“Oh….” It’s like a long, slow release of air from Amber, as her mouth drops open, and she shifts her gaze from him to me, registering who she’s been chatting with.
She recovers faster than me though, because I’m still speechless and stuck in this chair, sitting next to Amber. She is the name of all my heartbreak, of all the ways I fell short. Amber is the name that drummed through my brain for the better part of the last twelve months, like an insistent hum in the pipes you can’t turn off. Amber, Amber, Amber. The woman he wanted. The woman he chose. I will never hear that name without thinking of all that she has that I don’t. The man I once wanted to marry.
“You know, why don’t we just get a new table?” she says to Todd.
He scans the restaurant. This is the last empty table. “There’s no place else to sit,” he says, and it’s clear he has no intention of leaving.
What’s also clear is that he’s the only of us – him and me – who doesn’t care that he ran into his ex-fiancé. That realization smacks me hard, but it reminds me that I need to pull myself together and channel whatever reserves of steely coolness I have in me.
“It’s fine. I’m almost done anyway,” I manage to say even though my food hasn’t arrived.
“So how’s everything going with you?” he asks as he reaches for a menu and scans it. He doesn’t even look at me while he’s talking. It’s not because he’s rude. It’s because I am nothing to him. There’s a stinging feeling in the back of my eyes. I tighten my jaw. I won’t let them see me cry.
“Great. The blog is great. The dog is great. Life is great,” I say, pretending I am a robot, an unfeeling robot who can spit out platitudes. I have to. I have to protect my heart because it feels like it’s being filleted. “I see you like this place now?”
“I love it. Favorite diner in the whole city.”
My throat catches, and I grit my teeth. “That’s great. And such great news about the hard-boiled eggs too.”
He gives me a curious look.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I affix a plastic smile when the waitress brings me my food. She turns to Todd and Amber. They order as I slide my laptop into my bag, and consider ditching the place right now. Who needs food when there are ex-fiancés and their new wives to remind you of all that was stolen from you?
“And I’ll have a coffee too. No more soda in the morning for me,” he adds before the waitress leaves.
The burning behind my eyes intensifies. It’s just coffee, I tell myself. But he used to hate coffee. He detested it, and now he’s drinking it instead of Diet Coke.
He turns his attention back to Amber. “But no coffee for you still,” he says to her in a babyish voice. She smiles at Todd, who could be Amber’s big brother with his matching blond hair and blue eyes. He lays a hand gently on one of hers. I try my hardest to mask the all-too familiar feeling of my insides being shred by him. God, I loved this man. I was a fool, but I loved him like crazy, I fell for him the day I met him randomly at a bus stop several years ago. He was mine, and he was wonderful, and he was the only one I wanted.
“Well, it was great seeing you,” I say, and start to push my chair away.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. I totally forgot that I ate a bagel already today. Stupid me,” I say and smack my forehead, as if I’m shocked at my own forgetfulness.
“I do that sometimes too,” Amber says. “Forget stuff. I think it’s because I have baby brain right now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh,” she says, and there it is again. That long expression of surprise.
Todd nods several times. “We had a baby. Two weeks ago.”
My heart races into a very painful overdrive of disbelief as it pounds against my chest. This can’t be happening. Todd clasps his hand over Amber’s and she beams at him, and that smile, for her, just for her, threatens my precarious sense of I’m-totally-fine-with-being-ditched-the-day-before-our-wedding.
“We have a little blond, baby girl. Her name is Charlotte.”
The diner starts spinning and I grab the edge of the table. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping, praying that’ll do the trick and hold in the tears that are threatening to splash all over my face right now. He changed everything for her, all the way from children to breakfast choices. And he took everything from me, including our name for a baby he wound up having a year after leaving me a voicemail that said he didn’t want to marry me because he couldn’t picture having kids with me.
I open my eyes. Take a deep breath. Try to keep it together. “That was our name.”
“It’s a beautiful name too,” Amber says. “She’s such a beautiful baby, and so smart too. She’s with my parents right now over in Marin. But I miss her and I’ve only been away from her for an hour.”
“We’re madly in love with being parents,” he adds.
That does it. He might have cut out my heart with an Exacto blade, but I won’t let him know it’s bleeding again. I have to get away from them.
“You should really get back to her then,” I somehow manage to choke out as I stand up, and grab my bag, doing everything not to trip and fall as I leave my food on the table, and rush to the restroom, where I slam the stall door and let the tears rain down. My shoulders shake, my chests heaves, and I am sure I look like a wretched mess. After several minutes, I check the time. But I know they’re still out there, so I stay inside this stall as other patrons come and go. I camp out in the safety behind this door, registering each minute.
Until an hour passes.
Then I unlock the stall, splash water on my face, and touch up my mascara and blush.