Again, But Better

She doesn’t know me.
She’s never even seen
me because I’ve been neglecting Facebook altogether.
“Um,” she starts in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry. I just got here, and I’m
trying to visit someone. I can’t get on the Wi-Fi to tell them I’m here, and
I’m not sure where in the building he lives. I mean, I know it’s in the
basement … Do you think you could help me? I’m looking for my boyfriend,
Pilot. Do you know him?”

---

I nod.
“Could you show me?” she asks.
I jog down the last eight steps and start down the corridor. At the end of
the hall, I point to his door like the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Amy shoots me a funny look. “Thanks.”
I step toward my own room and put the key in the lock. When Pilot’s
door opens, I twist to face them just as she yells, “Surprise!” and hurls
herself at him. He quickly breaks from her lips and takes a step back. I watch
as he catches sight of me over her shoulder.
I’m sinking. His face is a spattering of shock as he looks from me to her,
and then back at me. I rip open my door and slam it shut behind me. That’s
not how someone greets you after you’ve broken up with them. That wasn’t a
broken-up-with girl.
No one’s in the room. I pace back and forth across the carpeted floor. He
either didn’t break up with her or she flew across the Atlantic Ocean to try
and mend their relationship after he broke up with her and still calls him her
boyfriend.
I drop to the floor and push up into downward dog. My mind is spinning
in a hundred different directions. I stand, throw open Sawyer, and try to
distract myself with Twitter. That lasts about half a second before I abandon
the computer on a chair. 
Everything’s falling apart.
I pace until there’s a knock at the door.
How much time has gone by? Half an hour? I whip it open so fast a
breeze crashes into me. Pilot stands in front of me, looking frantic.
“Shane! Can we talk?” I step aside, so he can come in and let the door fall
closed.
“Where’d she go?” I ask.
“She’s in my room.”
“In your room?” I yell in disbelief.
He runs his hands up over his head.
I explode. “How could you lie to me about breaking up with her?” I try to
keep my voice level, but I’m so mad, it won’t stay down. “
What the hell is
going on
?” I ram my hands over my hair. “Holy crap, I want to throw things
right now! Were you just using me? Was this all bullshit to you?”
His sad bay-water eyes pierce mine for a long moment before he says,
“Shane, I swear to god, I broke up with her.”
I swallow hard and grind out, “Then what is she doing here?”
“It’s gonna sound ridiculous.”

---

I cross my arms. “I’m listening.”
He pulls a chair from the table and drops into it. “I haven’t talked to Amy
since the day I made the call to break up with her … I tried to get her on
Skype, but she wasn’t available, and then I called her cell using Skype, and I
got her voicemail. I was so ready and so prepped with what I needed to say,
and I needed to say it right then. I just needed to get the words out, and I left
it all in a message.”
My head swivels back and forth in disbelief. “Oh my god.” I start to pace
again. “You broke up with her via voicemail?” I sputter.
He pops up off the chair. “We had just gotten here and it felt surreal, like
it didn’t really matter! At the time it was like, this was all just a weird
magical trip!”
I stop moving. “What about now? Is it all still just a weird magical trip
for you?”
“No!”
“If you broke up with her, then why is she here?”
He exhales a breath and closes his eyes. “She never got the message.” He
looks at the floor. There’s a beat of silence while I process this.
My next question is slow and deliberate: “Figuratively or literally?”
“Literally.”
I bring my hands up near my face and shake them angrily. “Oh my god!”
“The message didn’t go through or something! I just awkwardly asked
her if she got my voicemail, and she didn’t even know what I was talking
about. She can’t call me here, and I took her off my Skype … she emailed me
a bunch of times … but I was just deleting them, and she sent me some
Facebook messages … I never opened them because I’m not good with
confrontation, and I didn’t want to deal with it. She said she always planned
to visit me, and when she wasn’t hearing anything, she decided to just fly out
and surprise me. Shane, I had no idea!”
Words scrape up my throat, “Did you tell her what was in the voicemail?”
He sighs. “No, not yet.”
My head throbs. “Are you going to tell her now?”
“She just got here after traveling for the last ten hours,” he says solemnly.
I feel that one in my gut. I actually hunch forward a tiny bit.
“I’m going to tell her! I’m just going to get her settled into a hotel or
something, and then I’ll explain everything.” He stands up and puts his hands
on my arms. “Shane, I’m with you.”
My skin pulses. I bring my fingers up and press them against the sides of
my forehead before shrugging his hands away.

---

“What kind of person doesn’t wait for confirmation that their significant
other actually acknowledged that they’ve broken up with them … if they’re
serious about breaking up with them? You knew she would want to respond
to that! You think you could just leave a message and never talk to her again?
If you really wanted to break things off, you would have at least read her
emails to see what she had to say! If you were having trouble dealing with
this, why didn’t you tell me? We could have talked about it!” My voice
wavers.
Pilot steps toward me again.
“Please don’t touch me right now.”
Pain flashes in his eyes. He sits back down in one of the table chairs and
runs his hands up from the back of his neck to his forehead.
“Shane, I’m sorry. I screwed up. What do you want me to do? Do you
want me to go across the hall and dump her here and now?”
I close my eyes, shaking my head. Tears stream down my face now. I
back up until I’m sitting on Babe’s bed.
“No,” I mumble almost incoherently.
“You don’t?” he asks gently.
I wipe at the tears and stare at him. My chest aches. We watch each other
in silence for four minutes. My heart pounds painfully against my ribcage.