I felt too far gone to be disgusted that the parting air was gray. On a normal day, I would comment to Abigail, a half smile on my lips, the one I knew she loved, about the irony of the situation—that the fog would be so thick that the rejected lover could barely make out the last glimpse of his only love. Yes, we would laugh—if I were not the discarded man, and she were not the woman waiting on the train platform, wishing I were gone already.

Abigail was considerate enough not to bring him, though my imagination cruelly made him appear just the same, holding her as I used to, with his arms encircling her waist and his chin resting in the crook of her neck. Now it occurred to me to put up a fight, shatter that pretty boy jaw into oblivion—now, when his presence was only imagined, and the train waited only for my fast-approaching goodbye to pull away.

I shouldn’t have been bitter. It was me, after all, who proposed this solution; Abigail was fully prepared to leave her job, friends, childhood home, to live with this man. For my convenience, she said. No, we wouldn’t want to inconvenience poor Kerry, making him see the woman he loves in the arms of another, taller, handsomer, better man every day. How cruel. But I found that the whole of Third City caused my heart to pang in one way or another—our shared office building, where we met; the flower shop where I bought her first bouquet (coincidentally, also the bouquet that first set off the randomly exploding bombs that were my sinuses); pennies on the street. She used to turn them over, for luck. While I couldn’t realistically escape pennies, a new town seemed like the only way for me to move on. Eventually.

His name was Piotr Borkowski, widower of four years and Polish immigrant. The first time I laid eyes on him I saw him for what he was—a complete pussy. I half expected my suspicions would come true—that he would go into the woman’s restroom and sit down as he pissed. Of course, this was after Abigail had given me the news. She was breaking off our two-year-long engagement. She even wiped our June wedding date off my dry erase calendar before I had the chance. She’d met someone new, someone…someone so amazing, Kerry, you would see it if you saw him! You’d know…

“Kerry, I don’t deserve you!” I mimicked Abigail to Woodard in a high-pitched voice, covering my anguished face with shaking hands. “And you know what I said, Woody? I said, ‘Probably not, but please, don’t go.’ Probably not! On what plane of existence would that make her want to stay?”

“Kerry, are you feeling all right? You’re acting more like you actually belong in a shrink’s office than usual.”

I didn’t bother keeping my hysteria in check. It was kind of nice knowing I belonged somewhere. “I kept trying to tell you, Woody! All it would take is one little incident to send me careening over the edge! And just look what happened.”

“Tell me what happened, Kerry. From the beginning.”

My Adam’s apple felt like something lodged in my throat, and I could hardly swallow, could hardly suck down a breath to begin. “We were eating dinner in a real fancy restaurant, you know, the kind your wife is always begging you to take her to? Abigail looked beautiful. She wore the red dress I bought her last Valentine’s Day—God, Woody, why’d she have to wear that dress?”

“Maybe she thought it’d bring up good memories.”

“It did.” I brought my knobby knees to rest under my chin on the cushy, maroon velvet chair. “Not that they helped any.”

“Just keep talking.”

“I thought everything was going good—I mean, I was so comfortable with her…she was—is—like some extendable, necessary organ, with trailing veins that connected to my heart. And she cut them. I think I’m dying.”

“Kerry—”

“Emotionally! Emotionally. She met him over the Internet. He had this blog where he talked about how hard life was after his wife died. I read it—pretty words. Much better than anything I’ve ever written.”

“You’re not a writer.”

“Neither is he. He works for some nonprofit organization. An honest to God modern-day saint.”

Woodard sighed, put the tips of his fingers together, almost inside his Santa Claus’ little worker beard. He never had one of those legal-sized notepads with him when he talked with me. Maybe he didn’t use one with any of his patients; maybe it was because he thought I didn’t need a psychiatrist at all. Psychologist, sure, but it was ridiculous, he said, for me to pay his whopper of a fee when I didn’t need any kind of medication, just someone to talk to. I told him I trusted him, would never feel comfortable with anything less than an M.D. Then he would tell me that maybe I did need a shrink, and we’d sit down and chat some more.

“You never struck me as the type to be insecure about your job,” he commented lightly, shuffling through the contact cards on his desk and not meeting my eyes.

“Well, I wasn’t. Not until I realized that cheating clients out of their money on a daily basis is practically evil compared with the Polack saving baby seals, or whatever the hell it is.”

Woody’s slate gray eyes snapped up to my allergy-stricken face. “Cheating clients?”

“Well, sure. Three hundred dollars an hour? It’s robbery! And just yesterday I spent twenty minutes chatting up Richard’s paralegal instead of drawing up that damn contract. Is that worth a hundred dollars? Me flirting with someone ten years younger than me to make sure that I still wasn’t attractive past my pocket book?” I wiped my nose on the top of my knees, back and forth, until it chafed and my pants were too dirty to go to work in.

Woodard looked a little nauseous as he began, “You work hard, Kerry, and you care about what you’re doing for your clients. The need of some reassurance on your sexuality is completely normal. And I’m sure she found you very attractive. You’re thirty-four and have still got a full head of hair, haven’t you? That’s more than I could’ve said at your age.”

“You didn’t see the Polack. There wasn’t a single goddamn freckle on his face. And his nose—well, you know Adrian Brody, don’t you?”

“No.”

“He was in the new King Kong. Come on, Wood, get with it. Anyway, his nose was like Adrian Brody’s.”

“Wait, is that the guy with the grotesquely huge nose?”

“Yes!”

“And you’re threatened by that?”

“Abigail kept a picture of Adrian Brody on her ceiling. When we were sleeping together!”

“Christ, Kerry, what are you fishing for? Compliments? You’re a perfectly attractive young man with a wonderful nose and I’m sure someone out there will find your freckles jump-your-bones sexy. Are you happy now?”

“Yes, I am, actually. Thank you for asking. You’ve given me an idea. I’m going to leave Third City. I’m going to go to a new city and change my name and finally shave my goatee and fall in love and steal cable to watch Teletubbies with the kiddies and—”

“Kerry!” he grunted. I shut up. “I think the name change is a great idea. As for the moving…let’s just take this one day at a time, all right?”

“Don’t call me Kerry, Wood. Call me by my first name, William.”

“Are you sure you don’t want Liam? Bill? Willie?”

“William. William or I jump out that window and blame you in my parting note!”

“You can’t sue me if you’re dead!”

“Maybe I’ll just end up paralyzed.”

“Will it is, then.”

I got up to leave, shook Wood’s hand, and turned towards the door. “You don’t really call them ‘Polacks,’ do you, Ker—William?”

“No, Wood. Just him.”

“Good, good. That’s very healthy.”

I rolled my eyes and exited.

Two weeks passed, the content of which I’m still not secure enough to admit. But in a blur of Bud Light, the soccer World Cup, and cheap sushi, they did slug by, leaving a goopy trail that I realized, even while I was molding the shape of my backside forever into my couch, I would have to clean up eventually.

I devoured Abigail’s chick-flicky movies, watched as the discarded man left the scene with an unknown—and wholly uncared about—future. What happened to these men, I wondered, munching on junk food in a way that would make Dr. Woodard proud—it being “healthy” and all. I felt like if I could just figure out what these tossed-aside men held onto in those awful first weeks… how they came to terms with their mediocrity and got on with their lives… I might be able to survive being second-best. Because there’s no doubt that we liked the mysterious and tortured, yet kind and generous, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome better than Mr. Pasty-Corporate-Executive, or would like Piotr Borkowski better than Kerry. Mr. Pasty-CEO and Kerry were both so bland in comparison to the passionate fireworks that erupted whenever the Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome and the Perfect Polack pulled their ladyloves into their arms. Sure, we felt for Mr. Pasty-CEO and Kerry, poor chums, but had no regrets at all as we followed Ms. Beautiful-Feminist and Abigail to those finale kisses.

When I woke up in a bed of Frito crumbs the afternoon of that third Monday, my plans to leave Third City were firmed, tangible, realistically reachable. I had my Goodbye Train ticket in my favorite plaid suit jacket pocket at all times, and I would pat it whenever my thoughts returned to pennies or bouquets or lemons—Abigail loved lemons. Stop it, Kerry! Stop thinking about her! Who gives a damn what she loved or didn’t love? I’ll tell you one thing she doesn’t love! You!

To get myself in the right mindset, I changed my cell phone and home phone answering machines to, “Hey, you’ve reached William. Leave a message after the beep.” I subsequently received messages to the effect of, “Um, do I have the right number? Well, if this is Kerry, you’re really weird, man—and if not…uh…sorry” and “Ker—I mean, William, this is Dr. Woodard. This is not what I meant by changing your name! Ease people into it, you idiot!” One was particularly disturbing. “Kerry, this is your mother! Abigail called me, looking for you. Apparently you’ve disconnected your phone and the number’s been picked up by some other man—is that because you’ve finally decided to go by your real name? Your father and I are so proud, even if it is a bit random. Anyway, I’m so sorry she left you for that Polack. Your father offered to pop her for you, but I turned him down—you did want me to turn him down, right? Anyway, give me a ring and let me know how you’re doing, darling. Do us a favor and lay off the sleep medication for a few weeks, all right, Hun? I know how you get about the beer.”

After that, I realized that it was no longer preferable to the preservation of my sanity that I left Third City—it was imperative. It was getting to the point where not only did I need to see a shrink—I needed to live with one. Short of having Wood commit me, First City sounded like a good plan. It was a bigger, more varied, interesting city than Third. I’d spent a lot of time there after college, in the years before I decided to go into law like my father. I wondered about my old friends—the poets, radical politicians, and men who I swear majored in slumming and mooching in their big-shot universities.

I packed my two-a-day allergy medication, my nose spray, my miscellaneous toiletries, Hugo Boss aftershave, a pack of those spiffy hand-held flossers, a bottle of Abigail’s Chanel No. 5 I gave to her as an engagement present, all of my clothing (except those hideous sweaters Abigail’s mother picked out for me—those went to the Salvation Army), and my trusty alligator-leather wallet. With just a briefcase and a rolling suitcase (my furniture was being stored until I needed it), I closed the door on my previously shared apartment, and on my old life.

Then, inside, the phone rang.

“Kerry? Kerry, is this you? This ‘William’ guy? If so, that’s really not funny. Well, if you’re there, Ker, pick up.” Abigail sighed on my answering machine, and I came back to my senses with a jolt, wrenching open the door and launching myself at my phone.

“Abigail!” I wheezed. “It’s me.”

“Kerry! Thank God! We haven’t spoken in ages,” Abigail crooned. I dragged a hand over my haggard face, and plopped down into that familiar spot on the couch. The line was silent.

“Um. What’d you need to talk to me for, Abbs?” I cleared my throat. “I mean, Abigail?”

“I just wanted to catch up,” she said brightly. “How’s it going?”

How’s it going? I thought. How do you think it’s going, you— “Great. Just great. How about you? How’s Piotr?”

“He’s wonderful. Thank you, Kerry.”

“For what?” I growled unintentionally.

“For being so understanding and mature about this whole situation. You’re such a great guy. I know you’ll make some lucky girl out there very happy.”

Oh, yeah, I’m sure. Like there isn’t another Perfect Piotr Polack out there to rightfully steal her away from me, too. “Yeah, thanks. Uh—anything else you need?”

“I wanted to invite you over. For dinner. Sometime.” Her awkward, halting words made me think that she’d been deliberating those three weeks whether giving the invitation would cause me more or less pain—and, apparently, thought less. How very, very wrong.

My voice cracked as I spoke. “Actually, Abbs, I’m leaving the city. Going to First for a while.”

“But why?”

“To get away.”

“From what?”

“Not from what, from who. From you.”

“Me!”

“Yeah you, Abigail! You and Piotr, and your new, happy lives! Do you think it’s easy? Do you think that after you broke the news I just went home, looked up some girl’s name in the phone book, and moved on? Life doesn’t work that way, Abbs, at least not for me. I still love you. And I need to get away.”

“Oh, Kerry,” Abigail whimpered, starting to cry. “I h-had no ide-dea!”

“It’s okay,” I consoled grudgingly, but softened soon after, as she started to sob. “Abbs, it’s okay, Honey!”

She blew her nose literally on the phone, and it was a little disgusting, but I didn’t comment. “Would it be all right if I took you to the Train? To say goodbye?”

“Yeah, Abbs. Please.”

She picked me up right on time, and we sat in the expected silence—the awkward, uncomfortable, stifling, tug-your-collar, upper-lip-sweat silence.

“I’ll miss you.” After we arrived, and had gotten my bags secure in my train car, Abigail wrapped her thin arms around my waist and laid her cheek on my chest. “So much.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” I said gruffly into her strawberry-blonde hair. I tipped her chin up so her eyes could meet mine. I grinned. “So much.” She smiled back sadly, and stepped back, so I could board.

I stalled, situating myself meticulously in my train car, watching people around me launch off as their goodbyes dropped off of their lips and never reached the people they were leaving behind. I wondered how many of their departures were as sad and desperate as mine. And there was Abigail, waiting impatiently for me to just say it already, so that she could get back to Perfect Piotr and her Happily Ever After Without Kerry life. She tilted her head to the side: “Ready to go?” I shook my head, and she set her jaw, annoyed. I’m not doing this to vex you, Honey, I thought. I just can’t say—“G—”

And before the word could reach her ears—or even leave my mouth—I was rushing towards my new life at speeds I’d never encountered in all my years of leaving girls behind.

-----------------------------------

The table was rough under my cheek; I was lost, identifying the individual grooves in the wood, the number of splinters, and I imagined I could feel “Sheila & Robert” and some requisite profanities forever engraving themselves on my face. I pulled my arm back onto the table, liking the sensation of blood rushing back into those veins, ones Abigail used to trace with her short nails…my arm rolled off again, too heavy to keep under my head. The scotch in front of me hadn’t touched my lips, yet already the bar around me was surreal and swimming. I may have been crying.

The door blew open and the frigid air, instead of cooling my sweating face, hit it like a punch. I sat up and leaned my chair back on two legs, nearly causing a collision with the woman passing behind me. She gave me an amused look as I thumped my forehead back to the wood. At first glance, I couldn’t tell what color the woman’s hair was—in fact, if not for her gypsy-like, bright orange dress, I wouldn’t have been able to tell her gender. Her hair was spiky, the longest pieces trailing down her back, and every layer seemed to be a different color—blonde, purple, blue, black. I thought, drag queen, but then her smile turned towards me and there could be no mistake.

Her eyes lingered on my slumped form a moment longer as she said soothingly, “Hey, Buddy, what’re you doing here at this hour?”

“Waiting for death,” I groaned dramatically, rolling my head to rest on my other arm. Her brown eyes returned to my face, surprised, and I realized in a wash of chagrin she hadn’t been talking to me.

She moved closer to another man, similar to me in that he was unshaven, and said, “I’m sorry about that,” a smile playing on her dark-outlined lips.

“You weren’t talking to me,” I told her. I wasn’t really this confused; I wasn’t drunk in the slightest, but it wouldn’t hurt letting her think it. “Why would you talk to some random forlorn man in a bar, drunk at three in the afternoon? Go talk to your friend.”

“And so I shall,” she laughed. “I make it a point to talk to forlorn drunks around four, though, so stick around.” Her wink, somehow, made me turn red (something I’ve been doing since birth at the slightest provocation) and I put my forehead back to the cool wood.

I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up the bar was considerably more crowded (the population when I walked in being five people, including the bartender). There was pressure on my shoulder, and when I rolled my head to the side and gazed up, I saw the woman. She was yelling something at the bartender, in jest, I guessed, and her weight was leaning on me.

“Aw, Joe, Buddy, let him stay! He’s not hurting anyone.”

The bartender grunted. “He better be paying for that scotch.”

The woman just laughed at him, and then turned her attention to me. “All right, Buddy, tell me what’s the matter.”

I moved my head back and forth against the table. No.

She laughed. “All right, Bud, we’ll start slow. What’s your name?”

“William Kerry,” I grunted.

“What a shame. I make it a point not to trust men named Dick, Joe, Steve, Bob, Bill…or Will,” she said with a sly smile.

“Good thing they call me Kerry, then.” She laughed, and I noticed her makeup was smudged, running on her cheek in the corner. Abigail would never—“And yours?”

“Temple, if we’re going by last names.”

“And if we’re not?”

“Savannah.” She wasn’t the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, not by a long shot. But she was enough—in fact, too much. I could feel my heartbeat pick up in my chest, noticed my hands getting sweaty. I wiped them on my jeans. “So, Bud—”

“You say that a lot,” I commented, my “drunk” charade still not entirely retired. “Buddy.”

“Yeah, Bud, old habit.” Savannah smacked when she chewed, something Abigail could never tolerate. It didn’t bother me. “You live around here? Need a ride home?”

“I live in Third City.”

“Third?”

“The same.”

“I thought I heard a little twang.” She winked, and tried on a really bad accent. “A gen-yoo-ine Southern gentleman. No wonder you’re so polite.”

“Probably the alcohol,” I mused, smiling under my hand.

She gave me an amused look and pointed to my scotch. The ice had melted. “Could be. If you’d had any.”

“How do you know I didn’t—”

“Joe only insisted you pay for this one drink. And, Buddy, Joe knows.” I covered my beet-red face with my arm again and didn’t respond. “You know, Third City is quite a ways away. When are you going back?”

“Never, if it’s not in a casket,” I said under my breath, and into my arm.

“You’re morbid, aren’t you, Bud?”

I was surprised she heard; my eyebrows disappeared into my hairline, as they tended to do. “It’s a recent development.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

And we did talk. We talked for hours. And when Joe got so fed up with the two of us he told us that the drinks were on him if we’d just get out, Savannah and I kept on talking. How do I explain Savannah. She was the most attentive listener I’d ever been able to hold the attention of, and yet her own stories, her own descriptions of her own pains, plagues, and abandonments, left me thinking, perhaps I didn’t lose my heart, perhaps I only lost a fourth toe, or an earlobe. Savannah had a nasty habit, she told me, of leaving her heart all the way open. She concealed nothing, no fault to her character or shameful story, and so, she claimed, sucked all the mystery—that might have kept the romance tottering along a little longer—out of the relationship.

I told her that maybe she was just saving time, that eventually, those relationships would end just the same; she’d just have more tied up in them. She replied that that was the problem—she had just as much tied up as in a long-term relationship, devoted her entirety every time. It was them who felt they had nothing to lose. Like Eric, her last disappointment. I could see in her eyes that it hurt to say he was now, after just seven months, happily settled.

But at first, the words regarding Abigail and Piotr overpowered all of the little charm I possessed and spilled and chunked out like spoiled, rancid milk. By the end of the night, Savannah was the one talking, and I was the little boy, longing to applaud her. My small reserve of painful memories had run dry, and hers were still flowing—retold in such a funny, relatable way, that I’d swear that they were memorized from Reader’s Digest if I didn’t fully trust her after five hours of nonstop gush. I kept repeating, “I don’t love her anymore,” but I know Savannah saw right through the words.

We passed by a flower shop, and immediately, my allergies flamed. I started to reach into my plaid suit jacket for my nose spray—before remembering I was with a pretty stranger, not an old friend I’d known since college. Nose spray was not the way to secure myself a place in her heart and future, so I suggested ducking into a little pub along the walk. She immediately agreed, saying she thought she saw some friends of hers in there, anyway.

I sought her out after fixing my chronic plague in the solitude of the men’s room, and saw her downing a beer in the middle of a group of people.

“Kerry!” she called out when she spotted me working my way towards her. The pub was small, to be sure, but that didn’t stop the owners from jam-packing it with a hazardous number of spindly wooden tables. “These—” she held her arms out wide, her half-empty beer sloshing around precariously, “are my friends.”

I gave all seven of them a bashful wave, until I realized I knew a few of them. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere?” I asked the nearest guy, a dark-featured man in a lime-green turtleneck and matching sunglasses.

He blinked at me a few times before removing his glasses. “Kerry…William Kerry?” I nodded. “Kerry! It is you! It’s Dave!”

“Dave!” I yelled, thumping him on the back. Dave had been the best friend of my roommate, Connor, in college, before they had a falling out. Unfortunately for me, I’d been on Dave’s side. “How’s Susan?”

“Susan?” he asked, confused. Then, “Oh! God, man, we broke up ages ago. I haven’t thought about Susan in years.”

“Funny how things work out. I was sure you two’d make it.”

“Nah, she was just of-the-moment, you know? I’ve found my soul mate.” And—to my astonishment—Dave pulled the guy next to him closer and put his arm around the guy’s waist. My mouth was unhinged and hanging open by the time I recognized the guy.

“Jesus Christ—Connor? You—you and Dave are—”

“Kerry! Christ, man! It’s been ages! How are you?”

“You’re gay!”

“Yeah!”

“You’re with Dave, now? What about the thing with him and…?”

“All in the past, my friend,” Connor said, giving me one of his famous grins. Famous…with the ladies.

“Funny how things work out,” I repeated, still unable to fully close my mouth. Dave and Connor? The guys whose legendary shouting match (over a woman) nearly ended my life when I got thrown out our dorm window, along with Connor’s television? Holy…Savannah handed me a beer, looking flushed, and I gulped it down gratefully.

“Funny? Nah, man. Just right.”

The next morning, not even counting for meeting Dave and Connor again the night before, I felt like I was back in college. My head swam, my eyes watered, my allergies were so bad I tripled my prescription…and I had no idea whose couch I was on. The room, I could see even from my prone position, looked like it’d been blasted by a cultural bazooka. A red, Chinese armoire with a too-small Sony television was the only thing on the front wall. A collection of opera hats were haphazardly nailed above the front door, and there was, strangely, a hippopotamus-leg umbrella stand in the middle of the driftwood coffee table in front of me. Most of the other furniture was made up of orange crates and neat looking barrels with flea market table cloths thrown on top of them. There were fluorescent flyers littering every surface that wasn’t already splattered with curry take-out.

“Morning!” a vaguely familiar voice trilled somewhere behind me. I sat up too fast, and the world turned into an amusement park ride for a few seconds before my cerebellum righted itself.

“Savannah?” my voice croaked.

“Yep! Oh, Bud, you’re hung over.” Savannah, I noted, looked like a different person without her plethora of eyeliner, a freshly scrubbed face, and her hair in a ponytail.

I moaned, closed my eyes, and rested my cheek against the back of the animal print couch. “No kidding. Aren’t you? You drank just as much as me.”

“Yeah, I did hit it pretty hard last night…but I never get hung over.”

My head whipped back to her face so fast my neck cricked. “Never? Are you kidding me?”

She grinned. “Hey, no need to get hostile. If I were hung over, too, there’d be no one to mix you a remedy, now would there?”

“Thanks,” I sighed, exasperated but grateful.

“You were quite the life of the party last night, Buddy,” Savannah said with a twinkle in her eye as she fiddled around in the kitchen.

“Was I? I can’t remember much past midnight.”

“My friends really liked you—even the ones who weren’t already acquainted with you. You’ll have to tell me that Dave and Connor story to me sober sometime, by the way, Bud. It was hilarious last night…but not very intelligible.”

“Sorry,” I yawned, and put a hand to my aching temple.

“Just wanted to let you know, they said to invite you back out for drinks sometime. Now go back to sleep.”

“Thanks,” I sighed again, and fell back into merciful darkness.

I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but one delay after another, I ended up staying on Savannah’s couch. She kept insisting it was fate, and until some millionaire showed up at her door offering me his summer home in Nantucket, I was stuck. We had fun with each other—Thursday night, we decided to make a cake, and though for the sake of my sanity I had to persuade her away from lemon meringue—“I don’t love her anymore!”—we had a wonderful time mutilating her kitchen with German chocolate.

Almost every other night, we’d go out with her friends Georgia, Sean, Yentl, Dave, Connor, Tessa, and Tim. While I was by no means the ringleader of our little gang, and I made a fool of myself more than once, those foolish moments were laughed at, not looked down upon, and I eventually grew able to interject my own opinion now and then in their rapid-fire conversation. Most of the time I was content to listen—but, miraculously, I never felt out of the loop.

It’d been a while since I’d been out with anyone other than Abigail, Abigail’s parents, or my own clients, as sad as that sounds. While I was completely comfortable with Abigail and her kind, chirpy voice, detailing her day and her agenda for the next, conversation felt stilted with her parents. Even two years into our engagement, the Pichenys scared the pants off of me. No, seriously, the first time they met me I was in Abigail’s childhood room in my boxers—my pants were drying after I’d spilled Mrs. Pichney’s awful, bitter lemonade on them—and I never felt as if I lived it down, no matter how much sucking up I did, or expensive champagne I brought.

-------------------------------

“So, does the firm know you’re gone?” asked Savannah, her head in my lap as we watched MSNBC.

“Uh…yeah. I sent them an email.” I cleared my throat, adjusted my position a little; my tailbone had been falling asleep. “I’m pretty sure they were going to fire me, anyway. I hadn’t been in to work for three weeks at that point.”

Savannah sighed, fingered the end of her longest piece of hair—platinum blonde. “Yet another unemployed man staying in my house.”

I tugged on the shortest, magenta piece, smirking a little. “Admit it. You’ve never housed a renegade lawyer before, have you?”

“Very true—but I have had an allegedly deceased mobster, and, sorry Bud, but that beats you out—”

“Oh, what, Savannah, is it the adrenaline rush you got thinking that at any moment the mob could find you out and come crashing through your door? Because, you know, I got in a little tiff with the IRS one time—”

I couldn’t bring myself to be offended, even when Savannah fell off the couch she was laughing so hard.

That isn’t to say Savannah didn’t have her faults.

“Savannah! You switched our mouthwash again!” I yelled, shaking the half-empty bottle of Vanilla Mint grumpily. “I bought an entirely new flavor just for that reason—and you know how I hate trying new things.”

“Sheesh, what’s your problem now? It’s just stupid Listerine,” Savannah griped, leaning against the bathroom’s doorjamb and crossing her arms.

“It wouldn’t bother me so much if you didn’t drink it.”

“I feel like I have bad breath all day if I don’t purge my mouth of all that bacteria!”

“That’s probably why you’re never hung over. You’ve built up a whopping tolerance for alcohol.”

Savannah gives me a withering look, made worse by too much blue eyeliner. “Buddy…you’re an idiot.”

My self-esteem was, apparently, not an object of concern. Other little things began to irk me, like her gross overuse of “Buddy,” the way she’d wear such high heels and then complain about her toes hurting, and how passive she was. Instead of admitting her feelings were hurt, or her hopes disappointed, she’d laugh it off—and while I’m sure this was a great tool that I should develop, too, in moderation, to use it in every instance…well, even Wood wouldn’t consider it healthy.

“So, this Savannah’s the rebound girl now.” I could practically see Woody lick his lips—not in a gross, leering old man way, though. It was just something he did in lieu of lip balm for his horribly chapped lips. Dr. Woodard and I had phone sessions every Thursday, which were costing me a fortune, but I felt they were helping. Except in situations like these.

“No! No, it’s not like that at all. Stop making assumptions. You’re not my friend, you’re my shrink.” I shook my head, and I knew Wood could hear it in my voice, even if he couldn’t see it. It was kind of sad, the way we’d memorized each other’s quirks. “God, Wood.”

“Sorry, sorry. Just, from the description of your relationship—”

“—You made a grossly exaggerated assumption based on your lack of relationship experience in the real world. It’s okay, Bud, shrinks are human, too.”

“’Bud’? Are you saying that now, too? Kerry, how serious are you with this girl, if she’s not your way of getting over Abigail?”

“I’m not serious at all with her. That’s what makes it great. Abigail was all serious—Savannah doesn’t even want to be married until she’s in her seventies, and that’s just to check it off her ‘Things To Do Before I Die’ list.”

“I don’t want you—or Savannah—getting hurt. What if Abigail calls tomorrow, asking for you back? What are you going to do about Savannah?” You’d think he’d say that with concern in his voice. No way. Woody sounded as monotonous and snarky as ever.

“Three things are wrong about that assumption. One, I don’t love Abigail anymore. Well, I mean, I love her, but I don’t love her. Not anymore. So I wouldn’t come crawling back as you seem to be implying. Two, she wouldn’t leave Perfect Piotr in the first place. Three, I wouldn’t do that to Savannah.” I paused, then quickly added, “If we were ever in a romantic situation.”

Dr. Woodard sounded skeptical. “And why couldn’t Piotr leave Abigail?”

“Because,” I said, exasperated, “then he wouldn’t be perfect.”

Wood snorted. “Would it make any difference to say ‘nobody’s perfect’?”

I put down the receiver.

We were sitting in front of the television again, Savannah flipping channels like a maniac and me growing more and more impatient as we got up into the two-hundreds.

“What is the point of having three-hundred channels if you can’t settle on anything?” I grouched, pushing her off of my lap and snatching the remote from her claw-like teal fingernails. I punched in 4-3 emphatically, bottom lip irritably in between my teeth, and plopped down on top of the remote.

“The History Channel? Death Weapons of the East? God no, Kerry. Give me the remote—”

I grinned wickedly, feeling like a vindictive little boy and not caring. “No.”

She grumbled something unintelligible, and gave a frustrated exhale. “Come on. Not Death Weapons. Let’s watch the Sci-Fi Channel.”

“You mean it?” I scrutinized her heart-shaped face, grateful I didn’t find her very attractive when she wore so much makeup—and for the fact that she wore too much makeup nearly all the time.

“Scout’s honor,” she promised solemnly, holding up two fingers.

Still squinting suspiciously at her, I unearthed the remote and handed it to her reluctantly. “Sci-Fi,” I clarified, and she nodded, before hurriedly changing it to The Soup and taking out the batteries. “Ahk!” I squealed. “You little—”

It happened fast. I tackled her side, tickled her until she could barely stand and she was limp in my arms. We were both still chuckling as I unwittingly pulled her to me, brushing her sweaty, chaotic, multi-colored hair out of her face…

The phone rang, waking us to the situation. Savannah’s eyes were wide—and my mouth opened to let out some unknown explanation, before Savannah yelled in my face, too enthusiastic, “I’ll get it!”

“Hello, this is Savannah Temple, may I ask who’s calling?” Her greeting let me know it was an unknown number with an out-of-province area code—otherwise she’d answer, ‘Talk to me, Bud.’ “Abigail?” She turns around to give me a significant look, eyebrows raised suggestively. “The Abigail? Wow, I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Savannah. Kerry’s been sleeping—”

My throat closes when she’s obviously cut off, and can’t continue ‘on my couch’—Abigail will assume we’re sleeping together—oh, God. Then I remember one, I don’t care, and two, neither does Abigail.

“Wow, really? I’m sure he’d love that. Are you sure it’s okay if I tag along? You wanna talk to him? Oh, okay. Saturday at five-thirty. We’ll be there. Bye!” Savannah whirled around to face me with a wild look in her eye.

“What did you do?” I asked, horrified.

She looked unaccountably proud of herself. “Set up a dinner date. With Abigail. So, what do you think? I did good, right?”

My voice was approximately three octaves too high. “She invited me to dinner?”

“And me.”

“Where? With who?”

“At her house. She said you’d know where it was. You, me, Abigail, and Perfect Piotr Polack.” Savannah winked. “This is great.”

“How the hell is this great?” I was beginning to get over the shock and feel the fury—on what plane of existence could Savannah think this was okay, let alone great?

“Well, Saturday could go one of three ways. One, you could win her back, and live happily ever after. Two, nothing could happen and you might get over her entirely. Three, you go on pining and she goes on rejecting. We will see.”

“Your confidence in me is touching,” I drawled, really more perturbed than I was letting on, and excused myself to go on a long walk, disturbed by long-avoided thoughts.

As those three days before Saturday passed, my ambivalence over the dinner just increased. While externally I kept insisting that this was a bad idea, and in general, my mind agreed—sometimes, when I’d lie on the couch in the dim light and listen to the First City cars bustling and griping with one another outside, I’d imagine winning her back. Or, short of that, since I really wasn’t sure I even wanted Abigail back, finding that Perfect Piotr really wasn’t as wonderful as Abigail and my low self-esteem made him out to be. In my fantasies, I eventually escalated to super hero status—but always, foremost in my mind was getting Abigail out of it. I hoped beyond hope that this dinner would somehow be the night I, after almost two months, finally moved on.

My most realistic fantasy dinner began with me being cool, calm, and unaffected when I entered Abigail and Perfect Piotr’s new, shared house. I knew the address very well; it was the exact house that Abigail and I said we would buy one day when we were married and had children on the way. I didn’t want to think about their reasons for moving in, but, somehow, when Savannah rang that doorbell, an inundation of these unwanted thoughts came flooding in. Is she pregnant? I wondered, and suddenly my hands were sweaty, my eyes were teary, and I was sure my freckles were practically popping off of my face.

Abigail hugged me when she opened the door, smiling and teary-eyed like I knew she would be, but I hardly felt it. I ghosted inside, wishing I’d gone to the party Savannah was missing to be here next to me, watching me more and more resemble a puddle.

“Remind me of your name again?” Abigail asked Savannah, and I knew that she remembered—it was one of her intimidation tactics. A tiny tendril of hope sparked deep in my chest. Savannah wasn’t fazed, though, and that hope was overcome by my surprising pride in her.

“Savannah Temple. I remember your name. Abigail Pichney. Kerry talks about you all the time. I feel like I know you already. You must be a really great person for Kerry to love you so much.”

I choked on my own deep breath I’d just taken to calm down—and felt my face redden. No! I thought. Not the way this is supposed to go! I crunched my foot down on Savannah’s exposed toes, and she let out a painful squeak. I saw what she was up to, flattering Abigail like that and at the same time putting me in a good light. And I really didn’t appreciate it. I pulled her aside in one of the doorways in the modestly, but tastefully, furnished hallway, right before the kitchen. Yes, I knew this house inside and out. I sighed.

“Savannah, please! I don’t love her anymore! And now she thinks I’m a lovesick puppy…” I groaned. “Oh, why.”

Savannah for some reason I couldn’t fathom looked smug. “This proves it. You wouldn’t care what she thought at all if you weren’t still in love with her.”

“Did it occur to you that maybe I’m just extremely self-conscious? And that maybe I wanted to impress the woman who left me for another, better man?”

“No, Kerry. Don’t start that up again. You’re just as good as him.” She put her warm hands on either side of my face. “Believe me, okay, Bud?”

I nodded, still entirely unsure, and entered the dining room, where Abigail and Perfect Piotr were waiting to rip out the final seam on my best, pinstriped suit.

Oh, hell. Perfect Piotr really was perfect. To Abigail, at least, I was sure. He was even better looking than his Adrian Brody doppelganger, sitting at the far-end of their oak table, cutting a pot roast. Abigail ran her hand along the length of his shoulder, kissed him on the neck briefly as she passed. This, of course, branded a new picture on my mind’s eye, one that I felt like I could see the entire dinner, spent staring at Abigail and her corresponding puzzle piece, ladling gravy on each other’s potatoes and complimenting the other on his excellent cooking. Evidently, Perfect Piotr was a gourmet hobbyist. I felt sick to my stomach.

Savannah played her part wonderfully. She didn’t embarrass me further, complimented the couple plenty for the both of us, so it didn’t seem as strange that I wasn’t talking, and looked radiant. She had toned down the makeup to a more elegant look just, I thought, for me, and I couldn’t help looking at her out of the corner of my eye, whenever I remembered through my Abigail haze that she was there.

“Oh, Abigail, this pie is divine!” Savannah exclaimed, closing her eyes and scraping her teeth on the fork to get every lemon meringue morsel off. Abigail flinched; I knew she hated that sound.

“Thank you. And thank you for coming,” Abigail cooed, placing her hand on Savannah’s. Savannah smiled.

“Thanks for having me.” She nudged me with her stiletto under the table.

“For having us,” I grunted hurriedly, my eyes wide. Like a magpie, my eyes had centered on something glittering on Abigail’s fourth finger. I fixed a smile on my face. “Oh, is that your promise ring?”

“Promise ring?” Confused, her chirpy voice faltered.

I felt my face harden. “It’s an engagement ring, then?”

“It’s…Kerry.” Abigail shot me a stern look, and held my blue eyes with her brown ones. “Piotr and I are married.” She held his hand, and he smiled at her lovingly.

The shock abated after a beat. I should’ve seen it coming. “You never told me you were engaged.”

“We…never really were.”

“I wasn’t invited to the wedding.”

“I thought it would be kinder—”

“Kinder? Oh, yes, you’re an angel, Abigail. Did it ever occur to you that it might have been kinder to leave me well enough alone?”

“But you’re my friend. I thought we were friends.”

“How can we be friends when every time I look at him I remember how much more you love him, how much better he is than me?”

Perfect Piotr Polack looked alarmed—he scooted his chair back while simultaneously standing, and asked Savannah if she’d like to step into the other room for coffee. Savannah, not looking at me, agreed. They left arm in arm, but I hardly noticed.

“Kerry. He’s not better than you. He’s just…better for me,” said Abigail earnestly.

“Why? Abbs, what’s wrong with me?” My voice cracked and trembled. How embarrassing. What a wuss.

“Nothing!”

“You’re lying!” I shouted, and, with less satisfaction than I thought I’d feel, watched uptight, faultless Abigail snap.

“Fine! Kerry, you’re so stubborn, so blindly hard-headed, closed-minded, and paranoid! I hated how my parents would pretend they liked you for my sake, but really they hated the way you would kiss their asses constantly! I hate how boring you are at dinner parties, how dull your conversation is. Your allergies always annoyed me, how you’d rip the blankets off the bed in the middle of the night to blow your nose. And I hate your freckles.”

I allowed an awkward, pregnant pause to develop between as us her breathing slowed and her complexion returned to its pretty beige. She looked at me and bit her lip, almost frightened.

I smiled softly. “Well then. I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot better.”

“What?”

I laughed easily at the expression on Abigail’s face. “The blind paranoia was a blow, I have to admit, but the allergies? The freckles? I can’t help those at all. As for sucking up to your parents, I did that in the beginning out of politeness and nerves. I continued because they seemed to appreciate it—apparently not. As for my dull conversation, I met someone, and she likes to hear what I have to say, and her friends like me, too. I guess being with you so long made me forget what it was like feeling wanted and accepted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Savannah and I are going to go. I made her miss a party to come here, and now I kind of want to go. I hope Piotr and you have very interesting conversations, and that his nose doesn’t become as repulsive to you as freckles in time.” I kissed her on the cheek, held her fondly by the shoulders, and grinned. “See you, Abigail Borkowski.”

I strutted out of the kitchen, hands tucked deep in my suit pockets, still smiling like a maniac. I’d done it! Finally! After too long, I felt like those marionette strings Abigail had grasped and controlled for nearly three years were finally cut, and I was just learning to use my real-boy legs.

I think Savannah, I thought, calculating, is better for me. Like Piotr is better for Abigail. I threw open the living room door, feeling generous enough even to congratulate Piotr on his marriage, when I spotted what that Polack was doing. He had his hand on Savannah’s knee. She was smiling and blushing prettily. Her shoes were off and thrown aside. I blanched.

“Savannah! What the—what are you doing? With him?”

Who had I been kidding? Me, on the same level as Perfect Piotr? I was just William Kerry, too sniffling and ugly to keep a girlfriend, and too weak and insecure to hold his life together when he lost her. Piotr was just over all a better man—and I was subpar. The cast away man, the filler guy. No woman would ever pick me after seeing Perfect Piotr—how stupid I’d been. Stupid stupid stupid.

“Kerry, what—” Savannah started, but I cut her off with a slicing motion.

“No! No, Savannah, I get it.” And I ran out of my once-dream-house like I was being pulled by invisible strings.

“Kerry! Kerry, wait for me, damn it! I want to explain!” Savannah caught up with me on the end of the street, where I’d paused at an old-fashioned street light. She grumbled, “Though, what I’m explaining for, I have no idea.”

“No idea? You were flirting with Perfect Piotr!” I shouted. I paused for a deep breath, and then in a calmer voice, said, “But it’s okay. I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s better, bottom line.”

Oh, Kerry. Don’t even start that. You abandoned me with him to go have a little tiff with your lover! Excuse me for not wanting to sit in silence for the forty minutes you were yelling at one another!”

“And that somehow involved undressing?” I was shouting again.

“My shoes, Kerry! My God damn shoes! They were pinching the hell out of my toes!”

“His-hand-was-on-your-knee!” I used my finger to jab each consonant into her chest.

“Just drop it, would you? This isn’t about me! This is about Abigail Borkowski. She went off and married Perfect Piotr Polack when she wouldn’t marry you, and you’re angry, Kerry, admit it!”

“No!” I scrambled for words. “I don’t care if she’s married! She left me—”

“You never begged for her back. You never left a single phone message, did you? No eight hundred phone calls. You just accepted defeat and dived right into your pool of self-pity. Ready to be worthless.”

“I am worthless!” I yelled at her, before turning my back.

Savannah didn’t sound angry anymore—she sounded sad. “You’re not worthless, Kerry. You just never learned to love yourself—everyone else had to do it for you. But maybe it’s time to start…or else, no one will be able to any more.”

Her floral skirt swished from side to side as she clicked down the street, limping a little because her feet hurt, and shaking a little, either from the night’s chill or from the silent tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

------------------------------

I sat in the train, wondering how I was going to pull this off. I didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to that was on the platform, no feasible way to get my car to head for Second City…but I had an experiment to try.

I had left a note for Savannah on her couch. I was embarrassed thinking about it now—I had been too worked up when I wrote it. There were some sentiments in it that I didn’t really mean, ones that were both too angry and too sappy. I felt myself blush, but then remembered that I wouldn’t see her again, so I didn’t need to worry.

Train cars started moving all around me as their passengers said goodbye to loved ones on the train platform. This is stupid, I thought, grumbling unintelligibly. Who cares about the environment, really? We should at least have fuel-powered trains available for times like these.

I tried to do it. I really did. I said goodbye to that person I was leaving behind—though figuratively—over and over again, and, I thought, with meaning. But I didn’t move an inch.

“Damn it!” I growled, slapping my hands on my knees.

“Temper, Kerry,” someone chastised from behind me. I whipped around.

“Savannah?” I croaked, confused. And there she stood, no makeup on, in a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, breathing heavily.

“I was worried I wouldn’t make it,” she said softly.

“I—uh—what are you doing here?”

“Convincing you to stay, of course,” she said easily, coming to sit beside me. I stared at her, unable to close my eyes or my mouth. “I got your letter.”

That got a reaction with me. “Oh, God…” I groaned, putting my head in my hands.

“Hey, don’t sweat it. I thought it was sweet.” I went to open my mouth, but she cut me off. “I know you didn’t mean half of it. But I appreciated it all the same. But I have to clarify—I don’t love Piotr! Idiot!” She grinned.

“But you liked Piotr, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did. He was a good guy. Kind, generous, a good sense of humor...” Savannah trailed off, twirling her hand in midair.

“And he was good looking.”

“Well, sure. A girl like Abigail wouldn’t go out with anyone average.” It sounded like that carried some double meaning—and her wink confirmed it. “Don’t get me wrong, I liked her too.”

“She’s wonderful. Piotr’s a lucky guy.” I grinned back at her. I could be more generous now that I knew what I always did know. She didn’t love Perfect Piotr, because he wasn’t the one that was perfect for her. That was Abigail’s territory.

“So,” Savannah started, snuggling back in the taxi cab. “Who were you going to say goodbye to?”

“Well, it wasn’t working,” I told her. “But I was trying to say goodbye to my old self.”

When we got home, the first thing I did was rip up that letter. “Should I bring it up now or later?” I asked her playfully.

To my surprise, she looked troubled by something. She sat on “my” couch, twiddling her thumbs. “Let me start. I still say you’re still in love with Abigail—”

“But I’m not! I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not—”

“Kerry, let me finish, would you? You might still be in love with Abigail now—and maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m still in love with Eric too, you know? Maybe we’ll never stop. But I’ll stick around and see what happens, all right, Bud?”

I plopped down next to her, probably too close, and put an arm around her, feeling completely at ease.

“All right. You’re on. First one to fall out of love with their old lover wins.”

“What’s the prize?”

“Is picking the week’s Ben and Jerry’s flavor for the rest of our lives incentive enough?”

“Hell yeah, Buddy. Let’s stop by Cho’s and pick up some Cherry Garcia on the way to Dave’s.”

“Cherry Garcia? No way! New York Super Fudge.”

“Hey, I won fair and square.”

“On what plane of existence, you—”

“I just said that about Eric to make you feel better!”

I grinned at her, devilishly. “Sounds like you’re free to love me then.”

Savannah appeared to swallow her tongue, and said quietly, “I never said I wanted to.”

I pulled her closer to me and put my cheek on her hair. “I don’t think life often asks if you do.”