Page 3 of Pugs & Kisses

E vie pointed the remote at the television and fast-forwarded to the beginning of the scene in Jerry Maguire where Dorothy and Jerry decide their relationship is no longer working.

She snuggled more securely underneath the crochet blanket she’d dragged from the closet and looked on as, with aching sadness, Renée Zellweger told Tom Cruise that it was her fault for believing she was in love enough for the both of them.

Evie tried to summon a tear—she always cried at this part—but she couldn’t manage a drop, not even when Dorothy cradled Jerry’s head and pressed a kiss to the top of it.

“Thank goodness,” Evie sighed.

Her muscles relaxed with the welcomed relief of realizing she had finally achieved that sweet nirvana she’d been striving for since she put Cameron out of the house yesterday: Numbness. Blessed, beautiful numbness.

She stopped the movie just before Jerry showed up at Dorothy’s house for the famous grovel scene and went in search of another movie with a meaty breakup.

Maybe Marcus and Angela’s in Boomerang ?

Or what about Allie and Noah’s in The Notebook ?

The breakup scene when they were teenagers, not the second one when they were adults.

If she didn’t stop the movie in time and had to witness that passionate kiss in the rain between Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling, she may spontaneously combust. That would ruin her grandmother’s beautiful blanket.

“Oh, this is a good one,” Evie said. She waited for the opening credits of La La Land to start, then skipped to the scene where Sebastian showed up late to Mia’s play.

“Asshole,” Evie whispered.

The past twenty-four hours had consisted of watching the breakup scene of every romantic movie she could find.

But only the breakup; she refused to watch the couple get back together.

She wasn’t in the mood for that bullshit, happily-ever-after propaganda.

Happily-ever-afters were for fairy tales.

In the real world, even when you gave your everything to a relationship, it wasn’t enough.

Evie rubbed her breastbone with her fist. It had to be indigestion causing the sudden sting there because she’d just established that she no longer felt any emotion at all. She’d attained the numbness stage of the grieving process, and she would cling to it for as long as possible.

Her cell phone started dancing across the coffee table. Evie reached for it, intending to decline the call, but when she noticed her best friend Ashanti’s name—this was the fourth time she’d called today—she decided she’d better answer.

“Hello,” Evie croaked, muting the television.

“Girl, where in the heck have you been? Why aren’t you answering your phone? Do I need to send a search party out looking for you?”

“I’m sorry,” Evie said. “I had my phone on silent.” She pushed herself up from her prone position on the sofa and pulled one leg underneath her. “What’s up?”

“I’m the one who should be asking you that question. Wait—are you sick?” Ashanti asked. “You sound horrible.”

Evie jumped on the excuse. “Yeah,” she said, punctuating her lie with a cough.

“Is it COVID?” Ashanti asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, did Cam stay home to take care of you? Is he monitoring your temperature? Is he diffusing eucalyptus?”

“Cam isn’t here. I sent him away.” The words shot another jab of pain straight to Evie’s chest, proving she did indeed still have some feelings left in her bones. “I’m not sure if I’m contagious and I don’t want him to get sick.”

Another lie. She would hold a celebratory breakdance performance in the middle of Jackson Square if Cameron came down with the worst case of food poisoning known to man, complete with explosive diarrhea. But she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened yesterday, even with her best friend.

“Girl, I’m coming over,” Ashanti said. “I’ll wear a mask.”

“No!” Evie shouted. She added another fake cough that turned into a fit of real ones. That’s what she got for lying. She rested her head in her upturned palm and released a weary breath. “I’ll be fine, Shanti. I just need rest.”

“Are you sure about that? Didn’t you tell me years ago that you once suffered from asthma?”

“I haven’t had an asthma attack since I was in kindergarten,” Evie said, then reiterated, “I’ll be fine. I promise to check in with you tonight.”

“Nope. In an hour. And then every hour after.”

Evie rolled her eyes. “Exactly how am I supposed to get any rest if I have to check in every hour?”

There was a pause, then an exasperated, “Fine. I’ll call you later tonight. You get one missed call, Ev. If I call a second time and you don’t pick up, I’m coming with the fire department and we’re tearing down the door.”

“You know where I keep my spare key,” Evie reminded her.

“Duh. The fire department thing was for dramatic effect,” Ashanti said.

“Bye, Shanti,” Evie said.

“Call me if you need anything,” Ashanti said. “Love you, girl.”

“Love you too.”

Evie set the phone on the table and, for the first time since last night, when she’d cried into the pillow in the guest room, felt tears welling in her eyes. She held them back because the time for crying was over, even if they were happy tears.

Looking back on the maelstrom of emotions she’d battled over the past twenty-four hours, gratitude had not been one of them. But just a few minutes on the phone with one of her best friends reminded Evie of just how blessed she was when it came to the people who truly cared about her.

She picked up the remote and switched from La La Land to her problematic fave, Love & Basketball .

Instead of stopping the movie after Monica and Quincy’s college breakup, she let it continue to play through Monica’s stint with the international women’s basketball league in Barcelona and to her eventual return to Los Angeles.

Just as the opening notes of Meshell Ndegeocello’s soulful “Fool of Me” began to stream from the surround-sound speakers, the front doorbell rang.

“Ugh. Why?” Evie said as she pushed up from the sofa. If this was yet another person inquiring about her interest in selling her house, she would scream.

She made a mental note to order a doorbell camera. Cameron had never wanted one, had said they were too invasive. After yesterday’s revelation, Evie realized it was more than likely because having the camera would have made it easier to catch him during one of his daytime trysts.

Goodness, she felt like a fool.

She opened the door and found a brown paper grocery bag on the front step. The top was folded over and stapled together.

“What the—” Evie said, hefting up the bag.

“Grocery delivery,” a young guy with shoulder-length dreads called from the sidewalk.

“The person who ordered it”—he glanced at his phone—“Ashanti Wright, said you may be contagious, so I didn’t want to get too close.

Hope you feel better. Have a good one.” He waved, then hopped onto a bicycle that he’d propped against her neighbor’s Little Free Library and pedaled toward Napoleon Avenue.

Evie brought the grocery bag into the kitchen. The moment she opened it, the tears she’d managed to suppress for much of the day began streaming down her face.

She pulled out yellow daisies wrapped in cellophane first. Next were several magazines, a COVID test, saltine crackers, and chicken noodle soup from the deli of the grocery store a few blocks away.

She grabbed her phone and texted Ashanti.

I truly love you.

A moment later, she received a reply.

Love you too. Feel better. Three ellipses pulsed on the screen before another text followed. I know you love the spicy lentil soup, but I thought chicken noodle was better given the circumstances.

Evie replied with several thumbs-up and heart emojis.

She felt even worse for lying to Ashanti, but maybe she wasn’t lying after all.

She had felt sick since the moment she walked in on Cameron and that nurse.

And just the thought of cuddling up on the sofa with a bowl of that soup and this month’s edition of Essence magazine made her feel better.

Maybe the magazine could help with ignoring the other thing that had been bothering her for much of the day: the massive guilt over abandoning her patients at the practice.

When Gwyneth, the front office manager who had been at the clinic since Cameron’s dad opened it forty years ago, had called to ask why she hadn’t shown up for the scheduled tooth extraction on the Ruffins’ Boston terrier, Evie hadn’t even thought to come up with the excuse of being sick.

She’d told Gwyn straight up that she was leaving the practice, without providing any further explanation.

It had been an awful thing to do, but who could blame her?

Still, her patients shouldn’t have to suffer because of her shitty mood and her ex-fiancé’s even shittier behavior.

“They won’t suffer,” she reassured herself.

Gwyn was superb at her job. Evie had no doubt she’d rescheduled the two procedures she’d had slated for today. Cameron would make sure the dogs were okay, if only for the sake of the clinic’s reputation.

None of that lessened the guilt she felt. Those were her patients, and she’d let them down.

This isn’t your fault. It’s Cameron’s!

She would remind herself of that fact every hour until it finally sunk in.

Evie transferred some soup into a bowl and ate at the kitchen island while flipping through the magazine.

The meal was exactly what her soul needed.

By the time she placed the empty bowl into the dishwasher, she was ready to do something more than just wallow on her couch watching rom-com breakup scenes.

She needed to find something that would lift her out of this funk.

She clamped her hands on her hips and stared at the emptiness surrounding her. One thing was clear: She wasn’t getting out of this funk if she didn’t leave this house.