre Suites again.
Izzie and I saw each other every once in a while, but it was always by accident—running into each other outside of our building or in the hallway. And we never talked for very long. It wasn’t that it was awkward. It just hurt too much to stand there and look at each other knowing what had happened not only to us, but to everybody. And then December came.
I’ll always remember the night he knocked on my door to say goodbye. He’d gotten a job at a Seattle newspaper and was moving to Washington. Marcus was going, too. They were leaving the following day—my twenty-seventh birthday.
Of course, I invited him in. Alison was upstairs with Anthony, but it didn’t matter about being alone. I was sad to hear he was leaving, even after all those months apart, and I wanted to spend some time with him, no matter how much it hurt. But to my sweet surprise, it didn’t hurt. Being alone with Izzie again felt natural and right, as if no time had passed at all since we’d been in love. And that’s because we still were. Only Izzie appreciated it more now, this love we felt that was real, because he was clean. At first, he had quit cold turkey, thinking it would be easy since drugs weren’t a problem for him. But when cold turkey proved too hard, he sought help from a professional drug counselor at a rehab clinic. He said Marcus still dabbled occasionally, but never in his presence.
“I can’t tell Marcus what to do with his life,” he said. “And besides, he was never as out of control as I was. I needed to get clean. It’s the best thing I could have done for myself.”
“I’m proud of you,” I said. “I’m really, really proud of you.”
“Well, since you said that, I guess I’ll give you this.” Izzie reached into his pocket and held out a small velvet box.
“What’s that?”
“It appears to be a box, Stella.”
I leaned forward on the couch, shoving him playfully. It was the first time we’d touched since the breakup. Before I had the chance to settle down again, Izzie leaned forward, too, and gently took hold of my face, kissing me softly. We were both smiling when he pulled away.
“Happy birthday,” he said, handing me the box.
“You remembered?”
“Of course I remembered. The drugs didn’t fry my brain that bad. You’re thirty-seven, right?”
“Ha-ha,” I said as I opened it. The ring inside sparkled so much, it made my eyes water. Or maybe it was him. I didn’t want him to leave.
“You don’t have to count them. That’s twenty-seven blue topaz stones, and the pink sapphire in the center is your one candle for good luck.”
“For good luck?”
“Well, I won’t be here to have cake with you tomorrow, so… Work with me here, Stella. I was trying to make an analogy.”
“It’s a beautiful analogy,” I said, kissing his cheek.
“Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Put it on me.”
“Put what on you?” he asked, smiling.
“The ring, Izzie.” After he’d put the ring on my finger, he continued to hold my hand, anyway, just because. “You know, I never stopped loving you,” I said.
“Likewise.” He paused to lend a teasing grin to the expression. It’s gonna be hard—getting over you, he’d said the night we broke up. Likewise, I’d told him. And obviously, it had been harder than we thought because four months later, here we were—not over each other at all. Not even close. He rubbed my hand as he continued to talk. “In a lot of ways, I’m glad you broke my heart, though. That was what motivated me to get my act together. I resisted for a little while, told myself you were wrong, that I didn’t have a problem. And then I realized—if I’d lost you, I had a problem. There were no two ways about it.”
“I broke your heart?”
“Like you didn’t know.”
“How’s your heart doing these days?”
“It misses you.”
“Yeah? Oh, Izzie,” I said, sighing, “why didn’t you tell me about all of this before?”
“You mean about getting clean?”
“That and moving away…”
“All right. Hold on. First of all, I know you said I could come to you for help, but I didn’t want to drag you into that whole mess again. I wanted to do it on my own and impress you.”
“Well, you have. But why wait so long to tell me about it?”
“What was I gonna do, call you that first day and say, ‘Guess what? I’ve been clean for six hours?’ I wanted to give it time. The last thing I wanted was to make you proud of me and then screw up again.”
“But this Seattle thing…”
“It’s a great chance for me. And I haven’t known for that long. Things have been insane since I found out and I’ve been wanting to come by, but I didn’t know how you’d treat me or what you’d say…I don’t know. I realize now that I wasted a lot of time that could’ve been spent with you. I just didn’t realize things could be this easy between us again. But at least we’ve got tonight.”
I shrugged. “Who needs tomorrow?”
“Let’s make it last.”
“Let’s find a way.”
Izzie leaned forward. “I have to say, this is really turning me on. How come you never talked Bob Seger to me while we were going out?”
“I’m doing it to you now.”
“Now? Really? I know it’s been a while, dear, but I think I remember how you ‘do it.’”
“Is that right? Well, then I guess you don’t need me to show you.”
“Is that an offer?”
“You remember where the bedroom is, don’t you?”
It’s a good thing Alison was at Anthony’s because we didn’t exactly make it into the bedroom—the first time. But eventually, we did, and Izzie spent the night. He left early the next morning with the sweetest kiss and a promise to call from his new apartment in Seattle the following week. One month later, he died.
Izzie’s overdose invented a brand-new way to break my heart. I gave him my heart and he died. And a piece of my heart died with him.
We were supposed to get together soon. We talked every night on the phone, but hadn’t seen each other since his last morning in Scottsboro, making love at sunrise on my twenty-seventh birthday with the birds chirping outside my bedroom window. We’d made plans, though, finally, for the first weekend in February. I couldn’t wait—I missed him so much. He died on January 6th.
Marcus was the one who found him—in the middle of the night, facedown in a pool of blood and ink at his desk. He’d been working on his new column when his life passed through him. I wondered if his final moments had contained any thoughts of me.
No one had any idea that Izzie had relapsed until the night he died. The experience scared Marcus into strict sobriety and helped ease the bad blood that existed between him and Anthony. After somebody dies, grudges can seem pretty pointless. They’d gone almost five months thinking that their friendship was over. But when tragedy hit home, Anthony was the first one Marcus turned to. And he was there. Alison had the most unfortunate task of breaking the news to me.
I had to take a leave of absence from work. It wasn’t too long—only a couple of weeks. I spent those two weeks at my mom’s place because I needed to feel like a little girl again. After all those years of feeling like I hadn’t grown up as fast as everybody else, that I was somehow lagging behind, I now felt like I’d grown up too fast—my peers were already starting to die. But then again, shouldn’t I have been prepared? Even as a girl, I’d known what others didn’t. How many ninth graders have to bury their seventeen-year-old sisters? But, Blanche was different. Blanche was…another life. Yes, Blanche was the end of innocence, of childhood, of taking things for granted. I’d never taken Izzie for granted. Izzie wasn’t supposed to die. Young people weren’t supposed to die. Lightning wasn’t supposed to strike twice. Though, it had for my mother. And now I understood her fear. Only my heart bled too heavily to fear much of anything. My greatest fear had already been realized. The man I was in love with had died. What difference did anything make now?
Izzie’s body was flown back to Pennsylvania for the funeral. Emily and Warren came down for the service, which was so horrible, I promised myself I’d never think about it again. Not that such promises ever take. Emily spent the next few days at my mom’s with me. She couldn’t stop crying. It was all right, though. It’s not as if I expected her to come up with any magical speeches that might heal me. I just liked having her around. The morning my mom left to drive her to the train station, I sank down by the front door and just lay there, watching my tears collect on the floor. Two hours later, when my mother returned, I still hadn’t moved.
Marcus stayed with his mother for a while, too, and then he moved back into McIntyre Suites. At first, that surprised me. I didn’t know how he could do it—all those memories of Izzie. But then I realized that I was still there, and memories of Izzie filled every inch of my apartment. Marcus just wanted to surround himself with what was comforting and familiar. There was no life for him in Seattle without his cousin. But here in the building, there was Anthony, Alison and me. The old group that had always been so close. Minus one.
Marcus and I spent a lot of time together. Without him, I don’t know how I would have gotten through those first few months without Izzie. He says the same thing about me.
We both felt guilty and confused. Neither of us could understand how we didn’t see the signs that Izzie was using again.
“But maybe it was just the one time. Just that one night, I mean,” Marcus said. “To get him through his work.”
“That only makes it sadder—to think that one time could—”
“And if I hadn’t been so casual about cocaine, myself, maybe I would’ve known something was—”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“You’re blaming yourself. You were all the way on the other side of the country, and you think you should’ve been able to notice a change in his behavior?”
“I’m blaming myself because I was so damn judgmental the first time. Izzie would’ve been afraid to tell me if he’d slipped.”
“You weren’t judgmental, Stella. You were right. You’ve never heard of tough love?”
“A lot of good it did me.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, my cousin loved you more than anything in this world. He was even talking about moving back here because he couldn’t stand the distance from you.”
“For what it’s worth?” I asked, trying not to cry. “It’s worth everything. What else do I have?”
A lot of my conversations with Marcus would end with unanswerable questions like these. There were no answers, I suppose. None that would cast a healing spell on our suffering. All we could do was be there for each other to lend the perspective and understanding that no one else, no matter how much they cared, ever could. Sometimes, we just watched TV, ate pizza, said nothing. The point was that we didn’t go through it alone. We were partners in grief, Marcus and I, and after a while, when the heavy veil of mourning lifted, we realized we’d become incredible friends—independent of the group that had once bound us together, and able to tell each other anything.
By June, my sorrow had become less persistent, and I was actually able to go about life without the constant awareness of a gaping hole in my heart. Marcus had begun seeing somebody, and I was thrilled for him—he deserved the happiness. There was just no way I could picture myself having that kind of happiness again, at least not for a while. I certainly was the odd one out in that regard—romance was everywhere. Emily and Damien had been riding along blissfully for a year and a half without a single bump on the road. Anthony and Alison had just gotten engaged. And even Warren was seeing someone, his first girlfriend since Giselle. Tina Betts was a twenty-two-year-old waitress-actress whom Warren had met one night when third-wheeling it with Emily and Damien at a Mexican restaurant in Midtown. Unlike Giselle, Emily and I really liked Tina. She was cute, bubbly and completely not obnoxious about being cute and bubbly. In fact, she didn’t put on any airs at all. Tina was completely herself at all times. She even talked openly about Warren’s undying attachment to Emily and me.
“I know that his ex-girlfriend was bothered by it,” she said, “but I think the fact that he’s so loyal to the two of you, and so protective, says something about his attitude toward women in general. Maybe I’m weird for not being jealous, but if you can’t trust a guy like Warren, who can you trust?” Did I mention how much I liked Tina?
Things seemed to be going pretty well for everyone that summer. As for me, the sun would shine brighter someday. And at least I was moving on with my life. By the time school started up again in September, I felt ready to make a fresh start. It had been eight months since Izzie died, and I still missed him, but things felt new in a positive way for the first time since my birthday, for the first time since Izzie and I made our new start. Maybe it was the new school year or the new season about to break, but I could feel that sun beginning to shine on me again. And its wonderful rays felt like hugs.
Unfortunately, September didn’t bring good things for everybody. Emily got her phone call in September, a phone call that none of us had been sharp enough to predict. It was a Saturday morning and Warren was at an audition with Tina. Emily was alone, unsuspecting, just drinking coffee, when she heard the ring.
“Hello?”
“Hi. This is Melanie Esposito…Damien’s wife.”
A friend had spotted Damien having what appeared to be a romantic lunch with another woman a few weeks earlier. Since then, Melanie had been searching for evidence, and finally, last night, she had found it. Damien was taking a shower when Melanie came home and saw that he had one new message on his cell phone. Maybe he’d planned to check his voice mail before she arrived, but if that had been the plan, he was too late. For while Damien was in the shower, washing away his secrets and sins, his wife, who had always been faithful, was in the very next room, confirming the fears her friend had planted weeks ago—her husband was, in fact, having an affair.
Did Emily have any idea what it was like to be married to a man for seven years and hear another woman telling him she loved him and was sorry they couldn’t spend the night together? Seven years? Yes, married seven and together eleven, since college. But in the past two years, she’d been doing a lot of traveling during the week, for business. She had just returned from Denver when she saw the new message light blinking on Damien’s phone. Maybe it was partly her fault—for being gone so much. Maybe this was her punishment for wanting a career. But at least she never traveled on the weekends. That had always been her rule. The weekends were for Damien and the kids. Kids? Yes, two. A boy and a girl. Jeffrey and Amanda, ages four and six. They spent a lot of time at their grandmother’s house during the week because Damien put in such “long hours at the office.” Only now that she knew her kids had been losing time with their father because he’d been having an affair, she was appalled.
“And on those occasional weekends he says he’s had conventions, I’m willing to bet any amount of money he’s been with you.”
Emily was pretty sure Melanie Esposito would’ve won that bet, considering that in all the time she’d been with Damien, it had only been the occasional weekend they’d actually gotten to spend together, when he “wasn’t” traveling on business. Apparently “conventions” were code for whatever life he felt like living that weekend. Usually, they meant family time. And every now and again, he stole away from the family in Fort Lee and escaped to Manhattan to live a lie in the arms of the other woman. Emily was appalled, too. Appalled that she had been so naive. Appalled that Damien had gotten away with lying to her for so long. Appalled that the news had broken her heart even more than it had disgusted her.
Emily apologized to Melanie, assuring her that she never would’ve gotten involved—or stayed involved—with a man she knew was married, let alone married with children. Melanie said she believed her, and they both wished each other luck.
On Monday, Emily sent Warren to Damien’s office with a letter saying that she knew he was married, that they were completely finished, and that if he ever tried to contact her in the future, she’d seek a restraining order against him. But the tough act was only that—an act. On the inside, she was devastated. How could she have been so stupid as to say she was in love with someone she’d never actually known? Her words reminded me of my own the night I confronted Izzie about the cocaine. Only this was different. I’d told Izzie that it was like he’d been cheating on me with another woman for over a year, but I was confused when I said that. Because it wasn’t the same thing. Izzie had a drug problem. Drug problems are far different from not being able to keep your so-called manhood in your pants. Being lied to always hurts. But Izzie wasn’t a cheater. Rob, Kevin, Damien—those were the faces of cheaters. Not Izzie. I wished he were around so I could tell him I’d realized the difference.
“Some guys just cheat,” I told Emily. We were on the phone, discussing Damien for the second time that day. “And some guys never would. It all depends on the situation, I guess. But it certainly wasn’t your fault.”
“He didn’t love me,” she said. “The same way Rob didn’t love me.”
“I’m sure they both loved you, Em. Just not the way you deserve to be loved.”
“Maybe I don’t deserve to be loved—by any man.”
“Now, that is completely untrue, and you know it.”
“Is it? I gave my heart—and my virginity—to Jason Neeley in high school. He dumped me as soon as he got to college and found somebody better.”
“Moron.”
“And Rob…”
“Fuck-up.”
“Damien?”
“Pig.”
“So, what else is there? Who else is there?”
“Emily, I can assure you, you haven’t dated every man in the world yet. You will meet somebody great, and probably sooner than you think. Just give it time.”
Emily was quiet for a second, then said, “What if I think I’ve already met somebody great, but I can’t have him?”
“Another gay brother?” I teased.
“Straight brother.”
“No.”
“But there’s always been that thing between Warren and me. And for four years, I’ve been suppressing it because of our friendship, the fact that we were in other relationships, blah, blah, blah…”
“Yeah, well, ‘blah, blah, blah’ is very important.”
“Stella…I never told you this, but do you know how much self-control it took not to try anything with him when we were both single—before I met Damien?”
“You were just horny.”
“No. I think Warren could be the one. Why are you so against this?”
“Have you forgotten about Tina? Sweet, innocent Tina who trusts you? Warren really likes her, Emily. Don’t mess that up because you’re on the rebound and not thinking straight again.”
“This has nothing to do with being on the rebound. It has to do with feelings and clocks.”
“Clocks?”
“Mine is ticking, Stella. I’m gonna be twenty-eight in less than two months. It’s time to stop dicking around. It’d be different if I were still looking for him, but I know who he is. It’s Warren. And I like Tina. I really do. But I can’t fight this feeling anymore.”
“All I’m saying, REO Speedwagon, is that you might just want to slow down and breathe so that we don’t end up with another Nick situation on our hands. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Is that all you’re saying?”
“That, and I really think Tina’s the best thing that’s happened to Warren in as long as I’ve known him.”
“But when will the best thing happen to me?”
“Give it time,” I told her. “Your clock’s not ticking that fast.”
Three weeks later, Anna surprised Emily with an invitation to join her for ten weeks in Europe. She and Warren celebrated the news with a bottle of wine during dinner. Tina had landed a part in an Off-Off Broadway comedy and was going straight home after her waitressing shift to rest up for an early-morning rehearsal. It was Warren and Emily’s first night alone together in months. They didn’t come close to finishing the wine. They found their way to the bedroom all on their own, completely sober.
It had been eight and a half years since their last “roll in the hay,” but this was different, much different. Emily described it as magical. She said she’d never felt safer with any other man in her life. The night had been perfect, and she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Warren told me it was a mistake. He was afraid he’d taken advantage of her trust.
She said he was sweeter, sexier and more attentive afterward than she ever would have imagined, even knowing the way he was last time and the way he is in his everyday life.
He said he was scared to death when it was over, just waiting for her to flip out on him for letting things go that far.
She said it was just what she’d needed, but that it couldn’t happen again—at least not until he took care of his situation. That is, if he wanted to be with her. And if he didn’t, she would understand. She’d be hurt, of course, but she could never hate Warren. He’d given her the greatest night of her life, and he’d always be her friend. Sex could never change that.
He said this was the last thing he’d needed and it definitely couldn’t happen again. Sex screwed everything up. Now he had a situation on his hands and he didn’t know what to do about it. His biggest fear in the world was losing Emily as a friend.
I said I refused to get in the middle of it. I told them they had to talk.
They said they would let what happened between them be what it was—one magical moment between two old friends who loved each other a lot and had gotten carried away one night. One magical, well, mistake that couldn’t be repeated because of the, um, situation. Tina! Her name was Tina! Though, I seemed to be the only one who could remember that after Warren and Emily consummated their platonic living situation.
I did feel bad for Emily. I knew the “mutual” decision they’d reached hadn’t really been all that mutual, that she’d merely followed Warren’s lead, accepting his views because she trusted his judgment and never wanted to become a burden to him. But at least she had Europe to look forward to. Preparing for the trip helped take her mind off of things. And by the time she said goodbye to Warren in November, they were back to, at least, acting platonic. As for the way they felt, neither of them discussed it with me, so I assumed the magical mistake was to be kept hidden in the past—far from where that situation named Tina could ever find it.
But Warren’s guilt—and his time away from Emily—soon got the best of him. Being alone in the apartment gave him time to think things through. Emily had been gone for five weeks when he finally came clean to Tina.
She called me in absolute hysterics, catching me completely off guard. Warren hadn’t prepared me at all.
“I don’t blame either of them,” she sobbed. “I blame myself. I’ve been so stupid!”
“Don’t blame yourself, Tina. You don’t deserve to be cheated on.”
“But I should’ve known what I was getting myself into. I mean, you’re one thing. But, Emily…I know I said I wasn’t bothered by it, but deep down, how could I not have been? The way he looks at her…God, it was so obvious!” Had I missed something? “I always knew he thought of her as more than a friend. But to have your boyfriend flat-out tell you that he’s in love with somebody else, that he’s been in love with her for years… How is that supposed to make me feel? What purpose did I even serve?”
“Warren said that to you?” Despite Tina’s misery—and she really was a nice girl—my entire world had just gotten several shades brighter. You would have thought I’d just found peace and happiness. But in a way, I had. It all made sense now. All those trips into Manhattan he’d made to “check in” on her. Dropping Giselle without any regrets so they could be roommates. His critical suspicion of every man she showed interest in. Warren and Emily—all these years, all that resistance, and for what? They were in love.
“Cheating on me is one thing,” Tina was saying, “but I was ready to forgive him. I mean, how often does a guy like Warren come along?”
“Not often,” I said, glowing inside for Emily. “Not often enough. Listen, Tina, I’m sorry to do this, but I have to go. My mom’s waiting for me. We had plans to go out today.”
I felt bad for lying, but I knew I’d never see Tina Betts again, sweet as she was. And I was sure she’d find someone who appreciated her, eventually. It just wouldn’t be Warren. Because Warren loved somebody else. All this time—why the hell hadn’t he told me? I couldn’t wait to get him on the phone.
“Hello?”
“So, you’re in love with Emily?”
“You’ve spoken to Tina, I take it.”
“Answer the question.”
“Of course I’m in love with her. Are you telling me you never noticed?”
“It seems I’ve been a little thick.”
“Yeah, well, you’re like that.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“No. With me, I mean. I kind of have to hit you over the head with things.”
“Huh?”
“See what I mean? Anyway, I feel like shit about Tina. Did she sound really bad?”
“You don’t want to know. Why’d you bother with her, anyway? Was it just a sex thing?”
“Not at all. I really liked Tina, and I was always looking for more to grow out of that. I guess I was trying to get over Emily, too. I didn’t want to be in love with someone I could never have. I tried that before. Remember, Andie?”
I smiled as if he were there in the room with me. “Oh, come on, Duckie. You know we were destined for this.”
“This?”
“You know, whatever this is.”
“A brother and sister with an incestuous past?”
I laughed. “That’s about accurate. What about Emily? Do you think of her like a sister, too?”
“Fuck, no! What do you think I am, some kind of pervert?”
“Sorry. Emily and I have a thing about gay brothers and straight brothers, and I think it’s warped my senses.”
“Well, you two have always been weird. But, anyway, what happens now—with Emily, I mean? Do you think she’ll want to like…”
I knew she would definitely “want to like,” but how could I speak for her about something this important? That was the wonderful and terrible dichotomy of being in the middle. I had access to privileged information, but had to keep everything I knew to myself. “You know I can’t speak for her, Warren.”
“You’re loyal to a fault.”
“And you’re not?”
“Well, we all have our faults. Listen, do me a favor and don’t say a word to her about Tina. Okay? Promise?”
“I promise. I figured you’d rather tell her yourself.”
“Yeah, but I want to wait. When Emily and I talk about this, I want it to be face-to-face, not when she’s off in Europe and I’m more than three thousand miles away in New York. Does that make sense? Or do you think I’m just being a big coward?”
“No, I think it makes perfect sense. This is definitely a conversation you need to have in person. But you have to really do it, Warren, once and for all. Set aside a night as soon as she gets back. And be serious about it. Your clocks are ticking.”
“We’re twenty-eight.”
“And how long have you known each other?”
“I see your point. I’ve been kind of slow about things.”
“Well, we all have our faults. Hey, listen. What are you doing next Saturday?”
“Are you asking me out?”
“I miss you. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. God, I can’t even remember the last time we got together by ourselves.”
“It’s been a while.”
“And besides, I want to talk about this some more. Like, really really talk about all the things you’ve been keeping from me all these years.”
“I didn’t mean to keep things from you, Stella. It was just a strange situation. I don’t know—maybe I didn’t want to put you in the middle.”
“You had no problem doing that when you slept with Emily two months ago.”
“Well, that was a crisis.”
“I see.”
“I can always come to you in a crisis, Stella. It’s different from setting aside time for spilling your guts about love and feelings. Guys don’t actually do that too often, contrary to what you see in the movies.”
“Really? And I thought life was just like the movies.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“You never disappoint.”
“Well, I aim to please. Anyway, you were asking me out.”
“Right. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go out to dinner first and talk about bullshit, and then we’ll come back here and get drunk so you can spill your guts about love and feelings.”
“Sounds like a plan. Mind if I start now? With something about you, I mean.”
“By all means, go ahead. It’ll make good practice for next week.”
“All right…Stella, despite our incestuous and ambiguous past, and the fact that I never came to you with a heartfelt monologue about the Emily thing, you really are the best friend I’ve ever had. And I can’t think of anyone in the world I’d rather emasculate myself in front of than you.”
“Aw, Warren…”
“Consider that your sneak preview. I’ll call you next week before I leave for the train station.”
“Saturday, right?”
“Saturday. We’re on.”
Saturday. Here it was. Only, I was on an airplane, and Warren was back at his apartment in Manhattan, pretending not to be hurt that I’d broken our plans. And worst of all, I hadn’t even been able to tell him why. Emily invited me to come see her on a whim. Warren deserved a real explanation. He deserved to know how something that just one week earlier had seemed so important could suddenly slip my mind.
That whole day, I’d been thinking about my life and how much everything had changed over the years. It wasn’t until my flight touched ground in Washington, D.C., that I realized just how much everything had changed in a single week. One day.