Nan
I wasn’t going to sit and sulk in front of the TV any longer. Binge-watching One Tree Hill on Netflix all day yesterday was enough. Today I would need to run off all the popcorn, string cheese, and peanut butter crackers I’d eaten since my run-in with Major. Then I was going to see if I could take Nate to the park. Both things would help get my mind off Gannon and my pathetic existence.
Dressed in spandex shorts and a Lululemon sports bra, I headed out to the beach to run until my legs no longer worked. I wasn’t as tight and muscular as I wanted to be. But when a girl liked her peanut butter crackers and milk as a bedtime snack, it was hard not to have little soft areas on her body. My new goal was to fix that. I might not be perfect, but I’d damn well try my hardest.
Major
He didn’t call me. He never called me. He just showed the fuck up when I didn’t want to see him. Which was always.
“She’s been home for three days, and you still haven’t made any progress. Did you seriously think roses would fucking win Nan over? This isn’t a damn romance novel. Goddammit, man, think.”
I took a drag off the cigarette in my hand before looking up at the man standing in front of me. He was beyond annoyed. He was pissed as hell, and I was about to be out of a job. Maybe I needed to be out of this job. Maybe this shit wasn’t for me.
“Women love roses,” I replied, wondering if this was true or if he was right and that sort of gesture only worked in romance novels and movies and shit.
“Women fucking pretend they like flowers. Men like the idea that they can please them by buying them something so damn easy. But women are complicated as fuck. They don’t want flowers. They want thought. They want sacrifice. They want to own you. They don’t fucking want flowers that’ll just rot and die in a few days.”
This guy got Nan to fall for him, and he thought that made him the damn Einstein of women. What the fuck ever.
“Here, take these.” He handed me six envelopes, each a different color: blue, purple, pink, cream, mint, and yellow. “When I text you, you’ll go to where I tell you and give her the color envelope I instruct. Then just walk away. Don’t try to talk to her. Don’t try to charm her with your idiotic looks. She’s over it.”
He turned to leave, and I looked down at the envelopes. “What’s in them?” I asked, confused but ready to try anything.
He paused. “A man’s apology.”
Then he left.
Five minutes later, I got the text.
Walk to the beach in front of your apartment complex. When you see her, give her the pink envelope.
Nan
I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings, or I would have seen him and turned around. The music playing in my ears was drowning out the world, and I’d been focused on pushing myself one more mile. This was the sixth mile, but I intended to run ten today just to numb myself.
But he was there in front of me, on the beach, right in my path. I had to come to a stop or run over him. There was a good chance he’d chase after me anyway, and I’d rather remind him one more time that I wanted him out of my life.
I was pulling out my wireless Beats earbuds when I realized he was holding out a pink envelope. I reached for it. Once I had the smooth, heavy stationery between my fingertips, he let go and walked away without a word. What the hell? I looked down at the envelope and then back up at him as he walked up the path toward the street.
I could keep on running and toss it onto the ground, or I could read it and then toss it into the ocean for him to witness. I decided I liked the idea of tossing it into the water. Opening the envelope, I saw an equally nice piece of cream-colored stationery with a handwritten note.
Moderate fitness minus excess. One of the things that makes you beautiful.
That was it. Nothing more. I reread it to make sure I understood, then frowned and glanced up to see if he was watching me. He wasn’t. I was confused by it and decided to hold on to it until I understood what he was trying to say.
The next day, when I opened my eyes, I saw the pink envelope with the strange note from Major inside it lying beside me on the nightstand. I’d read it over and over again last night, completely confused. He hadn’t texted or called. Nothing. He’d just given me that note.
I wasn’t going to think about it any more today. I didn’t want to waste my time on something that had to do with Major. He wasn’t important in my life any longer. His strange note was meant to make me think about him. Smart move, but I wasn’t buying into it.
Major
She didn’t call or text. I had watched her from the shadows, and she had looked confused before putting the note back in the envelope and turning to run back the way she had come. I had hoped whatever it said would send her to my doorstep, but it hadn’t. It hadn’t helped at all. Whatever “man’s apology” Cope had come up with sucked.