Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff

Chapter Fifty

I text Sarah, and when that doesn’t work, I call her. But she doesn’t answer, which means I could try calling my mom, but I would honestly rather wax my bikini line myself than end this walk of shame with my mother’s raised brow. So unless I want to run back across the street to Nick’s, I am stuck out here for the rest of the night.

And since I can’t actually think of anything I want to do less than go back to Nick’s… Who knew life in the burbs could be this completely random?

With an annoyed sigh, I flounce over to one of the lounge chairs my aunt had set up around her mermaid sculpture fountain in the center of the backyard. I used to tell her she should get a pool, but she’d just take a sip of her mai tai and tell me that anyone could have a pool. It took a woman with style to have mermaids.

And she wasn’t wrong. No better site for my shameful demise, I suppose.

I pull the lounge chair several extra feet away from the sculpture’s splash zone before settling down on it for the night. The chair is still damp from the last few times the sculpture spit on it, but it’s a warm night, so it’s no big deal.

And thankfully, the lounge chair is as comfortable as I remember, so sleeping on it won’t be that big of a deal. If I can sleep, which I’m not sure I can—not when visions of that moment in the bathroom keep running through my head.

Nick’s eyes locked on mine in the mirror, his body thrusting into me, my heart falling wide open at his feet as I admit the one thing I swore to myself I would never tell another man. The one thing I swore to myself I would never let happen.

I need you.

Just the thought of having said it out loud gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can pretend it was no big deal, can pretend that I was just talking sexually, that I was just saying I needed him in that moment. It’s a valid argument—he did have me totally drunk on desire—but I know the truth. In those moments, when we were both so open, so naked, so vulnerable with each other, those three words—“I need you”—meant a whole lot more than for a simple orgasm.

They meant everything I’ve been fighting against, everything I’ve been trying to prove to myself I could do without since the divorce.

Apparently, when push comes to shove, I really have learned nothing. I’m not even fully out of from under the mess I made with Karl but determined to stand on my own two feet. Determined to build a life for myself. And within a month, I ended up totally wrapped up in another guy. And not just any guy. Nick.

He’s not having my baby, obviously, and I’m not having his, but am I really any different from Karl? Or am I just the same, hitting thirty-five and determined to give my life meaning by any means possible, including sleeping with—and worse, falling for—some guy I didn’t even know existed a month ago?

Can I get any more pathetic?

No. No, I can’t.

And now I’m going to have to come up with some reason as to why I snuck out in the middle of the night that won’t hurt his feelings or make me look like a total asshole. Then again, I left my clothes piled on his bathroom floor and my shoes kicked off under his dining room table. The ship has probably sailed on that last one. I am a total asshole.

But at least I’m an asshole whose heart is safe. And who still has a chance of building her new life the way she wants it, not the way anyone else wants it. Surely that has to count for something, right?

And honestly, after what Nick shared tonight, can he blame me? How could I possibly be in a relationship with him, knowing how fucked up I still am and what it would do to him if things ended badly? Hasn’t he been through enough agony for one lifetime? I can’t add to his pain, I just can’t. It’s better that I end things now, before he’s any more invested, than realize six months from now that I’m just not relationship material anymore.

I roll over onto my side and try to pretend that I’m not worried about being eaten alive by mosquitoes all night.

Besides, how can I ever learn to fix the mistakes I made with Karl if I jump right back into a relationship with another guy? I know Nick is nothing like Karl, but I’m still me. And I can see all the old traps looming in front of me. I’ve spent a long time blaming Karl for our divorce—and yes, he is the one who cheated on me and he is the one who’s trying so hard to screw me over financially—but I’m the one who let him do that to me.

I’m the one who gave him my power. I’m the one who spent all those years swallowing my tongue, not rocking the boat, letting him have his way because it was easier, even when I knew it was wrong.

Is that on Karl?

Hell yeah, the man is an asshole who wouldn’t know how to shoot straight if his life depended on it. But it’s also on me and I’m willing to own it. But owning it means I have to work on it. I have to solve the problem. I can’t just jump into another relationship unless I want to make the same mistakes with Nick that I did with Karl.

And I don’t. I really, really don’t.

All evidence to the contrary, though. Hell, even ordering dinner that one night, I let him choose what we ordered. I mean, yeah, I was fine with Indian, but honestly, I’d had a craving for something else. Why hadn’t I said something then? What is it about me that’s so willing to make everyone else happy over myself?

Nick deserves someone who can stand up for herself, who is treated like an equal because she is an equal. Nick deserves better than a doormat. And honestly, so do I.

Giving up on my side, I roll onto my back again and stare at the sky above me. In Manhattan, there are way too many lights on at all times to ever be able to see the stars. But out here at night, when the whole neighborhood is in bed around me, it’s hard to miss them up there.

They’re bright and beautiful and shiny, and I want nothing more than to reach up and grab one. Obviously, I know that’s impossible for about ten million different reasons—the first and foremost one being science—but knowing that doesn’t make me want to do it any less.

Aunt Maggie used to tell me falling stars were falling because they’d lost heart and that’s what made them drop out of the sky. She warned me never to do that, made me promise to never give up, to never fall, to stay burning bright in the sky forever.

I tried, but I failed. And now, here I am, with a perfect view of the stars and no way to get back among them.

If I give up now, if I just fall for Nick, how am I ever going to find my way back to the sky—back to the stars—again? Even more important, how will I ever find my way back to myself? He’s a great guy. I have absolutely no doubts about that. But am I the great woman he needs by his side when I’m still such a work in progress?

It’s a question I’m still contemplating when the stars begin to disappear and dawn streaks across the sky. And I still have no answer. To that question or what I’m going to say when I see Nick at work again today.