“I can’t believe this. Suri, it’s just terrible! What happened, darling?”

I pull into the parking lot of a retro-looking building that houses, among other things, Julian’s. I lean down and put my forehead against the steering wheel and sigh, like I’m five years old and being asked to eat my green beans. “Mom, if you want the full story, can you just ask Rachel? I don’t feel like going into it right now.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

I sigh again and close my eyes. “I can tell you it just wasn’t right, for either one of us. We’d been together so long we didn’t know it, but I don’t think I was what he really wanted, and I don’t think he’s what I want.”

This isn’t the real reason things ended, of course—it ended with me hurling my ring at Adam’s head, where it bounced off and landed in the pool—but I’m surprised to find it definitely feels true. Adam wants a dandelion, someone who bends with him and doesn’t ask questions. I want…well, I want someone who’s not an ass. Someone who doesn’t have a drinking problem. Someone who’s spontaneous and fun. Someone who actually wants to live in the same state as me. (Adam felt coerced, I think, into moving back to California). Someone who likes to go down on me. (Adam never did—not really). Someone who’ll eat a cheeseburger and go flying in a hot air balloon with me. (Adam only ate steak, and he hated heights).

My mother clucks. “I’m truly sorry to hear that, Suri. I’m sure it’s been difficult for you. I’ll try not to feel insulted that you didn’t tell me sooner.”

“Please do try. It’s me, not you. I mean it.”

“Oh, I understand.” She says this as if maybe she actually doesn’t. “That does explain why you haven’t been asking to use the jet. You’re not flying business class at all, are you?”

“Not this weekend, but that doesn’t mean I don’t or won’t.”

“Of course not. In the event of an emergency.”

“Right.” I roll my eyes. After reassuring my mom I’ll call her if I need her, I’m off the phone and staring at the front of Julian’s building. I should just get out and go inside and show him the mess I’ve made of myself.

Instead, I hold out my left hand, where today I’m wearing one of my grandmother’s emerald rings, and I flip down my visor’s mirror to take a look at the tiny plastic tooth sitting where my lower left incisor used to be. It got knocked out the night I fell, and after Adam finally called a taxi home, I had to drive myself to Edith’s boyfriend’s house so he could give me a stitch inside my lip. He’s a resident at the local hospital, and thank god he keeps a first aid kid at his house. The official line to Edith was that I got so mad at Adam, I ran into a doorframe. I think she believed me. No one would ever dream that Adam could be mean to me. Not affable, gentlemanly Adam.

Just the memory of that night leaves me feeling exhausted and discouraged, so I guess I walk into Julian’s looking down and out. His assistant, Sally, gets me a glass of lemonade and two shortbread cookies, and sets about getting someone to give me a back rub while I wait for Julian to finish the client he’s working on.

When he finally sees me, Julian slaps both hands to his cheeks and starts to laugh. Which makes me laugh a little. “That bad, huh?”

“What happened?”

“Bubble gum,” I tell him solemnly.

I spend the next hour getting cut and dyed and styled. As usual, I don’t glance in the mirror until he’s finished. When I do, I gasp.

“Julian, you made me blonde!”

“Not blonde. I brought out your eyes with highlights.”

I cackle insanely, because while maybe he did, he also made me look even more un-me than I looked before.

“I look like…”

“A model? Yes you do.” His brown eyes shine.

“A model,” I say slowly. And it’s kind of true. The hair’s that good.

I fling my arms around Julian’s neck and he pats my head. “I heard about your nasty break-up, doll.”

Wow. “You did? From who?” I haven’t told anyone hardly, and I didn’t think Adam had either.

“Brina Lulle came in the other day.”

My stomach sinks at the mention of the petite dancer from our high school class. “She’s going for him, isn’t she?”

Julian shrugs. “You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Promise,” I say, holding up my hand.

I drive home feeling… I don’t know. Betrayed? I broke up with him, and even though I think it’s what we both needed, Adam certainly didn’t agree when we spoke last, three days after that night at the pool. He’s probably embarrassed. Hurt. He’s probably saying he broke it off with me.

I didn’t expect him to spend a year in a monastery or anything, so it shouldn’t bug me—the idea of he and Brina; and my post-break-up track record is blighted by my embarrassing attempt to seduce a friend, after all.

But I’m lying if I say it doesn’t.

I shift my attention to the darkening clouds above the county road that leads from town to my house. A few seconds later, a misty rain begins to fall.

I try to feel normal. To feel okay. But I can’t shake the pessimism, the nauseating unease that’s been following me like these storm clouds for the last few weeks.

What bothers me, I think, as I ride toward my empty house, is how far I am from where I thought I’d be right now. Not with the business. Northern California Interiors is doing better than I could have hoped, and believe me, I’m grateful for that. I’m much different than Mom, who seems satisfied doing the cliché wife thing: charity ball this, gala for the children that. Her work actually is important, but I find so many of those things boring.

I’m glad I’m getting to do what I enjoy, and I’m glad I had a good enough year last year that I was able to buy Crestwood Place from my parents. I don’t like freeloading, and I wanted to make the home mine officially. I was able to help my best friend Lizzy by offering her a room here, rent free, before she met Hunter West—the heir to the West Bourbon fortune, a savvy investor,  and, as of several weeks ago, Lizzy’s fiancé. That makes me happy, too. So life’s not all bad.

The bad part is losing the sense of pride I had whenever I would think of what a great pair Adam and I were. We’d been together since ninth grade, and everything about Adam was familiar and comfortable—at least until it wasn’t. While my mother is “darling” this and “darling” that, and works in her free time as a school counselor, entirely pro bono, Adam’s mom is this take-no-prisoners criminal attorney who dyes her brown hair bright orange because she thinks it’s ‘feisty’; his dad is a second-grade teacher for children with learning disabilities. Adam’s younger sister Mallorie and I used to be able to talk about anything. She was like my sister.

I’ve wasted years feeling content and settled with Adam, and now I have nothing to show for it. I don’t like being single, not because it’s un-fun, but because it makes me feel off-balance. Like a bike with one tire flat. And yet, when I think of dating anyone, it’s the last thing I want to do.

I’m about to turn into my driveway when I remember it’s midday on a Friday, meaning the gym where Lizzy and I learned Tai Chi has an open sparring hour.

I am so going to that.

I do, and it feels good, and afterward I’m driving home when Lizzy calls. She’s in Vegas, where she’s been shacked up with her fiancé, Hunter, for the last few weeks. She claims to be happy at the casino where Hunter has a penthouse, but today I can tell something’s bothering her.

“Suri…hi. What’s up?”

“Driving home from Tai Chi.”

“Oh, the happy hour thing?”

“Yep. Felt good, too.” I don’t tell her it felt good because I imagined I was sparring Adam. I haven’t told anyone what happened that night at the pool. No one except my cousin even knows he had—has—a drinking issue. It’s not that I never plan to tell…it’s just I can’t bring myself to talk about it yet.