#chapter Twenty-Five
Things end. Good, bad, indifferent, that was how the world worked. Maura had known from the beginning that her relationship with Ian would probably be short and fraught with woe, but there had been a time, albeit brief and completely delusional, when she believed they might actually be able to make it work.
Oh, heart. Why you gotta break so hard?
She’d deleted his contact information from her phone and computer, along with every way she’d ever been in touch with him. The instant message program that had been their first method of communication. The phone app that had come after that. She’d deleted him from Connex, as stupid and petty as that might seem, but it wasn’t to keep him from seeing her updates. It was to keep her from giving in, breaking down and seeking him out.
“All gone,” she said to Shelly, showing off the phone. “Nothing left. I blocked his screen name so even if he does ping me, I won’t get the message.”
“What’s to stop him from just calling you up? Or texting you?”
“Nothing,” Maura admitted. “But he hasn’t. And he won’t. I know that kid, Shelly, and he won’t do it.”
Shelly snorted softly and swirled the clear, greenish liquid in her glass. Maura had made margaritas. It was girls’ night in. Tacos, nachos, margaritas and every soft core erotic movie they could find. The Red Shoe Diaries, Lake Consequence. Old favorites she and Shelly had watched many times. Until Ian, Maura had never quite believed the kind of sex in those movies existed.
“What will you do if he does?”
Maura shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have a backup plan, really. At least, not beyond margaritas and Mexican food. Oh, and Billy Wirth.”
“I’d back up on him for sure,” Shelly said a little dreamily. “Back, front, upside down, whatever he wanted.”
Maura burst into laughter that felt a lot like sobs. She covered them by drinking, then set the glass down to pour more from the pitcher. She licked salt from the rim of the glass and dipped a chip in the melted queso. Shelly watched her, but though they’d been friends long enough that there was no way she didn’t sense Maura’s emotions, she didn’t call her on it.
“So…Daniel,” Shelly said. Apparently that topic wasn’t taboo.
This time, Maura’s laugh felt a little more natural. “Uh huh.”
“Don’t you uh huh me. Spill it. I want to know it all.” Shelly leaned forward with a gleam in her eye, ignoring the movie. “Every last freaking detail.”
There’d been so many things Maura had never shared with Shelly. Details about Ian, the things he did to her and how he made her feel, specifics about his taste and how he moaned — she’d shared similar details with Shelly lots of times about other guys, but never about Ian. Everything with him had been different than anything she’d ever done.
She didn’t want to think about Ian any more.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Maura teased.
Shelly pretended to take offense. “Listen, who’s the one who helped you use a tampon for the first time? Who held your hand when you had to take that pregnancy test?”
“Longest three minutes of my life,” Maura said. “You, of course. My bestie.”
“And you’re going to hold back now?” Shelly sniffed. “Fine. At least tell me if you’re going to see him again!”
“I’m going to see him again. I have seen him again,” Maura said. “He’s not leaving the country again for another month. We have dinner every couple of nights. Hang out, watch movies. Stuff like that.”
Shelly looked impressed. “What about all the other dates?”
Maura shrugged. “I don’t see the point in that any more, do you?”
“Now more than ever,” Shelly said. Maura laughed. Shelly shook her head, looking serious. “Listen, you can’t let Ian put you off dating.”
“I’m not put off dating. Just the sheer quantity of it. It’s exhausting, Shelly. And technically, you could say I’m dating Daniel.” Though it was more like friends without benefits. They hadn’t fooled around since that first night, not even when he slept in her bed. She thought he was too embarrassed to try, and she hadn’t yet worked up the courage to initiate anything.
“So…what’s it like? C’mon, Maura. The two of you were volcanic together. You told me once you’d never been with a man who’d ever made you come as hard as Daniel could.”
That had been true. Until Ian. Maura frowned, concentrating on her drink for a few seconds. Then she sighed. “Okay. So we’ve fooled around a little. But we didn’t fuck,” she clarified when Shelly’s expression brightened and she looked like she was about to say something. “He just went down on me.”
“Just?” Shelly cried and wriggled on the couch until Maura had to burst into laughter. “Nobody ‘just’ goes down on someone else.”
Maura gave her friend a confidential smirk. “Well, he does eat pussy like it’s an Olympic sport.”
“Guh.” Shelly fell back with a sigh.
“Yeah.” Maura laughed too. On the TV screen, the couple writhed around naked on the bed in slow motion. She watched for a few seconds before turning back to her friend. “I like Daniel a lot. More than I did when we were younger, I think. I mean, back then he was sexy and so sure of himself, and we had a lot of fun. But we never really talked, you know?”
“And you do now?”
“Yeah.” Maura thought about that for a moment, turning over the conversation they’d had a few nights before about politics. “I mean, he’s grown into a man, and I remember him as a boy.”
“You’re not a girl any more either, you know.”
“I know. And I think that as much as we set each other on fire back then, we have the real potential to be close friends now.” Maura chewed on that thought, trying to make herself clearer, but the margaritas were getting in the way. “Like…we have a lot in common, opinion-wise. We like the same movies and music, the same kind of food. He’s easy to talk to. And he’s a good listener. I really like him.”
Shelly was silent for a moment. “And you’re worried about that?”
“I am.” She hadn’t thought of it quite that way until now, when the blur of booze had worn away some of her inhibitions.
“Because of getting hurt?”
“Because maybe it means I’m not meant to be with Ian after all,” Maura blurted. “If I could fall for someone else, and so soon. Maybe what I felt for Ian wasn’t real.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Shelly scooted over on the couch to put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t do that to yourself. It was real.”
Maura swallowed tears to give her friend an honest look. “Does that make it better, really?”
“Maybe not. But it’s the truth. Honey, I’ve known you a long, long time. When you talked about Ian, and even the once or twice I saw you with him, you lit up.”
“When we were together, everything shined,” Maura whispered.
“Yes. That. It was real. What you felt for him. That doesn’t mean it was meant to last, you’re right. But it also doesn’t mean that if you find out you like someone else that what you felt for Ian wasn’t real, or true. Nothing you feel for anyone else would negate that.”
She knew it intellectually, of course. Loving Ian had not cancelled anything she’d ever felt for anyone else, including her now ex-husband. “I know that. But…”
“No buts,” Shelly said firmly. “Ian had his chance. He blew it, spectacularly. You gave him every opportunity, Maura. Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to let them ruin you.”
“No,” Maura said. “No. I don’t.”