Pure Connections

Chapter 27

      The monotony of updating the vendor relations sheet open in both windows of Jennie's two-monitor display was the only thing keeping her remotely focused on work. Today was the worst she'd felt in days. The irony of that lingered like a bitter pill lodged in the back of her throat. People always said the worst things a person had to endure got better in time. Jennie herself had been guilty of that cliché, guilty of uttering that phrase she now retained with unreserved disdain. She would reach into her head and pluck the words out if she could.

      In the last week and a half, she'd realized there was something counter-intuitive about the reckless optimism she'd detected in herself, something that made the words Lisa had said to her that night all the more painful to process. The first night, she'd refused to process them at all.

      Somehow, she'd convinced herself that if Lis felt even a semblance of what she did, then the following day Lis would show up on her doorstep, and they'd talk. Really, truly talk, like the night after Jennie's tipsy come on at Castille, the afternoon they'd shared in Little Italy, like they'd talked about Zia and Lisa's ex, and so much else. She'd convinced herself that she'd inspired the kind of vulnerability that made Lisa want to kiss an assumed-to-be straight stranger in an airport and show up at Gia six months later, invite Jennie into her home, her life. She'd told Jennie about her mom, introduced her to her best friend, took her to the edge of the city and told her she never wanted what they had to end.

      Jennie had said yes, she would still say yes, because they were so worth the risk. Despite their break up being tied to everything that had happened at her apartment that day, she couldn't figure out when Lis had stopped believing that. The more the days went by—no call, no text, not a single new post on any of Lisa's socials—the more Jennie was beginning to wonder if Lisa had ever sincerely believed they were worth it in the first place, that she was worth it.

      Time hadn't faded the ache in Jennie's chest, or endless nausea in her stomach, or erased her body's impulse to crumple and cry every time she stepped into the shower. It hadn't made her bed less empty or her memories of Lisa's lips and laugh less vivid. But in three days, Blake would get married, Lis would be on a plane in four, and there wasn't a single thing Jennie could do about it. She didn't know how to fight for someone who didn't want her to, and she'd never encountered a problem she couldn't fix.

      Until now.

      Signs of the office's door being opened prodded through her musing, but she kept her eyes trained on the pair of screens in front of her. She'd just updated another vendor's contact details when a thud on her desk jolted her into glancing up from her computer. Irene stood on the opposite side, palms planted at the edge, sleeves of her pristine chef's coat pushed up to her elbows. "Sorry." Jennie scratched her temple. "Did you say something?"

      A frown slid onto Irene's face, replacing the look of expectancy as she narrowed her eyes at Jennie. "You okay?"

      "I'm good." Jennie forced a smile. Then it hit—the reason Irene had been out of office the last two hours rolling into Jennie's consciousness with the sureness of a tumbleweed. "How was it? You were smiling before. That's a good sign, right?"

      "Mediation is officially over." Irene dropped her head back in exuberance. "Mark finally came to his senses. Well, I called his mom and begged her to talk some sense into him. Justin said now we proceed with finalizing. Court review and approval, and I'm officially divorced. I never thought I'd be so happy to say that."

      The word divorce didn't leave the same bitter taste in Jennie's mouth as it always had. Maybe it was because she'd finally stopped blaming someone for her parents', or maybe it was because a part of her understood that sometimes this was part of the journey. Besides, if Irene was happy about it, why shouldn't she be?