My phone vibrated furiously. It was James.
He was calling, again and again until I answered. “Why doesn’t my key open the door?” I could hear him shout through the door until I addressed him.
I unlocked the door. “Calm down,” I said, opening it and letting him in. “It was just locked from the inside.”
He stumbled inside. “You never do that. Not on a Monday morning when you know I’m coming to work.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Well, I didn’t want to assume anything. You know of all people that assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.”
James pursed his lips.
“No? Am I wrong? Feel free to correct me.”
He couldn’t. He knew well and truly that his little surprise gathering was an epic misjudgment of my breakup. And what I wanted and needed at that time.
It was times like this I thought James didn’t know me that well. We spent every day together, working side by side, spending most of our free time together.
And yet he still couldn’t handle my breakup. He didn’t know how to console me in a way that wouldn’t make me feel even more lonely.
“I stuffed up, ok?”
He had to catch himself as he shouted the begrudging apology.
“I thought if you could see we were there for you, it would be clear you had support. I didn’t even think about the fact you hadn’t told us yet. Or that Taylor was there. Or that I asked the cute waiter to join us. That was a bad idea.”
I took my usual seat at the dining room table, the one we transformed into a co-working desk.
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