Ninety seven

Manuscript

Chapter sixty six

But then he spun around and caught me right on the cheekbone with a thunderous right hook. Any harder and my cheekbone probably would have cracked; as it was my head snapped to the side and I felt something in my neck pop, though that sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant. The whole left side of my face though, felt like it was on fire. A giant pulsing white hot fire. My initial instinct had been to fight back, but I clenched my jaw and stood there, not doing anything. My eye started to water. Jonah flexed and released his fist.

“Jesus,” I said, half-expecting him to jump on me and start hitting meagain, but he didn’t. “That’s some fucking arm you got there.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been working out, remember? That’s where I met Eva.”

Touche.

“Thanks, though,” he said. “That did make me feel a little bit better.”

“Well,” I said, bringing my hand up to the side of my face and gingerly touching my cheek. “Now that you’ve got that out of your system . . .”

“I’ve been giving it some thought, though, and I think it’s time for me to move on.”

“Move on? From the company?”

“From the company, from the city, from this state. Maybe even the entire country. I don’t know. I want a change.Not just a change of job, but a complete change of environment. I think it would probably do me some good.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding, though I wasn’t quite sure what to think about the whole thing. My cheek was still throbbing. “It sounds like you’ve thought it through, so I’m certainly not going to try to change your mind. And hey—maybe it would be good.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe it will.” 

That night, Eva came over and we ordered take out because neither of us felt like cooking. I told her about my conversation earlier with Jonah.

“So just like that, he’s leaving?” she asked.

“Just like that.” I pulled one of the cartons out of the paper bag and opened it. “I think this one’s the kung pao chicken.”

She peered into the container. “Yeah, it is. Wow. That surprises me. About Jonah.”

“I know. I was surprised too.”

She looked at me, a piece of chicken held in between the two chopsticks. “Was this before or after he hit you?”

“After. Pretty much immediately after. I let him hit me though. Just so we’re clear.”

“Yeah, I’m still not quite sure I follow the logic in that one.”

“It was sort of . . . cathartic for him, I think. It’s not like we got into some sort of crazy brawl or anything. Which is what I think he wanted to do at first. So we talked about the whole leakthing, and then he hit me, and then he seemed to feel better and told me that he was going to be leaving. He didn’t say where he was going, though.” I shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the better. I know I’m going to have to eventually talk with Martin, and have to listen to him tell me I told you so, in regards to whose side the leak came from.”

“It might be better that he leaves,” Eva said. “You wouldn’t be able to completely trust him again, would you?”

I shrugged as I opened up another container, this one containing egg rolls. “You know what’s weird is that I feel like I still could. Even after all that stuff he said, I still feel like if he wanted to stay, that we’d just move past this. But if he wants to go, I’m not going to stop him. It does kind of feel like it’s the end of an era, though.”

She set her container down and looked at me. “This can be the start of a new one, then,” she said. “For us, anyway. And I really believe now, more than ever, that as long as we stay true to our feelings, then that is what’s most important. Because if I had done that to begin with, we could have probably avoided a lot of the stuff that we’ve been through so far.”

I thought back to the day she first showed up in my office for that job interview. If you had told me then that I’d be sitting here now, feeling how I did toward her, I never would have believed it, but there you have it. Things sometimes worked out in ways that you couldn’t even fathom.“We have been through a lot,” I said, “but honestly, Eva there’s no one else I’d rather go through it with.”

She smiled. “I feel the same way.”

Epilogue

Eva

“I don’t think I can do this,” I said, taking a deep breath.

Luke gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Of course you can,” he said. “You’re going to be just great.”

I took another deep breath and tried to ignore the knots in my stomach. Everything seemed so surreal. I was about to walk out on stage, in front of a large group of people, and give a talk, as part of the world bookclub congress. My book, You’ve Got This: To Be A Better Person, had come out a few months ago and gotten somereally good reviews in some very important places, and suddenly, it seemed, everyone thought that I had something important to say. And it had all started with that article I’d written at my mother’s encouragement, which, once posted on the blog, had gotten many likes, retweeted, and favorited tens of thousands of times. Subsequent essays I’d written had later been compiled, and I’d written a few more to round out what had turned into a best-selling book you could now find in the personal development section.

Luke kept his hands on my shoulders, massaging them lightly. “I am so proud of you,” he said.

I took another deep breath and felt my anxiety quell a bit at the sound of his voice. “Thanks.”

People that I didn’t even know were hailing me as an expert on my generation, despite the fact that I felt like I still knew nothing. I mean, all I had done really, was written a book—and a rather short one at that—about my experience. I spoke about it candidly, and didn’t sugar-coat anything, and ultimately, I guess I found my happy ending, because Luke and I were still together, because I’d put my college degree to use, because I finally felt a measure of contentedness with my life that I hadn’t before.

So that made people believe I somehow had answers that could help them, too. The idea that I was helping people made me feel good, even though it seemed crazy that I would besomeone people would turn to for advice like this.

Even my mother had been be grudgingly happy for me, despite the fact that the deal for her own book had fallen through and she was currently looking for a publisher.

“And after your book signing, I’m going to take you out to celebrate, and then we’ll go pick up Asher.”

I smiled, thinking about Asher, who was almost two now. We picked him up Saturday afternoon, and he stayed with us until Monday morning. He was definitely not the handful that everyone told me he was going to be once he was a toddler. He was actually really fun to be around, and I enjoyed the time he was with us. Even though Luke and I weren’t married, I’d settled into the role of step-mother much more easily than I thought I would have. Eventually, I knew, Luke and I would tie the knot, but for now, living together and learning how to be parents to Asher was good enough for the both of us. And maybe, some day, Luke and I would have a kid of our own, but there was still plenty of time for that.

Right now, I had a talk to give.

Ian leaned down and gave me a kiss. “You’re going to be great,” he said lol. “I love you.”

I kissed him back. “I love you, too.” Then I took a deep breath and stepped out onto the stage.

Thank for reading.

( Asher is the child Luke had with Anna his former secretary.)