I go back to my apartment and empty out the contents of the one box I had started to pack. Obviously I’m not moving in with Will any time soon. I sit cross-legged on my bed (I don’t have room for an actual chair in my room), and try to sort things out in my mind. I close my eyes, trying to picture Will, trying to picture him kissing me.
But all I can see is Jude. Jude, Jude, Jude. God, why does he have to be so sexy?
I pick up the phone and call Mia. I need an objective party to discuss this with. “Mia,” I say, “there’s something I need to tell you. Don’t be mad.”
Mia instantly sounds furious. “Oh my god, Libby! What did you do?”
“Will and I broke up.”
There’s a long pause on the other line. Finally, Mia says, “You did?” She sounds like she’s about to burst into tears.
“Yeah, just now,” I say. “I mean, I think we did.”
“So what did you do?”
I swallow. “Will caught me with… with Jude.”
“What?!”
“He was picking up some of his stuff from the apartment,” I explain. “It just… happened.”
“What’s wrong with you, Libby?” Mia cries. “You had this wonderful guy head over heels in love with you. And that’s what you do to him?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “The thing is, I think I still have feelings for Jude.”
“Who fucking cares?” Mia is almost screaming now. “Jude is a bastard. He made you miserable. Yeah, he’s sexy. But he’s an awful person. Or at least, he’s an awful boyfriend.”
“I know,” I admit. “But he’s… he’s so… good in bed.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mia says. “Didn’t you tell me Will gave you the best oral sex you ever had in your life?”
“Yes,” I confess. “But the sex itself was…”
“Terrible?”
“It wasn’t terrible,” I say. “But it wasn’t mindblowing or anything. It was just all right.”
“So sex has to be mindblowing,” Mia says in an exasperated voice. “That’s your requirement for a long, fulfilling relationship?”
“What you marry Paul if the sex wasn’t good?”
Mia hesitates a long time. “No, I guess not. But you just said the sex with Will is good. You’re just missing the acrobatics.”
“I need to give Jude another chance,” I say. And as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve made my decision. Mia probably won’t be happy about it, but I have to do this. I can’t live with myself if I don’t.
“So basically, you’re blowing it with the one great guy who really loves you,” Mia says. “Just so you can have sex a few more times with a hot guy.”
“It’s not like that,” I insist. “Jude says he made a huge mistake. I think he might be ready for a real commitment.”
“Bullshit.”
Mia sounds so sure of herself, but she doesn’t know Jude the way I do. I think he can change.
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After I hang up with Mia, I start making a mental list of reasons why I want to stay with Will and reasons why it might make sense to give Jude another shot. Then I can’t keep track of it in my head, so I actually make the list on paper.
Reasons to stay with Will:
1) He loves me very much.
2) I love him.
3) He is willing to make a commitment, whereas Jude was not.
4) He’s very cute.
5) He is amazing at going down on me and does it all the time.
6) He’s a great cook.
7) We have loads in common and have a great time together.
8) I can move out of my shitty apartment.
9) Jude already cheated on me once and broke my heart.
And then my list of reasons to give Jude another shot:
1) Jude is the sexiest man I have ever met in my life.
2) Oh god, that accent…
3) Fucking fantastic at sex in a way that Will can never be.
4) Now seems to know what he’s missing and maybe will be ready to make a commitment.
5) Think of how jealous everyone would be if I married Jude.
Of course, I don’t know for sure that Will would be willing to take me back. But I think he probably would. I mean, I know he’s crazy about me. He’s going to be upset about this, but I think ultimately he’ll forgive me. And as bad as it sounds, that’s another reason to take a risk on Jude. Will’s not going anywhere.
I finally work up the nerve to call Will, since I know he’s not going to call me. If it were me, I probably would have not picked up for the first few calls, but I guess Will doesn’t play those kinds of games. “Hello, Libby,” he says in a monotone.
“Will,” I say, “I’m really sorry about what happened. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I just got freaked out about moving in with you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Will, you know I love you,” I say. “I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you.”
“I love you too,” Will says after a long pause. “I just… can’t fucking believe you did that to me.”
“I know,” I say. I do love Will, but this happened for a reason. I realize that now. “I guess it’s because… I still have a lot of feelings for Jude.”
Will is silent for what seems like an eternity. “Are you serious?” he finally says.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “What he and I had was just very… intense.”
“Intense?” Will repeats my words. I can hear the anger mounting in his voice. “Intense? What the fuck does that mean?
“I just feel like it’s not fair to you for us to be together right now,” I say. My words sound so ridiculous, even to me. But I have to get this out. “You deserve to be with a woman who’s entirely dedicated to you. I’m not sure that I am.”
“Wow,” he says. “I must really be shit in bed for you to be picking that cheating asshole over me.”
“That’s not…”
“Please, Libby,” he says. “Let’s not kid ourselves, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time.
“You’re going to find out what sorry means,” he says. “Jude is going to do the same thing to you again. I promise you that.”
I don’t know what to say. I feel miserable, but not enough to take back what I just said, even if I could.
“Goodbye, Libby,” he says. I hear his voice break slightly on the words and I wonder if I’ve just made a horrible mistake.
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I spend a lot of the next week hating myself. I’m scum. I’m the worst person in the history of the world. I deserve to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity, or something like that.
It’s a weird feeling to hate yourself so much for what you’re doing, but still not feel willing to change it. As the saying goes: The heart wants what it wants. (That’s a Woody Allen quote, although truthfully I only know it because someone quoted it once on King of the Hill. Which Will and I used to watch together a lot. Oh god, Will…)
Mia is firmly on Will’s side. She admitted to me that he called her and she spent a long time consoling him. She told me he asked her if she thought there was any chance I’d ever take him back. It broke my heart to hear that. But oddly enough, it made me feel even more resolute in my decision. Will is a great guy. He doesn’t deserve to be anyone’s second choice.
I finally get up the courage to call Jude while I’m sitting alone in my apartment at night. I’m watching reruns of Friends on television. It’s a Monday night, which Will declared our official Hawaiian pizza night. We generally stayed in, watched TV or played on the Nintendo, fooled around in bed, and ate Hawaiian pizza. It makes me wonder what Will is doing right now. Actually, he’s probably still at work.
“Libby, darling,” Jude answers the phone. His accent is still sexy to me, but not as much as it used to be when we were first dating. “I’m so glad you called.”
“I just,” I start to say, “I just want to know if you’re serious. About me, that is.”
“I am,” he swears. “Libby, I’ve missed you so bloody much. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy this time around. I’ve been miserable since we broke up.”
“Really?” I’m shocked to hear this. Jude seemed to go from woman to woman without much of a sense of loss. But then again, there was that whole business about him moving back to London. Maybe I was right—maybe that really was because of me. If that’s true, how incredibly romantic.
“Absolutely,” he assures me.
He sounds sincere, I guess. Anyway, I broke up with Will for him. It’s not like I’m not going to go through with this. “I guess I can give you another chance.”
“I’m so happy to hear that, Libby,” he says. “Perhaps you can come by my new flat Wednesday evening?”
I feel suddenly uneasy. If he’s so desperate to see me and miserable without me, how can he wait till Wednesday? Will was never able to wait that long. But I guess Jude’s busy with work and wanting to make partner, so he needed to put in longer hours. “That sounds great,” I say.
I hang up the phone, still unable to push away that sense that everything is wrong somehow. I hug my knees, and turn the sound back up on the Friends episode. A second later, I hear a knock. It’s Martha.
“Would you mind keeping it down?” she asks me.
I want to strangle this girl. I think if I did, nobody would really blame me. I mean, at first I’m sure they would, but then when I explained that I wasn’t even allowed to make a phone call in my own goddamn room, the jury would surely understand.
“Of course,” I say sweetly.
I could have left this awful place. I could have been cozy in bed right now with Will in his nice apartment, cuddled up eating pizza and kissing. What the hell am I doing?
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Wednesday night I show up at Jude’s apartment building, not wearing a new dress, but at least wearing a dress I’m pretty sure he’s never seen. Actually, it’s a dress I bought for Will. His favorite color is blue, so I picked out a blue silk dress that shows off a lot of cleavage. I wore it once for Will and he liked it so much that I didn’t end up staying in it very long.
I arrive twenty minutes late, because I know Jude is always late, so I figure I will preempt him by showing up late myself. Ha, I am so clever.
Jude’s new apartment is on the upper west side, although not as close to the park as Will’s place. The area is very subway adjacent, which means that it’s probably very pricy. Jude’s building, however, like my own, does not have a doorman, so I find the name Sampson and press the buzzer.
No answer.
Back when I went to Jude’s apartment in the past, Will was always there to let me in when he was running late. But now Jude lives alone and I’m stuck out in the fucking cold wearing a dress that’s as warm as a freaking handkerchief.
I instinctively grab my phone and start text-messaging Will. After about five seconds, I catch myself. Whenever anything funny or annoying happens, I always text or call Will. Like when I saw my boss Harvey drop his sandwich on the floor, then pick it up and eat it, the first thing I did was text Will: “H ate food off flr. Luv u. –L”. But I can’t do it now, obviously. What am I supposed to text him? “W: guy I dumped u 4 is 30 min late! –L.” No, I don’t think that would go over well.
Actually, if there’s anything that I’d like to text him, it would be that I miss him. That I can’t stop thinking about him. And with every second that goes by, I realize more and more that I’m making a huge mistake.
After ten minutes of standing in the cold outside Jude’s building, I’m ready to head home. I dig around in my purse for my Metrocard, but then I look up and there he is: Jude. Wearing a very trendy black overcoat and looking deadly handsome. My resolve to head home weakens and I stick my Metrocard back in my bag.
Jude immediately kisses me when he sees me. It’s one of those long, sensual kisses where I get pushed against the side of the building as he presses his body against mine. It’s very sexy, but it’s also slightly uncomfortable because his building is made out of jagged bricks. Also, I’m worried my hair is getting messed up. So I end up pushing him away.
“Come upstairs with me,” Jude whispers in my ear. “I think we need to finish what we started.” Meaning he wants to fuck me.
At least Jude has a normal elevator, not the deathtrap that’s in my building. He keeps trying to kiss me and I know I should be into it because it’s incredibly hot, but I feel distracted. Jude notices I’m not really kissing him back and he pulls away to look at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say innocently. Anyway, I couldn’t even begin to explain to him what’s actually wrong. I don’t even know myself.
“You’re worried about Will,” he says knowingly.
“A little,” I admit.
“I understand how you feel,” he says. “I feel like rubbish for what I did to him. What sort of crap friend nips your bloody girlfriend right from under your nose?”
And what sort of crap girlfriend lets him do it?
“But I don’t want you to worry, Libby,” he says. “I made it right.” “You… you did?”
Jude nods. “As it happens, Diane is still single. I informed her that Will is back on the market and she appeared quite interested.”
“I don’t think Will is interested in Diane,” I say confidently.
“He most certainly is!” Jude insists. “I saw them go off together this evening, as a matter of fact.”
“You… you did?”
“That’s right,” Jude says. “So don’t you feel guilty over Will. He’ll be just fine.”
Will went home with Diane? With Diane? Really? How is that possible? Will is still heartbroken over me! He’s supposed to be crying in his bedroom, plotting ways to get me back, thinking how he’ll never meet someone as wonderful. Christ, it’s only been two weeks. He can’t have moved on already! Okay, yes, I’m with Jude. But that’s different…
Fuck.
I feel slightly ill as I follow Jude down the hall to his apartment. It’s a studio, although Jude assures me he’s paying a small fortune for it. Compared with Will’s place, it’s a total dump (although compared with my place, it’s a palace). It’s too dark, too musty. The paint is cracked on the walls and I somehow visualize an army of roaches building forts behind the walls.
The craziest thing about the apartment though is that it’s just one room. There’s the bed and the television and all that, and there’s no separation between that and the stove and the whole “kitchen” set up. But the worst part is that there’s no actual bathroom. There’s just a toilet in the corner of the room and a sink sticking out of the wall. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“It’s like prison,” I blurt out.
Jude looks hurt. But seriously, what did he expect me to say when I saw the toilet in his bedroom? It’s completely ridiculous. How am I supposed to pee in that thing?
“I’m sorry,” Jude says. “I know, it’s awful. There just aren’t any decent flats left in this city in my price range. London is much better in that regard.”
I stare at him and I have a sudden realization: he didn’t want to go back to London because he was so traumatized by our break-up. He’s leaving because Will kicked him out. He’s not heartsick over me—he just hates his apartment.
But anyway, I try not to think about that or about the toilet six feet away from me as we sit down on Jude’s bed and continue kissing. But even when I put everything else out of my mind, it’s hard not to think about Will. Will and Diane, that is.
All right, so Diane definitely likes Will. She told me so. But he doesn’t like her. At least, that’s what he said. But then again, maybe he was just saying that and didn’t entirely mean it. After all, Diane is quite attractive. And he’s on the rebound right now. He’s vulnerable.
He’s going to sleep with Diane.
I feel so sure about it. Maybe he won’t have sex with her, but he’ll go down on her because that’s what he’s good at and that’s what he loves doing. And she’ll undoubtedly be impressed, because as I said, he’s quite good at it. And even if he’s not immediately head over heels for her, he’ll fall for her too. Gradually. They’ll move in together, then probably get married.
It’s not fair, goddamn it. I was supposed to marry Will.
“Libby, you seem terribly distracted,” Jude comments, lifting his lips from mine. I’m lying in his bed, and he’s beside me. “You seem so tense.”
“Maybe a little,” I mumble.
Jude runs a hand through my hair and I tense up even more. “I know what would relax you.”
“Yeah?” I expect him to offer a massage, which would be incredibly generous of him. That would be a sign he’s changed. Although I’m beginning to wonder if I care anymore.
“Yes,” Jude says. He smiles, but looks a little uncomfortable. “I can do… that whole bit down there.”
I stare at him. “Huh?”
“You know,” he says. “The oral sex… but for you.”
I’m dumbfounded. After all this time, Jude is willing to go down on me? I can’t even believe it. He must really like me. “Have you ever done it before?”
Jude shakes his head. “No. But how hard could it be?”
I wonder how many times those words have been uttered before some amazing oral sex. Probably not very many.
Jude awkwardly lifts my dress up and pulls my thong down over my legs. I remember how Will gently stroked the insides of my thighs before going down on me, but Jude is just sitting there looking at my pussy with dread, like he’s just been assigned the task of eating a big pile of dog shit.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“I… I want to do it,” Jude insists. “Anyway, Will did it for you. And I’m sure he was brilliant at it. Of course, he has to be, because that’s all he’s got.”
I frown. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, he’s obviously not too good at the other stuff,” he says with a shrug. “Considering he can’t move his lower body.”
“He was fine,” I say defiantly. “Anyway, the oral sex was good enough to make up for it. And… and he enjoyed it. He satisfied me completely.”
“Then why are you here with me?” Jude asks teasingly.
“I have no fucking clue,” I say, sitting up in bed. I reach for my thong and start putting it on. “I must have lost my mind.”
Jude is staring at me in disbelief. I can practically see his erection deflating. “Are you seriously taking off?”
“Yes,” I say. “I don’t love you. I love Will. I just… I don’t know. I got cold feet, I guess, because I was actually with a guy who didn’t treat me like shit and I felt like I had to do something to screw it up.”
“That makes sense,” he mutters.
“I didn’t say it made sense.” I smooth out my dress. “I’m going to go now, Jude. I’m sorry for… well, a lot of things. But mainly I’m sorry I came here.”
Jude hangs his head, but I think he gets it. He’s not an idiot. And as much as he claims to like me, I know there are lots of other women in his life. He won’t be thinking about me anymore in another week or two.
“It’s a shame,” Jude says. “I’ll miss you, Libby.”
“I…” I start to say that I’ll miss him too, but that isn’t really the truth. I’m not going to miss him. I’ll be relieved to get out of here. “Please don’t tell Will about this, okay?” If Will found out I was here, that would probably be the end of it.
“Of course,” Jude agrees.
He’s a gentleman about the whole thing, at least. I appreciate that. But it doesn’t change the way I feel.
As I leave Jude’s apartment, I feel happy for the first time since Will walked in on me and Jude. I don’t know what was wrong with me, if I went temporarily insane, or if I just needed a slap in the face to show me how lucky I was. But I want Will. I need Will. God, I need him. I want to see him right now. I want to tell him how much I love him and what an idiot I’ve been. At this point, I will do anything to make things right.
I press his speed dial number on my phone. If he answers, I’m going to take a cab over there right now.
Except he doesn’t answer.
And now I’m a little worried because… well, it’s sort of late. Why isn’t he answering his phone? I dial his house line and his work line, and there’s no answer. I dial his secretary’s line and she doesn’t pick up either.
Oh god, he’s probably with Diane.
Of course, he has every right to be out with Diane. Hopefully, they’re out, that is. Hopefully, they’re just having a drink somewhere and that’s it. It’s been two weeks since we broke up, they’re not going to do anything more than that.
Fuck.