Punk Love, page 14
I saw the moment it registered. The golden band on the same hand I used to push my hair away from my face. Alex’s jaw hardened before it relaxed again. Just a tic. A tic that told me he figured something out, but then thought better of it, because I was still so young, and it was only months ago that we told each other we would not be over one another for a very long time.
“Nice ring.” His tone turned icy.
“T—thank you,” I stuttered a little.
“Where from?”
I took a deep breath. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t lie to him.
“I got married, Alex.”
He closed his eyes, dropped his head, and smiled a grim smile, erecting his index finger in the air, as if he needed a moment to digest all this. I stood there like an idiot, waiting for him to take it all in, and feeling ashamed and guilty, even though I had no reason to be.
“Brent?” he asked.
“What?” I gasped. “No. Not Brent.”
“Who?” His eyes zinged with anger, and just like that, he became alive again. Animated. “Is it Ryan? Because I am going to kill the prick if it’s him.”
“I haven’t spoken to Ryan in years,” I spluttered, a little shocked. “No, Al. You don’t know him. His name is Patrick, and he is great.”
“Does he know you’re moving?” he demanded.
“He is British.” I swallowed. “We’re moving in together. I’m moving to London.”
“Of course.” He smiled tightly. “How fucking lovely.”
“Alex.” I sighed.
What could I say? That he didn’t even tell me he was home? That we had been broken up for a while now? That he was the one who chose to leave, and, just like our argument over Jadie and Tom all those years ago, he had no right to be mad?
But he did have the right to be mad. That was the thing. He had every right. Because I was lucky enough to fall in love again, and he wasn’t there yet.
Feelings didn’t always have to make sense in order to be validated, to matter. Sometimes they just…existed.
“Have a good life.” He galloped back into his car.
I thought about running after him, but figured it would achieve nothing. Even if I apologized—which I didn’t think I needed to, because I’d done nothing wrong—he wouldn’t accept it. Not right now.
Alex slammed his car door and drove off, leaving me dejected and full of remorse on the shoulder of the road.
A year later, I got an email from Alex. I was happily married to Patrick, and a little surprised from the blast from the past.
The email read that Alex was happy for me, that he was excited I was still married (he’d bumped into Jadie during the summer when he came to visit his parents, and she’d filled him in), and that he was sorry he was such an asshole last year.
I was glad he sounded happy, like he’d moved on, and wrote back. We went back and forth a few times. Alex told me he was dating a Chinese med student named Liyuan. He sent me a picture of both of them. They looked gorgeous and happy, and now I was pretty sure it was true what they said. That tiny women had a thing for tall men.
Liyuan looked to be my height, which was five two.
I grinned.
He really liked them pocket-sized.
And so, it became a tradition of ours to email each other every summer and see if we were both home at the same time, to maybe try to meet up. Alex and I wanted Patrick and Liyuan to tag along, too, of course. It just seemed wild. The concept that people could love each other so much and then let go and find other people who made them just as happy, if not more.
I think both Alex and I wanted to pinch ourselves.
The first three years of my marriage to Patrick, seeing Alex just wasn’t in the cards. Whenever I was home, he was away, and when he was away, I was home.
On the fourth year of my marriage, Alex was actually in London. Liyuan had a family reunion and he was tagging along. We made plans to see each other, but on the day of, Patrick was sick and miserable, and bailing to meet my ex-boyfriend for drinks just didn’t seem like a human thing to do, so I canceled.
On the fifth year of my marriage to Patrick…well, it was also the year we got divorced.
To sum it up: we grew apart. We knew we were growing apart. We watched it happen, from a front-row seat. And it saddened both of us. Luckily, we were both too practical, too wise to let it turn ugly.
After five years of marriage (and one citizenship I’d gained in the process, along with about twelve pounds), Patrick and I split.
The devastation was different this time.
This wasn’t puppy love. We had a household. An apartment. A cat. We went on vacations and paid bills together. We talked babies. We were, in a lot of ways, one unit. Something whole and complete.
I wasn’t just sad, I was hysterical.
I knew in my bones that a love like ours wouldn’t happen again.
In a lot of ways, I was right, because my love for my husband is completely different in a lot of ways. Not less, just different. Good different, but still different.
Patrick and I were soulmates.
I didn’t know if marrying your best friend was better than marrying your soulmate.
I just knew that timing was everything in life, and for Patrick and me, the timing was off. We’d met when we were on the cusp of becoming who we were today, and it had gotten to be too much, too soon.
After five years of marriage, I packed a bag and went back home to my parents.
I took the cat, too, because even though I’d fallen on and off the vegetarianism wagon, I was still obsessed with animals and loved the cat like crazy.
For the first few weeks after my breakup with Patrick, I couldn’t stomach talking to another person, let alone another man (I may or may not have held a general grudge).
But then, afterwards, I began answering emails and phone calls, albeit slowly.
I had one email from Alex asking if I was doing okay. I didn’t know why he’d ask that. I hadn’t told Jadie about my split with Patrick, and Alex had no other way of knowing this.
I shot him a quick email:
Lara: Hey, Alex. Good. Back home now. Patrick and I broke up. How are you?
Alex: I’m home, too. I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes for beer. Same address?
Five years after we stood on the shoulder of the road crying and screaming at each other, Alex and I met again.
He was no longer driving a Volvo, which made me laugh. He picked me up in a brand new Toyota. His parents’, he explained. We went to a bar on the beach. I ordered a cocktail. He ordered a beer.
Alex had filled out completely in the five years we’d spent apart.
He was a man now.
A man with a Mohawk, but a man.
And me? I looked completely different, yet again. This time with newly dyed brown hair, after years of abusing my brunette locks by bleaching them, and a healthy weight.
He was still wearing black jeans—only not ripped this time—and black shirts.
I moved on to polka dot dresses and hipster jackets.
I’d come to terms with the fact I was never going to have a certain style. I was forever going to jump between hipster to punk to romantic to casual. I just wasn’t ready to commit.
It was almost a decade since our first kiss, when Alex peeled the sticker on his beer bottle and told me, “You know, I had an epiphany on my way here.”
“Yeah?” I mumbled into my Cosmo, eyeing the tattoo peeking from the sleeve of his shirt. The tattoo he inked on his body in tribute to me now had neighbors in geometrical tats sprawled on the rest of his arm. “What’s that?”
“You always go for people who remind you of yourself. I’ll explain. Both this Patrick guy and me, we share a lot of traits with you. We love hard, but we’re closed off when we feel attacked, we’re loyal but have trash temperament, sarcastic but oddly sensitive, and we are thinkers, but we hate it when shit gets complicated. Maybe you need something completely different. Someone who is the opposite of who you are.”
“What would that look like?” I rested my head on my hand, blinking at him tiredly.
Alex sat back, mulling this over.
“If I had to design your next boyfriend—which, I don’t want to, because even though I’m over you, there’s a fucking limit—I would say, someone who is so grounded he is nailed to planet Earth. Good job. Good family. Practical degree. A T-ball coach type. Not one rebellious bone in his body. Someone who would love you quietly, and just a little more than he should, so he can deal with your brand of crazy. You know what I mean? Someone you could keep on his toes for eternity. Someone like that. Oh, and for fuck’s sake.” He threw his head back, laughing. “Jadie showed me a picture of Patrick. Would you stop already with the big blond guys? We look like carbon copies of each other.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Sure. Someone new. Different. The complete opposite of me.”
The next month, I met my husband.
My forever.
He had dark hair, and reading glasses, and a practical degree, and a video game addiction.
He looked like my safe haven.
So that’s where I went.
Where Are They Now?
Jadie: Married (not to Tom) with one child. She lives a very charmed life in a coastal town, and from social media pictures, it seems like she has an enormous amount of dogs.
Dory: Married to a banker with two children. Very happy and living in London.
Pauly: Still one of my best friends. She is a speech therapist and married (not to her hunky volleyball ex-boyfriend, but a woman named Brandi). Official owner of the hottest Pilates body I have ever seen. So infuriating.
Alex: Lives in Sweden. Married. Not sure about kids. Has no social media whatsoever. I doubt he uses the internet very much. Last time we spoke, he seemed really happy.
Me: Happy. Whole. Free.
Thank you so much for reading this short novella!
Here are some more L.J. Shen books you can enjoy:
Sinners of Saint:
Defy (#0.5)
Vicious (#1)
Ruckus (#2)
Scandalous (#3)
Bane (#4)
All Saints High:
Pretty Reckless (#1)
Broken Knight (#2)
Angry God (#3)
Boston Belles:
The Hunter (#1)
The Villain (#2)
The Monster
The Rake
Standalones:
Tyed
Sparrow
Blood to Dust
Midnight Blue
Dirty Headlines
In the Unlikely Event
The Kiss Thief
Playing with Fire
The Devil Wears Black
Bad Cruz
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L.J. Shen, Punk Love
