Romance Impossible(67)

Our final few days of filming involved a big group shoot with members of the general public. The crew looked about as apprehensive as if they'd been asked to herd actual cats.

Really, though - once everyone had been pulled together and organized - I thought the crowd was remarkably docile. They followed all their queues perfectly, and only screamed and cheered when they were told.

I let my eyes scan over the multitudes, quietly amused at how many of the native Californians were bundled in coats and hats because it had dipped below sixty degrees.

And then I saw him.

A face. A face in the crowd that was all too familiar to me, even after all the time that had passed - and it really wasn't that long, was it?

We were breaking for lunch, a distant voice informed me, over the ringing in my ears. The crowd started to disperse, and one of them started to move towards me. He didn't stop until he was a few feet away.

"Hey," he said. He sounded the same, yet somehow, very different.

My throat had closed up. I worked my mouth soundlessly a few times before I managed to answer him.

"Hello, Eric."





***



I'm still not sure how I ended up sitting across from Eric at one of the picnic tables. All around us, cast and crew happily ate their lunch, chattering around mouthfuls of poached salmon and grilled vegetables. I couldn't even see straight. I kept blinking, sure that he'd disappear and I'd wake up back in bed.

"Jillian," he said. "Look at me. Please."

"I am looking at you," I muttered, glancing down at the plate of food in front of me. How had that gotten there?#p#分页标题#e#

"You're not," he said. "You're looking through me. And I know - look, I'm not stupid, I know that's what I deserve. But I came all the way over here to see you. Had to sell my dirt bike to get the tickets."

I closed my eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them again. "What do you want, Eric?"

He swallowed hard, and his eyes said everything. I didn't want to hear it, but I felt paralyzed. Rooted to the spot, my feet heavy as lead, sinking into the plastic bench.

"Jill, I fucked up. I know I fucked up. You probably..." He raked his hands through his hair, laughing a little. "God knows what you think. I can't even imagine. As soon as I walked out the door, I wanted to turn around and come back. At least to explain myself. I used to sit there with my phone in my hand for hours, about to call you, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew it would hurt you more. And, okay, I was a coward."

I could feel my mouth growing thinner by the second. A white noise was growing in my head, louder and louder, a dull roar that somehow didn't drown out the sound of his voice, or the sounds of the people around me. Their chatter seemed to grow louder and louder, almost deafening me, and I wanted nothing more than to shut my eyes and clamp my hands over my ears and scream.

Instead, I just looked at him.

"There's nothing I can say to change your mind about me now," Eric was saying. "I know that. But if there's any part of you...if you remember how things used to be, and I know you do, because I do - I think about it every day, Jillian. I swear I do."

God damn him, he was right. How could I forget? Five years of my life, right out of college, and still some of the happiest times I'd ever had. I had built a new life without him. I was glad he was gone. But that didn't erase the memories.

Our last anniversary together, we spent in the city, the same weekend as the World Series parade. It was the first time in a hundred years that the Sox had won at Fenway, and even though we were miles away from the festivities, little pieces of ticker tape still fluttered down from the sky and landed at our feet. We walked along the harbor with our fingers interlaced.

Later, I'd learn that when he stepped away to "check his work messages" or "call the boarding kennel and see how Heidi's doing," he was really calling his new girlfriend. I remember the pit in my stomach when I got home and picked Heidi up, and apologized for all the phone calls from my worrying fiancé. And the owner gave me a blank look, saying they'd received no such calls.

Right then, in that moment, I should have known. Or at least suspected. But I wrote it off as a mistake or a miscommunication. Someone else must have answered the phone. There had to be some explanation other than Eric lying about something so silly, so mundane.

A week later, I was swimming in tears while he stormed out the door.

"Jill," he said, snapping me back to the present. "Come on, baby. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I was thinking about our anniversary weekend," I told him, before I could stop myself.

"At the Harbor Hotel." He smiled, and it lit up his face the way it always had. Just the way I remembered. "You know, I dream about that weekend a lot. It's a little bit like living it over and over again. But then I wake up, and it's gone."