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Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinkin’ and Prayin’ and Doin’ My Best to Avoid a Panic Attack!

And that’s the end of the sad, shitty part of my life, folks!

Kidding.

If that were true, I wouldn’t be here, one year, two weeks, and three days later—not that I’m counting—still on the edge of my bed.

The mere mention of Ricky is enough to send me into a tailspin. Mostly because I think about him daily, dreaming about all the ways I could get him back.

Pathetic, I know.

Breathe, Fielder, breathe.

Topher keeps calling.

Ignore. Send to voicemail.

I can’t believe Topher never told me he was dating Sienna DeLuca.

My older cous-brother is not only dating, but also engaged to the older sister of the love of my life-slash-guy who dumped me. I know it shouldn’t, but it feels like a betrayal that he didn’t tell me, warn me. Attending this wedding will put me face-to-face with Ricky before I’m ready. Topher knew what Ricky did, how much I loved Ricky, how he dumped me without warning, left without a goodbye.

I’m brought back to that morning, so vividly. The warmth of the sunlight contrasting how cold and desolate I felt. I didn’t know what to do. How to move without him. I wandered around Topher’s mansion alone, from room to room without purpose, searching for something to help make sense of what happened, how everything went so wrong. I was numb. I blocked Ricky’s number and all his social media accounts: Snap, Insta, Clock App, everything. It wasn’t until Topher arrived that night that I fully fell apart, and he held me as I sobbed nonsense. After a few days of getting blasted with Topher on the beach and feeling sorry for myself, he told me I needed to pull myself together because I needed to show Ricky I was better than “this.”

I reread Ricky’s poem “Clarity” until the words blended together. Nothing made sense. Ricky’s excuses didn’t make sense. It felt like he was running away from me. He was scared. It didn’t excuse his behavior, but maybe it meant that deep down, he still loved me.

I held on to that thought tightly. It eventually evolved into a vision board with a six-step plan to prove Ricky wrong and win him back. Complete with magazine cut-outs (like a serial killer) and old pictures of us, I hung it above my desk, adding to it as new ideas come to me:

Grow my Clock channel to monetize it to prove content creation is a career, not just a “fun” hobby

Save money to be independent after graduation

Get a super-hot revenge bod!

That last one was Matty’s idea. After watching every romantic comedy on Netflix, he convinced me that weight training with him would help me to feel more confident in my body. Not to mention I’d feel stronger both physically and emotionally. He’s not wrong, though I did momentarily question how changing my body would make me more desirable to Ricky when Ricky himself used to worship me for being thick.

Work on being independent!

Graduate high school with decent grades

To show I’m more than online content! I’m (kind of) smart, too.

Casually run into Ricky again, show him what he’s missing, thus leading to us reconnecting

Grand romantic gesture to win him back!

Still workshopping that last one.

If I could be independent, self-sufficient, and not defined by being “Ricky DeLuca’s himbo boyfriend,” but instead by being Fielder Lemon, successful food critic with a high-profile TV internship on his résumé on top of a successful, monetized Clock channel, then Ricky would have to see me differently. Right?

Don’t answer that, reader.

I’ve barely seen his parents because even though they technically have residence next door, they bought a house in South Carolina in September and spent the winter there. Now that their family house next door is for sale, I was worried I might never see him again. But now, this?

This is inevitable.

I’m not ready. The plan isn’t fully realized. I’m not at my peak yet.

Clutching my phone, I slide off the edge of the mattress and to my knees until I’m digging beneath the bed frame using the flashlight on my phone to illuminate the dark, cobwebbed, cavernous hoard I don’t want found: the empty bottles of cheap vodka Ricky and I stole from his parents’ liquor cabinet that I never threw out, a near-empty box of condoms, an oversized Tupperware bin full of the Barbies and Toy Story dolls I played with as a kid, and an overstuffed shoebox.

I yank it out, and the disturbance elicits a strong succession of sneezes. Just as I’m about to open it, there’s a loud knock at the door.

“Go away, Ma. I’ll call Topher back in a minute!” I shout, but I don’t mean to get angry at Ma. It’s not her fault I’m emotionally unwell.

“Field, it’s me.” Matty’s voice triggers a sense of calm.

“Just you?” I ask.

Silence. “Thought so.”

Whispers. Matty is hissing. Three separate sets of feet shuffle down the hallway.

Then he answers. “Yeah. Just me now. Can I come in?”

Stretching, I reach up and unlock the door, and he slips in and quickly closes the door behind him. He knows the Coven well.

“Dude,” he says. “You okay?” I glare at him, which prompts him to tip his head and roll his eyes. ”Dumb question.”

“Did you know about Toph and Sienna?”

“I found out last night when he called me to ask if I wanted to be in the wedding. He asked me not to say anything to you because, well, you know. He wanted to tell you himself.”

“In front of the whole family?”

“In hindsight, not the best idea, but Toph loves you.” Matty rocks back and forth on his heels. “I bet he thought it’d be easier having everyone around.”

“Why didn’t he tell me sooner? Clearly, they’ve been together a while.”

Matty hops onto my bed and lies back. “I don’t know, man. Topher exists in Topherland. You know that. Maybe he thought you’d freak out.”

“I have so many questions.”

“Talk to him,” Matty urges. “He loves you.”

My heart races, thinking he means Ricky.

“Topher,” Matty clarifies. Sitting up, he eyes the shoebox. “What’s that?”

Popping the lid off prompts a familiar anxious bubbling in my chest. Inside is the dream box Ricky gave me with the lemon carved onto its face, surrounded by other mementos of our relationship: Playbills from Broadway shows we saw together after winning cheap lottery tickets, handwritten Christmas and birthday cards with poems he wrote for me scribbled in ink next to hand-drawn hearts, a thin, hardcover photo book Ma made of us for his graduation that she never got to give him, and the customized Funko Pop! of Ricky he made for me when Topher flew us out to LA for New Year’s Eve—we went to the Funko Pop! store and made a Pop! of ourselves for each other, so he has the one that looks like me, and I have him, immortalized in cute plastic.

I wonder if he kept me, too.

“What’s that wooden box?” Matty asks, and I tell him its origin while trying not to cry. “Damn. You kept it?” He shakes his head. “Bad vibes. Did you put anything in it? Like a voodoo doll?” His fingers absentmindedly fondle the golden cornicello around his neck—a thin, twisted horn-shaped pendant that looks like a chili pepper meant to ward off evil.

“Relax, Matty, it’s not cursed.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe Ricky put the malocchio on you.” Matty makes the sign of the horn with his hand and points it at the box.

“You’re really making me feel better about all this, you know.”

“Sorry.” He swallows. “What’s inside?”

Upon opening the creaky lid, I pull out Ricky’s leather journal of poems. “I never gave this back to him.” The binding is worn, but still supple, and the texture brings me right back to the morning I found it, left behind. I toss it to Matty, who bats it away and onto my bed like a hot potato.

“I would’ve burned it,” Matty says.

He grabs the journal and flips through it with one hand, while the other clutches his cornicello. “Ricky wrote these?”

“He wrote poems all the time.”

“That’s romantic as fuck. Like, if a guy wrote me shit like this, I dunno what I’d do. Be on my knees.”

“I was. Often.”

“Ricky had it bad for you.” He attempts to show me a page, but I turn away.

“Had being the operative word.”

“Feelings like this, they don’t just vanish.”

I look down. “What if they did for Ricky?”

Matty clears his throat, and slams Ricky’s journal shut. “Maybe this”—he jiggles the book—“is a sign. The wedding. Italy, the most romantic country in the world. Our ancestral birthplace. It’s the perfect opportunity to win him back.”

Though I’ve spent a year thinking about nothing but winning Ricky back, now that I’m faced with an actual opportunity, I’m terrified. Over the past year, I’ve monetized my Clock channel, but I’m still living at home with no clear life plan. How am I supposed to convince Ricky that I’m independent and won’t hold him back? How am I supposed to prove that he needs me when for the past year he’s probably been doing just fine without me?

“I don’t know. What if he doesn’t want me back?”

“I bet he’s hotter now.”

I stare at him blankly. “Not helpful.”

He shrugs. “Look, you’re ready now. Six months ago, I would’ve said you’d crumble. But, hey, if you don’t try to win back the love of your life, you’ll regret it.” Matty taps his fingertips together, hatching a devious plan, and my cheeks heat. “You don’t just love someone your whole life and then stop loving them, right? Even if you got shit to work on.” He clears his throat. “You two are gonna see each other, and it’s gonna be love at first sight. Or one millionth sight. Bet.”

I play with the ring on my thumb. I hope he’s right.

“If not, we’re gonna be in Italy! The motherland. Surrounded by hot, hot Italian guys. We can be each other’s wingman. Not that you have any trouble getting guys. But you can help me out for once.” Matty usually isn’t jealous, he’s too jovial for that, but his pent-up sexual frustration is getting the better of him. He’s a hopeless romantic, not exactly waiting for love to get laid, but for the perfect feeling and ideal scenario. He wants to feel a connection like the one I had with Ricky. Which is sweet. He wants to be swept off his feet, like the main character of a romantic comedy. Meanwhile I’ve spent the better part of the last year “getting over” Ricky by getting under pretty much everyone with a pulse. It’s been a stellar distraction.

We high-five, and I’m momentarily disgusted by my own show of machismo. “I hate being a guy.”

Matty punches my arm. “Topher keeps calling.” He stares at my phone’s lock screen. “Pick up, tell him you’re gonna be his best man with me. Do it for Topher. But also for you because you’re a fucking Lemon.”

Fist bump. He’s right.

I pick up the FaceTime call. “Sorry, Toph, I didn’t mean—”

“Fielder! Please don’t hate me!” Topher shouts quickly. I don’t see any sign of Sienna. “You know I love you, man, so much.”

“I know, I know, I’m not—”

“I wanted to tell you about Sienna so badly; you have no idea! I didn’t know how because, well, the Ricky part. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize! I’m happy for you guys. I am.” I may be trying to convince myself here a little bit, pushing away the twinge of anger about why he didn’t tell me if he’s my brother, but despite everything, Sienna’s like a sister.

He exhales in relief. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me to hear. You’re my brother. I love you. And there’s no pressure for the wedding—I’ll take care of everything, all the expenses. I only want my two brothers next to me.”

“If I didn’t make it clear,” I say, “I can’t wait to celebrate you.” As the words tumble out, I realize I’m tearing up because I really do love him, and I want him to have the best wedding ever, and if his version of that includes me standing right next to him, probably staring at Ricky, I’ll do it. For Topher. “As one of your best men.”

Topher cheeses into the camera as he howls, “Let’s gooooooooooooo!”

Fielder– Hi. Hope you’re well. Neither of us want to talk to each other, but for the sake of our soon-to-be shared family, let’s be cool in Italy. Olive branch extended. Ricky