Deleted Scene: The Messy Truth About Love

Hannah

My Heart Insists It’s Time to Stop Saying I’m Sorry

If I were truly cognizant about how letters were slung together to create meaning, the words that broke apart in my throat the moment I opened my mouth to respond to what Sebastian has said would still be there. Instead, I sat across from him at a chain restaurant staring at him open-mouthed with shock and hot with embarrassment. I glanced around at the nearby tables and wondered if they could hear the drama playing out next to them and couldn’t get over that he’d brought me here to do this.

Sebastian looked down at the table, his eyes unable to hold onto mine. His auburn hair was a little long, longer than he usually let it go, the waves styled with product. His mouth was hidden by the trimmed beard, but I could tell he was frowning. He looked so handsome—always had to me—dressed up for our date. That’s how he’d sold it to me, offering a long stem rose in hand the day before.

“I’d like to take you out before the term ends,” he’d said. And he’d smiled, the edges of his eyes curling with that smile.

Like a fool, I’d hoped he was trying to get us back on track.

I’d taken care to get ready, hopeful. Chose a pretty, black dress, fitted, with an over-one-shoulder neckline and the diamond pendant he bought me for my birthday. Things had been strained between us, but it was our first football season together, his last before the draft. We’d survived spring and the kind of constraints put on student-athletes. I’d just thought the way things had been off between us through the fall was the natural ebb and flow of typical relationships under that strain. A night out, just the two of us, I assumed, was his way of helping us reconnect. I certainly hadn’t expected him to say, “I’m seeing someone else.”

A long stem rose for goodness’ sake.

The smile with the crinkle edges.

Blindsided, off-balance, and confused, I couldn’t find the words.

“This isn’t working for me anymore,” he said.

“Would you like to look at the dessert menu?” 

My eyes swung from Sebastian to the waiter standing table side, whose smile faltered as if he could feel the tension, a blizzard blowing through. He swallowed. 

I offered him a smile and shook my head. Maybe it was a pained smile, but the winter storm that cropped up at our table wasn’t his fault. My eyes bounced around the restaurant again, checking to see if others could tell, but the post-Thanksgiving cheer of the impending holiday season was driving their smiles and laughter. 

Not at our table. Obviously.

Maybe this restaurant should have been a clue, the all-you-can-eat-pasta bowl a draw for the after-work office party, or the elderly on a budget.

The waiter slipped away.

Sebastian still wasn’t looking at me, but his jaw was set as he glanced at the table next to us; their loud guffaws offered a reprieve and a slight case of envy.  The low hum of Christmas music with an Italian flare played over the speakers. The clank of dishes and the murmur of dozens of conversations happening simultaneously in the lowlight in the chain restaurant contributed to the chaotic white noise in my head, until finally, words formed and found their way into my mouth. 

“How long have you been feeling… that way?”

His blue eyes met mine, and it was the first time I ever thought of them as cold. When I’d met him—almost a year ago—I’d thought of them as inviting. “Does it matter?” He’d cut me off.

Maybe it didn’t. Not really. He was right. Our relationship had been in its death throes for some time. Even I’d toyed with that thought. Each time he’d brought up our lack of sex, or every time I asked for more emotional intimacy, somehow, we’d patch up the fissures between us with promises. He’d smile and tell me he didn’t want to lose me. I’d acquiesce to his demands. Then the promises would crack and disintegrate to dust, slipping back into the spaces still there between us. Then the cycle would resume. He’d reminded me I was broken, and he was there to hold me together. He was right. I was broken. 

Then.

Now, almost a year since we first met, I didn’t feel as broken anymore.

My first instinct was to apologize to Sebastian for failing at this. As if his wanting to fuck someone else and end things was my fault alone.  I would have a month ago. Only those words fail to form. 

I’m not completely surprised he was looking outside of our relationship. My instincts told me this was the case. So those words, I’m sorry, caught in my throat like all the other words I’ve tried to capture to solve this. Versions of my dad, my mom, my sister, Ruth, my friends—Jewel, Joy, Mason, and Abby—in my mind, their faces serious and disappointed. Jewel’s voice in my head said, “What the fuck do you have to be sorry for, Hannah?”

And she would be right.

So I didn’t apologize even if it was my first response. Instead, I stood, and pulled my black coat from the back of the chair, slipping my arms into it and fastening the large black buttons. Maybe not words, but somehow, it felt louder and better.

Sebastian stood, and his chair flopped back hitting the floor. “I still have to pay. I can take you home after that. We can talk.” He righted it, grabbed his coat hung on the back, and waved for the waiter.

I shook my head, “I don’t want to talk.” My voice was barely above a whisper so I stopped, afraid any more words would flee from my throat to my eyes, turning into tears; I didn’t want to cry, not there. “I’ll order a ride,” I managed, drawing my cell from my handbag.

“Hannah. Please. Don’t make a scene.”

I looked around the restaurant where the people next to us were now looking, the frigid winter storm moving beyond our table.

Something inside of me snapped, like a twig, a breaking away of deadwood from what was still alive inside of me. “Who brought me here to tell me he wanted to break up because he met someone else?”

He didn’t reply, words failing him, now.

I turned and walked from the restaurant. I hated that I would have to wait for a car. The vibrant cold outside was the perfect focal point for my hurt. The bright burn slid through my lungs forcing my focus there instead of the weird way I was feeling, settling in the center of my chest. It didn’t hurt exactly, even if it did hurt. My heartbeat with a vibrancy to match the cold, and it was the most alive I’d felt in ages.

“Hannah.” 

I turned at the sound of Sebastian’s voice, then offered him my back.

“Please. I don’t want things to be this way.”

“How’s that?” 

“With you being all emotional.”

I turned and looked at him. His hands were shoved into his charcoal wool coat. The collar was turned up around his jaw. Words caught in my mouth again, and I pressed my teeth together with frustration to sift through the ones I wanted. “What did you expect?” I looked away.

“You’re right. I should have expected you to be emotional. You always make more of things–”

“Make more of things?” I took a deep breath. “I’m emotional about nine months together and being blindsided in a restaurant?” I narrowed my eyes. “Fuck you, Bash.” I looked at my phone. Three minutes away.

He made a noise through his nose that came across condescending, but he didn’t leave. He waited, but he didn’t offer to take me home.

Not that I’d get in the car with him. 

I didn’t feel numb with surprise anymore. It was anger I felt, bright and hot.

Sebastian reached out and grabbed ahold of my arm.

I jerked away from his touch. “Don’t touch me.”

“We can be adults about this.”

“Yes, because this was very adult of you, Sebastian.”

“Don’t get unhinged, Hannah. You always do that. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Something nice.” I shook my head and was grateful that the car pulled into the parking lot, even more grateful that Sebastian and I didn’t live together like we discussed a month ago. Grateful my mom, in all her wisdom, pressed that I wait.

“Hannah?” The driver called from the window.

I waved and smiled even if it belied the truth of my feelings. I pulled the handle of the car and opened the door, but it slammed shut with Sebastian hand on it, having pushed it closed. 

“Are you okay?” The driver asked.

“Get out of my way,” I told Sebastian.

He stepped in close to me, and the heat I once felt wasn’t there. “Don’t leave like this, Hannah. Don’t ruin what we had.”

The driver gets out of the car. “Ma’am? Do you still need the car?”

I nodded and all the words I wanted earlier rushed forward. All of them, all at once, and I sifted through them. I met Sebastian’s gaze. “I didn’t. You ruined this.” I pushed at his chest and Sebastian stepped away. I opened the car door and after climbing into the backseat, I refused to look at Sebastian as the car pulled away from the curb.

I texted Jewel: Are you home?

Jewel: Yep.

Me: Sebastian broke up with me.

Jewel: I’ll come and get you!

Me: I ordered a car. In it now.

Jewel: I’ll be waiting with the tub of cookie dough.

And she was. The moment I inserted my key into the door, it opened, and there she was, my gorgeous roommate, dressed in her normal gray sweats and her team t-shirt she wore for softball, her hair pulled into two puffs on her head, and a headband to keep the flyaway coils from flying away. She held up two spoons and the tub of cookie dough, her dark eyes wide with concern. But the moment she saw me, she set it down, and drew me into her embrace. Only then did I finally allow the tears to fall.