Page 47 of Better Than Gelato (Ciao Bella #1)

They’re debating if they should call Maggie for permission.

I get up and open the door. The room sways a little, and I see black spots.

I lean against the door frame. I should probably eat something.

When the spots clear, I see Petey and Pirate staring at me.

Their faces are filled with sympathy and horror. I’m guessing I don’t look so hot.

I don’t say anything but move past them to the bathroom to pee. When I come out, they’re by my door, hovering.

“He-ey,” Petey says, stretching the word into two syllables. Filling the last one with pity. Before I know it, my eyes have filled with tears again. I can’t do this . I shake my head mutely and walk past them into my room and close the door.

I grab one of the plates of crackers and bring it to bed with me.

I catch a whiff of myself as I settle in.

I do not smell good. I sniff my sheets. They do not smell good.

It’s like my sadness has an odor that has oozed over everything.

What I need is a shower, but the idea of showering is as nonsensical as the idea of flying.

I can’t move. All I can do is lie here, sad and unloved.

Maggie comes in without me noticing. I must have fallen asleep again.

“How are you doing?'' she asks. Her voice is gentle. And it’s the gentleness that brings the tears again. Because I know I’ve become this fragile, wounded animal that must be treated gently.

I shrug my shoulders helplessly.

“Do you want some dinner?” she asks.

“I had some crackers,” I tell her. I know she’s trying her best to take care of me. I want her to know I’m trying too. But I can’t do dinner. I already feel sick.

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?” Maggie asks like a nurse.

“I’d like some morphine, please,” I say.

She lets out a deep breath. “This sucks,” she says. “And there’s no way around that. But what we have to do now is damage control. I know you have a chemistry exam tomorrow. You left your flashcards all over the house. What time is your class?”

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t go.”

“You can go,” she says. “And you need to.”

“Chemistry doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” Maggie’s eyes fill with concern as she realizes I mean it. And then her mouth tightens in determination. She’s in problem solving mode.

“You’re probably right. But on the off chance you want to keep your scholarship and finish college, you need to take exams and pass classes.”

My eyebrows scrunch up at her words.

“I know you need time to fall to pieces and process everything. You can have that time. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow you need to pull it together for one hour. Then you can have the whole weekend to sleep or cry or yell or break things. Whatever you need. But tomorrow you need to take your exam. Now what time is it?”

“Nine,” I mumble.

“Okay, perfect. I’ve got a nine o’clock class too. I’m going to get you up early. We’re going to get ready. I suggest you shower. Then we’re going to head to campus.”

It’s too exhausting to argue with her, so I just agree.

The next day she wakes me up, and I numbly eat some cereal. My stomach gurgles unhappily. I walk to campus on five-hundred-pound legs.

We make it to my chemistry building, and she gives me a hug.

“You can do this. As soon as you’re done, you can go straight home and crawl into bed. Just one exam first. You’ve got this.”

She’s wrong. I don’t got this. The professor hands out the exam and the words and diagrams on the page mean nothing to me. I vaguely remember studying something like this. But that was a lifetime ago. Back when the world made sense. Back when Jake still loved me.

I fill in some answers. I write in some words. Honestly, I’m barely aware of what I’m doing. When the professor says the time is up, I hand in my test and walk back home.

* * *

I wake up Saturday morning to Maggie bringing me an omelet. After two days, I suddenly feel ravenous. I eat until my plate is empty, and Maggie is visibly relieved.

Pirate sticks her head in the door. “Sorry to interrupt. There’s a package for you.”

She brings me a box wrapped in brown paper and for a moment the irrational part of my brain says, It's from Jake! He’s sent me a box of— but even my irrational brain doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. What could he possibly send me? A box full of all the love he doesn’t feel for me?

“Thanks,” I tell Pirate. “You didn’t interrupt anything. I’m just lying here, smelly and unloved.”

She nods and turns to leave but then stops at the doorway and clears her throat. “You’re not unloved.”

Anger flares up, and I want to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She must see it in my eyes because she winces a little but doesn’t back down. She points to Maggie.

“This girl’s been taking care of you day and night.”

And then she leaves. And I’m crying again, and I feel like a jerk, because of course she’s right, and I’ve been wallowing and ungrateful and oblivious.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell Maggie. “I’m so sorry that you’ve had to take care of me.”

“It’s okay,” Maggie says. “That’s what I’m here for. Really.” She looks a little weepy, and Maggie never cries.

“I notice she didn’t correct you on being smelly,” she says after a minute, and I actually smile.

“I think I probably do need to shower.”

“Open your box first,” she says.

It’s from my parents. A batch of my mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies and a note in my dad’s careful handwriting that says, “We heard you were having a hard time. We love you.”

“Look, more people who love you!” Maggie says, and I cry some more. Sheesh, when will I run out of tears?

We eat cookies for a while in silence.

“Do you feel like talking about things?” Maggie asks. “About what happened?”

Maybe it’s the sugar, but all of a sudden, I do feel like talking about things.

“I’ll tell you what happened. He tricked me into falling in love with him when I was really trying not to, and then a year later he broke my heart.”

I suddenly feel like yelling about things.

“He’s a heartless, elitist jerk who lives in a stupid mansion,” I say loudly. “His family doesn’t go camping on vacation. They go skiing in the Poconos.”

It feels good to talk loudly, so I talk even louder.

“He’s condescending, like ‘I’m very rich and go to an Ivy league school, and I think it’s adorable that you’re going to UC San Diego on scholarship. Why don’t you leave your tiny little dreams and come be a cheerleader for my big, impressive dreams on the East Coast?’ Also, he’s no fun.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow at this.

“Okay, he’s some fun. But he’s also a scaredy pants. Not a risk taker. He’s always like, ‘Juliet, don’t break into that locked park. Juliet, don’t go to the beach in the dark. Juliet, don’t ride that scooter, you’ll crash the minivan on the way to dropping our kids off at school.’”

Maggie is noticeably alarmed, and some part of me recognizes that I’ve turned hysterical, but I’m on a roll.

“Well, you know what? I did all that stuff, not the minivan thing, but the other stuff, and I didn’t get hurt at all. No scratches! Totally unscathed! But I dated him for a year, and kaboom, shattered. Absolutely shattered.” I cross my arms over my chest, pleased with the case I have made.

Maggie nods. “I see.” A pause. “I have some follow-up questions.”

“I’ll do my best, but I feel like that’s mostly the gist of it right there.”

“But why did you actually break up? Was he seeing someone else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then why break up?” Maggie asks. “What did he say?”

I try to recall his exact words, but it’s hazy.

“He said it was too hard. That it would be different if I was there, but I chose not to move there.”

“And he chose not to move here,” she points out loyally.

“Anyway, that was after he admitted that he didn’t love me anymore, which is a pretty good reason to break up.”

“That must have been hard to hear,” Maggie says.

“It didn’t feel great.” The anger drains out of me and the tears are back, and I don’t even try to fight them. I just let them take over while Maggie holds me and makes soothing sounds.

At some point, Petey comes in and tells me she’s made a nice hot bath for me, and doesn’t that sound nice? She speaks to me like I’m an old lady, or a child, or mentally unstable. I suppose the last one isn’t far off. And a hot bath does sound good.

I slip my grungy clothes off and slide into the water. I can hear them talking through the door.

“I’ve never seen her like this,” Petey says.

“She’s never been like this,” Maggie says.

“Did you see her get into the bath?” Petey says. “She’s skin and bones.”

“Yeah, because she stopped eating,” Maggie says. “And you know how she feels about eating.”

“What do we do?” Petey asks.

“I can hear you, ya hooligans,” I yell through the door.

There’s a startled yelp and then Maggie’s voice. “We’re not talking about you,” she says. “We’re talking about someone else. Lynn. Just went through a breakup, the poor girl. She’s not handling it well. Not like you. You’re doing way better than Lynn.”

This actually makes me smile. Pirate is right. I have good people who love me.

I stay in the bath a long time. When I dry off and get dressed, I avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I’m not ready to deal with whatever weird thing my body is doing.

When I come out, the girls are eating sandwiches in the kitchen.

“I made you one,” Pirate says.

“Thanks, apparently I’m just skin and bones.”

“I’m so sorry,” Petey says. “I should not have said that.”

“You weren’t even talking about her,” Maggie says. “You were talking about Lynn.” She gives Petey a theatrical elbow nudge and earns another smile from me.

We watch a movie that afternoon. I couldn’t say which one.

I try to make pasta in the evening. But as soon as the smell of warm olive oil fills the kitchen, I’m reminded of the beach we found by the olive grove in Greece. Where we kissed for hours and told each other “I love you.”

I give up cooking, and Petey makes frozen burritos and sprinkles cheddar cheese on them to make them “fancy.”

The next morning I wake up sad again. Each morning is an opportunity to remember all over again that this special thing I had is now lost. I gingerly climb out of bed.

I feel like an old woman. Or how I assume an old woman feels.

My limbs are creaky and my muscles ache.

I don’t know why my body feels like it’s run a marathon when I’ve barely gotten out of bed in the last seventy-two hours. Heartbreak is exhausting .

I go into the kitchen where Petey is making pancakes and chatting with Maggie and Pirate. Conversation stops when they see me. Maggie starts cheering.

“You got out of bed! You came out of your room! And all by yourself! You’re amazing! A marvel! Hurrah!”

It’s over the top but very Maggie. I give an awkward wave.

“Morning.” My throat hurts. From crying. Or yelling. Or maybe I caught strep throat at the same time my heart broke.

“Sorry for all this,” I mumble and wave a hand to encompass all of me.

“It’s fine,” Petey says, and dishes me a pancake. I eat and let the carbs work their magic.

“So, did you think you were going to marry this boy?” Pirate asks after a while.

I give a shrug. “I definitely wasn’t ready for marriage. I think he was. We picked out pets. And named our sailboat.”

The tears are back so hard and fast I feel like I’m drowning. When will this pain stop? Shouldn’t the hurting diminish at some point? It still feels fresh and raw and deep, like there are not enough days in eternity for this wound to heal.

“Thanks for the pancakes, Petey,” I whisper. Then I put my plate and fork in the sink and head back to my room.

At some point, Maggie discreetly took down all the pictures of me and Jake and replaced them with pictures of Nicolas Cage being a weirdo. It makes me smile.

As night falls, I face the fact that I have to go to school and work tomorrow and somehow pretend my heart wasn’t ripped from my chest and torn to shreds.

I unbury my computer from a pile of clothes and check my schedule. It’s not going to be fun, but I don’t have any assignments due, so that’s a piece of good luck.

There’s an email from my parents telling me how much they love me and how wonderful I am.

There’s one from my Chemistry TA because I failed the exam on Friday. He’s reaching out because I got an A on the last exam and all the quizzes so far. This is a drastic shift. Why yes, TA Chad, this is a drastic shift, isn’t it?

The last email is from Jake. I didn’t notice right away because it doesn’t have his name as the sender, just a weird edu email address. I read the first line.

Juliet, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.

I close my laptop before I know I’m doing it. The way your hand reacts instinctively when you touch a hot stove. Because it’s protecting you from pain before the pain gets worse.

I know that if I read that email, if I email him back, if I unblock his number and engage with him under the flimsy excuse of closure or civility, I will never get over him. I will be in love with him forever. And he will still not love me back. And it will be excruciating.

So I make a solemn vow to do none of those things. I will not indulge in “what ifs” or “should haves.” I won’t even dwell on fond memories. Maybe there will be a time and space for that later. For right now, it’s got to be a total shutout, or I’ll never survive this.