I hear her take a sharp breath. “No. You are not. How can you say that?”
“I’m not good at love.”
“My darling,” she says instantly, with great authority, “that is not true. If anyone on the planet should know, it’s me.”
“Mommy, I leave people, like he does. I throw them away.”
“Molly, listen to me. Your father leaves people because he is not capable of loving them enough. You left Seth because you love him so very much. You are the opposite of your father.”
“I broke his heart,” I choke out.
“And you broke yours, too. And my love, I know you’re scared, but I really, really do think you should tell him how you’re feeling.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“If I remember correctly,” she says, “you didn’t think it was a good idea when you broke up with him after high school either.”
This makes me feel worse. I hate thinking about that time.
I woke up in the middle of the night dying to call him for months. I took to getting blackout drunk just to sleep. I lost my virginity to a twenty-four-year-old ski instructor and then slept with a string of older men, thinking that it would dull the pain. It didn’t. The stress was so intense that clumps of my hair fell out and I stopped getting my period.
“And so you spent about two years regretting your decision and missing him,” my mother continues, “calling me sobbing every week, all the while refusing to try to make up with him. And you knew he was hurting, because all your friends told you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say that you’d gotten scared and made a mistake. When you could have just told him, and fixed it.
“And I feel very guilty about that, Molly,” she says softly. “Because I wasn’t in a healthy place myself back then. I was so negative about anything having to do with relationships, and I dismissed what you were feeling as puppy love. I wish I’d been able to help you through it better. I think I’d have encouraged you to try again.”
“Mom!” I protest, my voice raw and hoarse. “We were eighteen. Of course we broke up. I was going to be sad either way. It’s not your fault.”
“That might be so,” she says. “But you know what? I think you both stayed a little bit in love with each other all those years. And that’s why you fell so hard again. In fact, I think he’s the only boy you’ve ever loved.”
I lose it completely.
My mom murmurs into the phone, like she’s soothing a baby, and I just listen to her and cry. When I’ve tired myself out, she says, “Sweets, call him. The worst thing that can happen is that you’re right, and he doesn’t want to hear from you, and you’ll stay just as sad as you already are.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. “I’m sorry for being a mess.”
“You can be as messy as you want. I’m your mother. And, Molls? Loving you has been the honor of my life. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.”
Her words send a chill of recognition up my spine. Because that’s how it felt, to be the person Seth Rubenstein loved. An honor. And it was an honor to love him in just the same bone-deep, lifelong, weak-at-the-knees desperate way he’s always loved me.
And when you love someone like that—when they love you like that—you owe them something. Maybe your relationship ends, but that doesn’t mean the connection between you just breaks.
I’ve been telling myself I don’t deserve to get Seth back. And I don’t. But that misses the basic point.
I need to apologize for hurting him.
For lashing out to avoid my terror of losing him. For panicking at how much I love him and want him and need him. For seeing my mistake and doubling down on it, because I’m so afraid he won’t want me back.
If I apologize, I risk learning he can’t forgive me.
That I’ve finally hurt him for good.
But just because the results won’t be fairy-tale perfect doesn’t mean you can’t try your best to be vulnerable.
When you hurt someone, you do what you can to fix it.
When you’re scared, you do what you can to be brave.
“I love you, Mommy,” I sniffle into the phone. “I have to go, okay? There’s something I need to do before I pack up.”
She hangs up, and I reopen the screenplay.
Fuck it.
I’m going to do the grand gesture beat.
I drag the screenplay file into my email and address it to Becky. She’s proven such a worthy intern that I’ve hired her as a part-time assistant.
From: mollymarks@netmail.co
To: bma445@nyu.edu
Date: Wed, Dec 22, 2021 at 4:01pm
Subject: Can you proofread this?
Becks—attaching something new. Can you give it a read for typos and make sure the formatting, etc. is right? I need it back before NYE. Thx!
CHAPTER 39 Seth
