“He didn’t call me back,” I say into the phone as I take a bite out of my thumb’s cuticle. It’s five days of intense cuticle picking later.
“Asshole,” Stephanie says, sighing.
“Who the hell doesn’t return a call after five days and three hours?”
“Well, you want the truth? You. Me. All of us, at one time or another.”
“But that’s only when we don’t want to actually talk to the person!” I wail.
Stephanie lets that sink in for a bit, and then says, “I know it hurts.” In the last five conversations we’ve had about this, she’s been the perfect sport, trotting out and analyzing every last possible reason—maybe Adam is intimidated by me now, or was just completely immature like Gus (who she’d stopped hanging out with months ago) or was worried he’d end up fodder for a future column or was temporarily fucking his costar and she deleted all his messages because she was psychotically possessive. I don’t blame Steph for feeling exhausted by the process of coming up with more excuses for him, but accepting that he simply doesn’t want to talk to me causes me to hang up and curl into a small ball of messy tears and torn cuticles.
I’m not entirely sure why I’m taking this Adam rejection so hard. Of course, I have some ideas. In rehab, I’ve learned about how dangerous it can be for alcoholics and addicts to have expectations because we tend to not be able to handle the disappointment of having them not met, but that realization isn’t doing anything to get me out of my doldrums. The day I spent with Adam was the first time in my life I felt like I knew what people meant when they talked about finding the one. But they usually got years, or at least months or weeks, with the person. Why the hell did my discovery have to be so ephemeral?
Once the crying turns to sniffling, I realize that I’m in the midst of a full-blown depression. Depression is something you’re bound to experience, Tommy would say, and it would stun me how casually he’d mention the word “depression”—like he was talking about having the flu and not something completely overwhelming and debilitating that made life seem unlivable. It, too, will pass, he’d always add, sounding like someone who couldn’t ever possibly have lived through a depression.
After three solid days of not showering, cleaning, eating, answering the phone or really doing anything beyond dumping cat food into dishes and coating my pajamas in cigarette smoke, I decide it’s time to check voicemail. My mom, Stephanie, the CSI actor who’d tried to put his hands down my pants in New York, Tim, Stephanie again, and what seems like about a thousand hang-ups. Even though I already knew that none of the messages would be from Adam, it doesn’t stop me from crying when I get to the last one and it’s not him. When I hear who it is, however, I cry even harder.
“Amelia,” says a voice that’s at once both immediately familiar and hard to place. “What can I say? You’re the cat’s meow. The toast of the town. The bee’s knees.” Who do I know who would use those expressions?
And then it hits me.
“I guess part of me is glad to see that you actually remembered what happened between us,” Chris says, his voice cracking slightly, “but, what did you think—that I wouldn’t see it? Or did you just not care?” I sit there, frozen, as he does exactly what I hope he won’t and starts reading from my column. “It was only after an impromptu reunion several weeks after the fact that I realized I’d gotten the basic elements of the ménage altogether wrong: most girls had them with their hottest female friend and, say, a Red Hot Chili Pepper. I’d had mine with a couple of guys who’d probably have an easier time working their way around the Starship Galaxy than they would a woman’s body.” Chris clears his throat. “Maybe I wouldn’t care if you hadn’t treated me like a leper ever since,” he says. “But Jesus, think of someone besides yourself for once.”
That throws me into yet another crying jag—though, much like someone covered in tattoos might have a difficult time identifying how many there actually were, I decide I needn’t bother calling them crying jags anymore but just consider the entire day one long, extended singular crying jag. Afterward, I set about smoking myself into oblivion. I contemplate calling Stephanie to ask her if it’s possible that I’m the worst person in existence but settle instead for falling asleep on the couch when I’m too exhausted to cry anymore.
Sometime later—it could be twenty minutes, it could be two hours—I wake up to the sound of someone banging on my front door. I stumble to it, groggy to the point that I almost feel hungover. Stephanie stands there, a bag of Trader Joe’s Sweet, Savory & Tart Trek Mix in her hand, and a plump Mexican woman behind her.
“Don’t say a word,” she says, gesturing for the woman to go inside. “I told Rosa I had an emergency for her.” Handing me the bag of trail mix she adds, “I wanted to bring you something healthy to eat but knew I’d have to start you on something you wouldn’t reject outright.”
“Thank you,” I croak gratefully, as she opens my living room window and starts dumping overflowing ashtrays.
“You’re welcome,” she says. “Now, will you please let Rosa clean your apartment and stop Plath-ing it over this guy?”