Tori’s office looked different in the morning light. Direct sunlight into the waiting room gave it a cheery definition, contrasting with the light of late afternoon when the sunlight hit the other side of the building. Izzy wasn’t sure she liked seeing the office this way, especially in the mood she was in, but she couldn’t go to work. Not today. She was grateful Tori had an opening in her schedule. She cringed, remembering the panicked call she’d made to Tori’s emergency line the night before.
Izzy picked at the cardboard sleeve on her to-go coffee cup. She was groggy. She hadn’t even been able to drag herself out of bed to go running, and it was all she could do to take a shower and put on clothes. Gus hadn’t left her side since Jane left the night before. He lay at her feet now, her good boy keeping her grounded.
She stared at the quick blurt of texts she’d received last night on her phone.
I’m so sorry
I love you
I’m at a friend’s house
I’ll call you once I get my head clear
How long do you think you need? she’d texted back.
The response took a while to come.
I don’t know. But don’t call me. I’ll call you when I’m ready. I love you. I just need time.
If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left, she thought. No. That wasn’t fair. She owed Jane the space she needed. But why hadn’t she seen it coming? How had she been so blind?
“Izzy? Come in. And you brought Gus.” Tori bent to scratch Gus behind the ears.
Izzy stood in front of her chair before sitting. Gus sat next to her, leaning against her leg. “I told Jane.”
“Oh?” Tori put her cup down without taking the sip she was just about to take. She didn’t mention the hysterical call Izzy had placed at two a.m.
Izzy wanted to ask her if she had erased the initial message after listening to it. She didn’t want the embarrassing recording sitting in the Cloud, even if it was accessible only by the one person she trusted more than herself. It had been almost two decades since she’d used the emergency line Tori had given her, and she’d never been hysterical. Embarrassment aside, Izzy was grateful for the almost-immediate response. Just hearing Tori’s voice had calmed her. They agreed on a seven a.m. slot the next morning. Izzy knew by now that Tori wasn’t a morning person, so she appreciated the accommodation. Izzy was exhausted from a sleepless night. She sat heavily in the chair across from Tori. The couch might have been a better choice, but she wanted to see Tori’s reactions.
“She left me.” Her voice sounded far away. Gus rested his head on her leg.
“She left you.” It was a statement, not a question. Tori already knew from the call last night.
Izzy wanted to hear outrage, even though she knew she wouldn’t. “You’re not surprised.”
Tori tilted her head. “I’m just absorbing. Tell me how you are.”
“I’m not anything.” Izzy slumped in her chair and absently scratched Gus’s head.
Tori leaned forward in her chair. “What do you mean?”
“I thought I’d be devastated, that I’d fall over the edge or something.”
Tori made a motion for more. “Tell me more about that. You were pretty upset last night when we talked.”
Izzy grimaced. Shame washed over her. “I should have waited a little before calling you. All the ugly emotion sort of evaporated after I got off the phone with you last night.”
“Izzy, it’s not ugly. It’s pain. Justifiable pain. Did all of it evaporate? Or just the anguish?”
Izzy didn’t feel like analyzing her current emotions. She knew what was causing them. She just wanted to be told things would be okay, maybe get some tools for losing the woman she loved. “I don’t feel anything. It’s all quiet in there.” She’d expected her inner voice to say I told you so or something. But even it was quiet.
“Your body language tells me you have something major going on. Maybe it’s quiet in there, but you must feel something. Do you think you’re just tired?”
“I think being tired is part of it, but I’ve also been protecting myself all this time. After I talked with you, I must have just activated a shutdown switch or something.”
“Interesting. We’ve never spoken about a switch. Can you explain?”
Izzy searched for words. “I seriously thought I might go crazy again. Since the start, I was worried that, if my heart got broken again, I would land in the hospital. So maybe I’ve somehow built up some sort of protective shield against going crazy.”
“Is that what you’ve been thinking about since last night? Not going crazy?”
“Not at all. It’s sort of an observation in hindsight. At first, all I did was obsess about how I didn’t see this coming.” A few tears slipped from her eyes, and she wiped them away.
“Tell me about the protective-shield thing.”
Izzy threw her hands up and let them drop into her lap. “It’s pretty much what I said. I think I’ve been so afraid of something major or devastating like this happening and sending me over the edge of sanity, I’ve somehow built up a barrier against it actually happening.”
Tori seemed to consider her explanation. “It’s true we do hone our coping skills. We’ve spoken before about how the worst thing that could happen to you is to lose control again and getting admitted to a hospital. What are your thoughts about how you’re coping?”
Izzy thought about it. “I suppose it’s a positive thing, right? It’s only been a few hours, though. The initial shock is supposed to be the worst part, right?”
Tori held her hand out. “I don’t know. It’s unique for everyone. What do you think?”
She pondered the question. “I guess it proves I can handle hard things. I don’t need to live in fear that I have this hairpin trigger just waiting to push me into the deep end. Or maybe I still do, but the meds keep it from triggering. Whatever it is, I don’t have to keep protecting myself from doing things that might result in bad endings. I can deal with bad things. Who seriously wants bad things to happen, actually? No one. But if they do, they won’t kill me.”
Tori’s brow furrowed. “You say they won’t kill you. Have you been worried they will?”
“Well, maybe not kill me.” She paused. That wasn’t true. “Actually, yes. I did think they would kill me. Not directly, but yeah. If things got bad enough, I have worried I might consider trying to kill myself again.”
She felt the shadow of the cold, dark chill that always descended upon her when she thought of the terrible time just before she was admitted to the behavioral-health hospital. It didn’t envelop her, though. She watched it like it was a movie: Kelly telling her she was getting back with her ex-girlfriend, tearing through her roommate’s cosmetics bag to find the pill bottles, and swallowing every pill she found. Thank God the bottles were mostly laxatives and only a couple of sleeping pills. But the intent had been real. She hadn’t wanted to live. All the feelings of worthlessness haunting her since before her adolescence had reached a brutal crescendo. No one needed her. Her family was big, and she wouldn’t be missed. Her friends didn’t understand her. And finally, Kelly, the love of her life, didn’t love her. Why try to get through it when she could just end it?
Tori’s voice brought her back from that dark time.
“We haven’t talked about suicidal thoughts in a while.”
“I haven’t had any in a while. Longer than I can remember. Not the planning or wanting to do it kind of suicidal thoughts, anyway. More like thoughts that I don’t want to kill myself. There’s a difference.”
“I agree. A pretty big difference. Do you see the way your thoughts have transformed over time?”
Izzy gave a half-smile. “Yeah. I think I have a more rational perspective. It’s kind of cool.”
Tori made another gesture for more. “Explain this new perspective.”
Izzy sat up in the chair. “Well, I know for a fact my family loves me, and they would be devastated. Haley, especially. We have a bond. Plus, she’s in a fragile state. I could never let her go through something like that. I need to be a role model for her in this situation. In everything, but this especially. She needs to know lots of people learn to live with our illness.”
Tori smiled. “Good point. What else?”
“I want to watch Simone grow up and see what kind of human she becomes. All my nieces and nephews, actually. I can’t imagine not being around for their graduations and other milestones.”
Tori rested her chin on her fist. “Remember how ambivalent you were about your own graduation?”
“I was ambivalent until I finally did it. It took so many years.”
“You had a lot on your plate.”
“I did.” Some years she’d been able to take only one class a semester. Even the meds couldn’t manage the overwhelming sense of anxiety too much responsibility gave her. Without some of the amazing faculty at the college, she probably would never have graduated.
Tori gestured at her. “You have a lot of friends and family who depend on you.”
Izzy made a sound of agreement. “I wouldn’t say depend, but yeah, I do.”
“Depend can mean a lot of things,” Tori said with a smile. “I’d say they depend on you. Who would manage the bowling league? Who would give excellent relationship advice? Who would find themselves in trouble with HR for shenanigans with interns?”
Izzy couldn’t help but return Tori’s smile. Oh boy! Audie would kill her if she knew how much of Audie’s over-sexed life she’d shared with Tori. “I get what you’re saying.”
“You are intertwined with so many lives, Izzy. It must feel good.”
“It does.” Izzy had to admit it did. “Once I didn’t see or feel the good. I saw the intertwining as a negative thing full of pain and eventual heartache.”
“Do you see it that way now?”
Izzy paused. “Not the way I used to. But loving people does invite pain.”
“Yet it also invites a lot of positive things, too, right?”
“For sure. But is it worth it?”
“You tell me.”
Izzy glanced around the room. “I think so. I used to feel afraid that heartbreak would send me careening into the abyss. But now I know it won’t. And it sort of changes everything.”
“Does it?”
Izzy tipped her head to the side. “It still hurts like hell, but I would say it’s still worth it.”
“So, back to what you said about the protective shield. You said you weren’t anything, which I took to mean you weren’t feeling anything about what happened with Jane. Is that true? Do you think your protective shield has been keeping you from feeling what you should?”
Izzy paused. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m not going crazy, which is a good thing.”
“What are you feeling now?”
She had a hard time answering the question. Her feelings were all knotted up. Hurt. Confusion. Longing. Regret. Anger. “I’m sad,” she finally said.
“Explain.”
A huge wave of impotent longing surged through her. Her eyes stung with imminent tears. “I miss her. I miss everything about having her around. It was so lonely getting ready this morning and not doing our little dance around the sink when we brush our teeth.” She paused to let the stone in her throat ease so she could continue. “I missed waking up with her. I stayed in bed and hugged her pillow.”
Izzy began to cry. She took the box of tissue Tori handed her.
“Tell me how it happened.”
Izzy wiped her eyes. “I had a cup of coffee with Haley after work to check in with her. Jane knew I was going to see her and that I left work early so I wouldn’t be cutting into our time together. I thought she’d be happy. While I was with Haley, something we talked about made me realize I had to stop hiding my bipolar disorder from her. Because that’s what I was doing by not telling her. I realized the person I needed to be open with first was Jane. I decided I would never find a good time to bring it up, so I would tell her when I got home.”
“And this was her reaction? To leave?”
“Well, she said she wasn’t leaving because I told her I was bipolar.” Izzy blew her nose, the pressure in her head intense. She hadn’t cried this much since Kelly left her. “I believe her, too. She was surprised. But she didn’t freak out.”
Tori leaned forward. “Do you think she left because you kept it from her?”
“She said it was because she thought she was a distraction.”
Tori tilted her head to the side. “From what?”
“I’m not sure. She just said she knew I had a lot of things going on, and she felt like a distraction.”
“We’ve spoken about this before, but do you think she felt like maybe you weren’t giving her enough time?”
Izzy didn’t know what she thought anymore. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve been super conscious of that specific thing. You know, the schedule and all? I told you I even left work early to see Haley so I wouldn’t be late getting home.”
They were quiet for a moment. Izzy stared at the floor but didn’t see it.
“What are you thinking?”
Izzy looked up, exhausted. “That I want her back.” She leaned forward in her chair. “I will do anything required to make her feel like she’s the most important thing in my life.”
Tori tilted her head. “More important than your mental health?”
The answer came easily. “In order to be anything to anyone else, especially Jane, I need to make my mental health a priority. I have to let her be part of it, too. I don’t want to make it a huge focus for us, but I need to let her in on it.”
“Is it scary?”
“Hell, yes, it’s scary. But I think I can be open about all of it with her.” Izzy paused. “If she’ll let me.”
* * *
“You look like shit.”
Izzy looked up from her laptop. Audie was standing against the cubical wall with her chin resting on her arms. Izzy leaned back in her chair and stretched. She was so tired. It had been two days since Jane left, and she couldn’t sleep without her. Or maybe it was the not knowing. Since she’d honored Jane’s request to give her space, she hadn’t talked to her except to send a text that simply said, I miss you. There had been no response.
“Thanks. It’s lovely to see you, too.” She threw a red candy at her. She’d been eating way too many M&M’s. It was only seven thirty a.m., and the bowl was half empty. She didn’t want to think about how many she’d eaten the day before. After her session with Tori, she’d gone to work and buried herself in work and Peanut M&M’s.
Audie caught the candy and popped it into her mouth. “If it makes you feel any better, Jane looks like shit, too.”
“How do you know?” Izzy sat up in her chair. Had she spoken to Jane?
Audie stared at the ceiling for a second and then looked at her again. “She’s staying with me.”
What? Izzy stood. She didn’t know whether to be mad or relieved. It also occurred to her that Audie’s place was so small, Jane couldn’t possibly stay there for long. Maybe this whole thing truly was temporary. “She is?”
“Yeah.” Audie stepped back and walked around to the opening in Izzy’s cubicle. For a moment, Audie’s outfit distracted Izzy. Was she wearing lederhosen? “She asked me not to tell you she’s staying with me, but this morning, she had a change of heart. She thought it wasn’t fair to you not to let you know. I totally agreed. It killed me not to tell you yesterday.”
Anger flared in Izzy, then jealousy. Her stomach churned with it. She didn’t know if she was jealous about Audie being so friendly to Jane or that Jane had highjacked her best friend. It didn’t fucking matter. It wasn’t cool.
“How did it happen?” She worked to control her voice.
“She called me when she left your house. She wanted to know if she was making a terrible mistake.” Audie put a hand on her arm.
Izzy fought back the urge to shake her off. She thought about tossing Audie backward and imagined all the cubicles falling like dominoes under her. The image of her lying on the fallen structure in her lederhosen would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so pissed off.
“She was a wreck, Iz. A total wreck.” Concern etched Audie’s face. “She originally planned to stay at her parents’ house but said she wasn’t ready to deal with them. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I agreed to meet her and ended up offering her my couch. For the record, I tried to convince her to go back home to you.”
That made her feel a little better. She was still pissed, though.
“I’m not sure how I feel about this. You’re my best friend.”
Audie smiled. “I am?”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “You already knew.”
Audie looked at her boot-clad feet. “I always assumed, but we never actually clarified it.”
“What is this, high school?” Izzy laughed. “We’re adults. We don’t go around declaring people our best friends. But, yes, for the record, you are my best friend. And I don’t like the fact you’re harboring—”
“The enemy?” Audie finished it for her.
What? Jane was far from the enemy. “Not even close.”
Audie leaned against the cubicle. “What’s this all about then?”
“Jane is the woman I love and miss and…” Izzy rubbed her face. She didn’t know she’d been so close to tears. And now she was embarrassed to be crying at work. At least people didn’t start rolling in until nine-ish, and they were pretty much alone.
“Hey. Let’s go get a coffee.” Audie searched the nearest cubicles and finally found a box of tissue.
Izzy blew her nose and got herself together at her desk before she followed Audie to the elevator. On the way, they passed Hector at his office door. He still had his backpack slung over one shoulder, having just arrived. He took one look at Izzy, dropped his backpack inside his door, and fell into step with them.
He bumped her lightly. “You look like shit.”
“What is this? Make-Izzy-feel-beautiful day?” She glared at the floor.
“You know I’ve been exactly where you are, Iz.” Hector pushed the button to the first floor. She’d told him everything yesterday at lunch. Audie had been there, too. Did he know Jane was staying with Audie, too? The anger flared again. Not so hot, but it was there.
“True.” Izzy wiped her hands down her face. At least no one else was in the elevator with them.
A few early-bird Gigify employees were arriving, and the three of them walked against the flow of pedestrian traffic into the building. Izzy kept her eyes averted. She was sure her nose was red, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, in addition to the dark circles under her eyes. Her appearance meant nothing to her, but she didn’t like people wondering why she’d been crying. Or telling her she looked like shit. A girl still has feelings, after all.
They got to the coffee cart, and a table was free. Hector went to order their coffee.
“What am I gonna do?” She dropped her chin onto her arms, which were crossed on the table in front of her.
Audie rubbed her back. “She misses you, Iz.”
Izzy sat up. “Then tell her to come home.”
“I’m trying not to get in the middle. You two need to work it out.”
It was a good answer, even though Jane was staying with her, and she was still pretty much as in the middle as it got.
“I’m not sure I like you being able to see her when I can’t.” She knew she sounded like a three-year-old.
Audie rapped a quick tempo on the top of the table. “Have you asked her to come home?”
Panic rose in Izzy. What if Jane’s leaving was a test? “Should I have? I don’t know the rules! I’m trying to honor her request for time to let her figure things out.”
Hector walked up holding three coffee cups. “You haven’t called her? Holy shit, woman! I called Jillian about twenty times a day when she moved out.” He placed a cup in front of each of them.
“How’d that work out for you?” Izzy sniffed the steam rising from the hole in the lid. Chai latte, her favorite.
“She told me she’d call the cops.” Hector slurped his black coffee loudly, and Izzy wanted to poke his eyes out. Why did all the chicks dig him? Ugh!
She shot him a look. “Exactly. I’m not gonna make her hate me.”
Audie took a quiet sip of her coffee, and Izzy was grateful. “You should call her, Iz.”
“Did she say I should?” Izzy took a careful sip of her very hot latte. A half dozen taste buds sacrificed themselves for the attempt.
“As a matter of fact, she did.”
Izzy set her cup down, thankful for the lid since the lava inside would have splashed across her hands without it. “What else did she say?”
Audie raised a hand to ward off the questions. “I really don’t want to be in the middle.”
“Too late, my friend.” Hector took another loud slurp.
Izzy didn’t even care. She had to know. “What else did she say?”
Her grasp on the strap of Audie’s lederhosen might have been too fierce because Audie pried her fingers from around the embroidered leather. “She misses you. She loves you. She’s bummed you haven’t called. That’s all I know, except she hasn’t gone to work in two days, and she’s been watching Meg Ryan movies nonstop. Just freakin’ call her.”
* * *
Izzy walked back to her desk and stared at her phone. She had her finger poised over the speed dial, and her stomach was in knots. Audie had said Jane wanted her to call. It was eight thirty a.m., and she had her daily team meeting in thirty minutes. After the first meeting, she had back-to-back meetings until noon. If she didn’t call her now, she’d be thinking about calling her the entire time, and what good would she be? But if she called now and the call didn’t go well, she’d be in worse shape for the remainder of the day.
“Just call her already! Jeez!” Hector stood in front of her cubicle balancing his laptop on the top of the wall.
“Go away.” She waved her hand. “Shoo!”
He backed away slowly. “Tell me how it goes at lunch.”
She inhaled and pushed the speed dial. The phone rang once, and Jane’s voice filled her ear.
“Hello?” Jane sounded tired but artificially peppy at the same time. It was the way she answered the phone when she knew it was her parents. It was fake hospitality masking stress and uncertainty about how the call would go. Izzy hated that she was on the receiving end of it.
Izzy cleared her throat. “Hi.” She heard Jane breathing, but neither of them said anything for a few seconds. “How are you feeling?”
“Miserable.” Jane sounded real. Heartbreakingly unhappy, but real. Izzy wanted nothing more than to hold her.
“Me, too,” she whispered.
Jane sighed. “I miss you.”
I bet I miss you more, thought Izzy, but it was something she would have said before. It would have been teasing, and she would have expected Jane to refute it, and they would play-argue until they laughed and carried on with their conversation. But this was not the time for teasing.
“I miss you, too. Very, very, very much.” There was no teasing. Just the truth. The knot in her stomach loosened a little.
“I’m glad you called.”
Izzy sighed. “It’s good to hear your voice. I wish I’d called sooner.” She slumped back into her chair.
“I asked you not to.”
The person in the cubicle next to hers arrived at work. Izzy leaned forward so her elbows were on her desk and spoke more quietly. “I probably shouldn’t have listened to you, but I didn’t want to push you further away.”
“It wouldn’t have pushed me further away, but you aren’t a mind reader.”
“Where are you?” Audie had said she had been staying home from work.
“At Audie’s. Sorry I didn’t tell you where I was. She texted me and told me she told you.”
Izzy imagined Jane sitting on Audie’s orange leather sofa. “Yeah, she did. I’m just glad you’re somewhere comfortable.”
“You mean not at my mom and dad’s.” Jane coughed out a hollow laugh.
Izzy smiled. “Yeah.”
“I was afraid you’d be mad. I didn’t intend to go to Audie’s. I don’t know why I called her when I left our house. I just did.”
She said our house. Not the house. Not your house. Our house. It had to mean something. Izzy tried not to get her hopes up. “I was mad at first. But I’m glad you went there now.”
There was a long pause during which Izzy had to keep from asking Jane to come back.
Jane broke the silence. “Don’t you have the morning meeting right now?”
Izzy check the time on her computer. Two minutes after nine. Damn it. “Yeah. I need to go. I’m presenting today.” She didn’t want to hang up.
“Izzy?”
“Yeah?” Who cared if she was late? No one would die.
Jane’s voice was soft. “I’m glad you called.”
“Me, too.” When will I see you again? The question was on her lips, but she couldn’t say it. “Bye.”
The call ended, and Izzy looked at her phone. They hadn’t talked about next steps or when she could call again. She stood and picked up her laptop. As she hurried down the hall to the meeting room, her phone buzzed.
I love you. I’ll call you tonight.
The words blurred on the screen, and she smiled through the sting of unshed tears.
She opened the door to the meeting room and was halfway to an empty seat when she realized none of the people in the room were on her team. She stopped in her tracks and stared back at all of the eyes on her.
“Are you here to go over the code merge scheduled for this afternoon, Izzy?” Hector asked, with a smile. “Otherwise, I think you’re looking for the documentation daily meeting next door.”
* * *
You know how they say your mistakes don’t define you, that it’s your response to them that does? Or something like that. I told you, I’m terrible at remembering quotes. But you get the idea, right? The point is, people are going to make mistakes in their relationships. We all do. But when we do, it’s important to own up to them and try to make things right. So, when you make a mistake—and, like I said, you will make mistakes—the best thing you can do is learn how to say you’re sorry.
Don’t just say it. Mean it. Be sorry you hurt someone you care about. Be sorry your actions had an undesired effect on someone else. The worst kind of apology is when it’s obvious you don’t mean it.
The simple steps to a successful apology: recognize the other person is upset, acknowledge what they are upset about, and apologize from the heart. That’s it. Nothing else. If you want to do additional nice things like buy them flowers, that’s cool, too.