My Heart Insists It’s Really Over
I’m not afraid of Sebastian, but I can’t get what Seth said out of my mind either. You can’t know, Hannah, as much as you’d like to be sure you know someone. He’d walked me to my car and leaned in to say it, after I’d insisted that there wasn’t anything to worry about. I’m not sure who I was really trying to convince. Seth’s right. He’s speaking from experience. He’d been hiding a huge secret behind the smile he wore to school every day.
Thinking of Seth makes me tuck my chin into the collar of my jacket and smile a secret smile as I walk across campus from my car to class. Walking into the kitchen with him there, coffee brewing, made my insides liquify. He’d sat on the stool, his gray t-shirt stretched across his shoulders, his phone pressed to his ear, his eyes brightening when he saw me. I think about his hands against my skin, about kissing him, wanting him.
I climb the stairs into the building, go directly to my class, and sit through a lecture about the Philosophies of Education with a focus on Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development. I’m in and out, my mind traipsing back to the night before with Seth, and each time it does, it’s as if little fairies are running through my body leaving footprints under my skin.
Five dates.
I glance at the clock on my phone counting down to when I can see him again, as if it will make the five dates pass faster. There’s a text notification.
It’s from Sebastian: I’m sorry about last night. I overstepped.
I flip the phone over my desk face down, feeling as if I have whiplash. Yes, you fucking did, I think.
My first impulse is to text Seth, but I check it. It isn’t because I want to keep it from him, but there’s a line between Seth as my friend, and Seth as someone I want more with, which is very clearly the case. Sebastian looms like one of the inflatable marketing tubes, whipping back and forth at car lots between Seth and me, and I don’t want him to be there.
I ignore Sebastian’s text—it’s easier—and text Jewel instead: Sebastian showed up last night.
I set the phone back on my little desk, face up, knowing Jewel went straight to work from Portland. She’ll text me when she can, so I’m surprised when I see the three dots.
Jewel: WTF?!?
About what I figured her response would be and type: Are you on a break? Don’t worry. Seth was there.
Jewel: Did they throw hands?
Me: LOL. No hands thrown. I told Bash to leave. Seth stayed.
Jewel: [big eyes] Oh. He did. The night? Hmmmm. I don’t want any of the nasty straight-ass deets. [wink face]
Me: No deets. Just kissed.
Jewel: What? Such restraint. Good at least?
Me: You said you don’t want deets. Yes.
Jewel: [grossed out face]
Me: You home tonight?
Jewel: Why? You going to invite your bootie-call over?
Me: Jewels. [eye roll]
Jewel: LOL.
Me: Sebastian texted me again today.
Jewel: I’ll be home. With Joy too, probs. And WTF? I don’t like this guy’s obvious inability to listen to you. WTFX2
Me: Maybe he’s just lonely?
Jewels: You tell yourself that Hannah, and then get mind-fucked because you give his entitled ass the benefit of the doubt. There’s a fine line between being nice and being foolish. Don’t be a fool.
Me: Yes, ma’am.
Jewels: I’m being fucking serious.
Me: I KNOW! I’m listening. Seth said something similar.
Jewel: Humph. I’ll look forward to meeting him. Tonight?
Me: No. I work. Another time.
Jewel: K. GTG. Frankie is giving me the evil eye because my break is over. <3
When class finishes, I walk across campus to the student center for a coffee. There’s a line, but I don’t have anywhere else I need to be immediately, so I get into it. While I wait, I check social media, stepping forward as the line moves.
“I thought I might find you here.”
I know it’s Sebastian before I turn, but when I do, I give him a cursory glance. “Are you stalking me?” I ask, before facing forward and offering him my back. I focus on the red jacket of the girl in front of me, the slick sheen of it anchoring my mind there instead of on who’s behind me. The espresso machine hisses, and I tense.
“You didn’t answer my text,” he says from behind me.
“I don’t have to, and what you did was fucked up.”
“I apologized.”
I don’t respond. So like Sebastian to think that he’s owed something for his actions. I take a step forward as the line queue moves, my frustration climbing.
“I meant it. I really am sorry, Hannah.”
“Great. Thanks. You can go.” I give him a look over my shoulder.
“Can we grab a coffee? Like old times?” He holds up his hands. “I don’t have any ulterior motives or anything. I was just hoping to clear the air.”
Part of me wants to tell him to go to hell, but another part of me knows that isn’t nice. I suppose in his shoes, I would hope someone would give me the opportunity to find closure. Except that stronger voice inside me, the one I quiet so often because the last time I let her rule I lost the most important person in my life, says that he didn’t offer you the same kind of consideration. The nicer side of me rationalizes that I need this to be done. That I don’t need to act like him. I glance around. It’s a public place, and I’ll have a guaranteed out with my next class. I nod.
When I’m situated at a table with my honey latte and waiting for Sebastian to join me, I grab my phone to send Seth a text. I know he’s in class, but I’m hopeful he’s got it set to silent. Earlier, I’d refrained from texting him about Sebastian, but now it feels like it’s important to openly communicate. I don’t want Sebastian between us, but I also don’t want Seth hearing secondhand that I’m hanging out with my ex for coffee. I don’t want Seth to feel like he ever has to question my intentions. Staring at the blank message box, I type, then erase it and try again. I’m not sure what to say. I try again: Having coffee with Sebastian. Talking.
“Figure out what you wanted to say?” Sebastian asks as he sits.
I hit send and put my phone away. I don’t want Sebastian anywhere near what’s going with Seth and me.
“That looked serious.”
I sigh. “Look, Sebastian, I can’t do the small talk stuff with you. Just say what you wanted to say?” I pull my coffee cup toward me.
He frowns at his coffee cup. “Bash” is written in thick, black ink with a heart on the white cardboard of the cup. The additional attention from other women—jersey chasers—because of his status as a football player, and a very talented one at that, was a norm of our relationship. I tried not to let it bother me when we’d been together, attempting to rise above jealousy. Now I just find it annoying, wondering if Chelsey—the woman he cheated with—was one of those.
I look at Sebastian across from me and wonder if there’s a part of me that still cares. Watching him take off his jacket, I note he still looks like the Sebastian I met. He’s as handsome as always. He glances at me, flashing one of those grins I used to find so charming. It hits me that I don’t find it charming anymore. I don’t find anything about him remotely enticing. And I don’t feel sad about it, I feel… relief. As if I somehow won something because I got away, which is weird to think. But we’d been broken long before we broke up, and I see that now. I’m done. Ready to move on.
“This isn’t going to be a rehashing, right?”
His blue eyes look up before he rubs at his ear. Then he leans on his hand, elbow on the tabletop, before sitting up and putting his hands in his lap. This isn’t the cool, confident Sebastian I have come to know. He’s nervous.
Seth’s warning reverberates in my brain: you can’t know someone. You know what they want you to know.
I have the fleeting thought to wonder if Sebastian would pretend to influence me. I can’t think so ill of him, because if I do, what does that say about me? But Jewel’s warning lingers: don’t be a fool.
Sebastian opens his mouth to say something, then closes it and looks back at his coffee cup. He plucks at the lip of the plastic lid.
“What is it?”
I spent nine months with this man. If someone had asked me to describe him, I would have said confident and collected. I would have said he might appear arrogant, until you get to know him and realize he’s just very self-reliant and assured in his skills. I would have said he was charismatic and funny, but this isn’t the man that’s sitting across the table from me.
“I ended things with Chelsey.” He seems to brace himself for my outburst, as if this is characteristic of me. It’s not.
“I know. You told me. Doesn’t change anything.”
He nods. “It’s just… my parents–”
My heart constricts. It’s the one place I know I’ll struggle separating from Sebastian, because my need to help will tug on my heart. There’s this strange dynamic between him and his parents. His mom is his enabler. In her eyes he can do no wrong, but she makes up for what little relationship he has with his dad, who’s around but impossible to please. When he isn’t emotionally absent, he offers harsh criticism and disapproval. It’s this uncomfortable dichotomy between indulgence and abandonment. Maybe a different kind of abuse. It messes with Sebastian’s head.
I don’t respond. I can’t. I know it in the deepest parts of myself, even if the squishy parts of me want to swoop in and make him feel better. My footing is stronger now, since going home, since talking with my mom, since Jewel’s support, since reconnecting with Seth. My vision is clearer, as if a cloudy film was washed away. I know I can’t—don’t want to—go backward.
“My mom really likes you. She helped me see I wasn’t thinking clearly when I ended things.”
—I think he’s meant to tell me this to showcase my importance in his life, only it feels wrong. The information sits like a tree that’s crashed through a house, misplaced and damaging, only I’m not sure how, unable to put the thoughts and feelings together—
“That I owe you an apology for that.”
I keep my face passive though I want to say, so you’re apologizing because your mother told you to? Instead, I look at my own coffee cup and shrug. I need this over. “Okay. You already have.”
“That’s it?”
“Does it change anything?” I ask. “You ended things. It doesn’t change the circumstances regarding what’s already happened and where we are now. What do you want from me?”
“When I ended things, I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“It was,” I say. “Still is.”
“But it doesn’t feel like the right thing anymore.”
“And what’s that? What’s the right thing?”
“Us together.” Sebastian reaches out and grasps my hand.
I pull it from his grasp. “You’ll find someone new, Bash,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Hannah–” But he stops and watches a pack of students walk by and sighs.
I’m not sure what to say to him. “I’m moving on,” I tell him.
His head snaps to me. His eyes study me, and I think he’s about to argue it, but then a veil falls over his eyes, separating the Sebastian I know with a version I don’t.
I lean back in my chair.
“It’s that guy? From last night?”
“I’m not discussing it with you. But it’s time to let whatever it is you’re holding onto go.”
He doesn’t respond to that, staring at his cup, which I find unsettling for some reason.
“We were always good friends.”
“Sebastian–” I look away and shake my head.
“Don’t do this, Hannah.”
I shrug into my coat. “You have friends. A team worth.” I shake my head. “I don’t need any more friends.” I gather my things and stand.
Sebastian grabs my hand. “Hannah. We are good.”
I extract my hand from his again, needing a little more force to do so than I should. “We’re through.”
He must accept it this time; he drops my hand as if I’ve burned him. “So, you’re choosing him?”
“I’m choosing me,” I say and walk away, leaving Sebastian behind. But I can’t get his look out of my mind.
He looked despondent, the tethers to that weight pulling his features down, threatening to turn him inside out. And even though I’ve said “no,” worry festers in my gut, though I’m not exactly sure what I’m worried about.