'M' is For: [Ch18] New York's Broken Hearted Lovers - Part 2

The seven-minute ride to Missy’s apartment felt like the longest seven minutes of my life. Every red light we came across was torturously slow to change. I seethed silently at the pedestrians who insisted on making a last-minute break for the other side, forcing the cab driver to brake suddenly and often. Still, despite it all, I should have been grateful that Missy didn’t get sick after all. She tipped sideways into me, and to all appearances, fell asleep on my shoulder. Her breath stank like alcohol. We rode in silence.

Ernie the doorman wasn’t there when we arrived, but the doorman on duty recognized Missy and waved me up. “Just don’t forget to sign yourself in before you go,” he said.

“Will do,” I assured him.

“Glad she’s got someone looking after her. She came back yesterday and we had to have the cab driver take her upstairs.” The doorman shook his head.

“I see,” I said, but I didn’t. How could the cool and collected Missy I know fall apart this completely?

I took Missy up to her apartment while Jenny stayed downstairs in the lobby. Missy’s purse was slung crookedly over her shoulder, and I reached for it to grab her keys.

When we got inside the foyer and I flicked on the overhead lights, I nearly gasped at the expansive mess that had taken over her apartment. There was clothing strewn across the floor, and empty food wrappers and styrofoam ramen cups littered all around the kitchen. The shades were drawn, making the large space feel small and claustrophobic. I bit back my comments and helped Missy down onto a couch. I got her a glass of water and some biscuits I found in the cupboard and set them down in front of her.

“Eat,” I ordered.

“Fuck off,” Missy said, but she accepted the glass of water and took a drink. Her gaze had gone glassy, and I sensed she was slipping. Despite that, she managed to push through, reaching moments later for a biscuit.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked her.

“Nothing is going on,” she said. “Everything is great! Why’d you take me away from the bar? I was just getting to know Tom and Clint.”

“You’re not in any state to be getting to know anyone,” I said.

Missy stared up at me blearily, then flopped back with a dry laugh. “Ever the mama bird. Worrying over people that don’t need her goddamn help.” Missy drank some more water and leaned her head on the back of the couch. A silence fell between us. After a few moments had passed, Missy said in a more subdued voice, “If you’re wondering where Thomas is, he left me.”

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t see Thomas living in the squalor that had become Missy’s apartment.

“I see,” I said. The words sounded inadequate, so I added, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No you’re not,” Missy snorted. She helped herself to another biscuit. “You’re probably ecstatic. You’ve been hoping we’d break up for ages.”

“That’s not true. I just wanted you both to be happy together.”

“And you didn’t think Thomas could be happy with me,” said Missy, to which I didn’t respond. After a moment, she said, “You’re probably right. He could never really be himself around me. Not the way he was with you.”

“He loved you.”

“He only thought he did. Turned out, his love wasn’t worth much in the end, was it? I should have punished him harder when I had the chance.” She tried to laugh but ended up hiccuping instead. She took another drink of water.

I shook my head, sure that Missy had thrown out that last bit to deliberately provoke me. It didn’t matter. Nothing she said now could change what I already knew about them. I knew that Thomas had loved Missy, and once, not so long ago, she had known and believed that to be true. But it wasn’t my job to try and persuade her of that if she was determined to rewrite her own history.

Some of the glassiness was starting to leave Missy’s eyes, and she was looking a little bit more like herself. Gauging that she was well enough, at least for the time being, I started to step back towards the door.

“I should get going,” I said.

“Don’t leave me,” Missy said. I stopped, surprised. Missy straightened, and there was something childlike and sad in her face that I had never seen before. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Missy, my sister is waiting for me downstairs,” I said in exasperation.

“Oh of course, everyone is waiting for you,” Missy said, but she failed to summon the same level of acrimony she’d had back at the bar. “How is it that everyone adores you? What is it that you have that I don’t?”

“People love you. You know that.”

“Do they? Then where are they now? All I see here is you, and I know you hate my guts.”

“I don’t hate your guts,” I said quietly. “You’ve just hurt a lot of people.”

Missy stared at me through her red-rimmed, mascara-smudged eyes. For a moment, she looked as though she might cry. Instead, she rose a little unsteadily to her feet. “I’m going to sleep.”

I hesitated, then followed her to the bedroom, which was just as tossed about as the rest of the apartment. I noticed several bottles of alcohol, some nearly drained, scattered across the nightstand and vanity. A plastic orange prescription bottle had been set beside the bed, the cap missing.

Missy didn’t bother changing. She kicked off her heels and fell into bed.

“Come on,” Missy said, extending an arm in my direction. I thought about Jenny, waiting in the lobby, and heaved an internal sigh. Five more minutes wouldn’t make a difference at this point. I took off my coat and purse and draped them over the chair at Missy’s vanity. I fell into Missy’s massive bed beside her.

“Have I ever told you that your hair is gorgeous?” Missy murmured. Absently, she ran her fingers along my hair. “I would give anything to have your hair.”

Her touch on my hair sent pleasurable tingles running down my spine. I stared up at the ceiling and remembered how once, almost a year ago, Missy, Thomas and I had played here in the warm glow of nearly fifty tea lights Missy had lit.

“You know, I worshiped you when we first became friends,” I confessed to Missy. “You were incredible. I’d never met anyone like you before.”

Missy gave a wet chuckle. “And look at me now.” Sleepily, her sky-blue eyes met mine. “You know, I lied to you last Christmas. Thomas never did any of those things because I told him to. He fell in love with you, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.”

I raised my eyebrow. I wasn’t sure if I believed Missy, or if this was just another one of her attempts to get a reaction out of me. Either way, it didn’t really matter: Thomas was out of both our lives, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again. But the confession seemed to put Missy at ease, and her eyes fluttered closed.

“I never wanted him to be perfect,” she murmured to herself. “Loving me forever would have been enough.”

A few minutes later, I glanced over at her. Missy had fallen asleep, one outflung hand curled by her cheek. Beneath her makeup, I thought I could glimpse the young girl she had been. She would have been vivacious and passionate. Maybe a little too trusting of the people around her, until she had been hurt by unkind people. For all her sly little games, she was in some ways the most sincere person I’d ever met.

After everything that had happened between us, I couldn’t hate her. It was true that whatever friendship had existed between us was gone, and probably could never be recovered. But she had been a good friend for a while.

I gently removed myself from the bed, landing softly on the floor. I collected all the alcohol bottles I found in her room and drained them in the bathroom sink. I knew there was probably more stashed in the kitchen, but at least it would tell Missy in no uncertain terms what I thought about her new drinking habit. Then I grabbed my things off her chair and headed downstairs to rejoin Jenny.

Jenny had been on her phone, probably texting Max. She looked up as I walked out from the elevators.

“Is she okay?” Jenny asked me.

“I think so. For now. I left her sleeping.” I went up to the reception desk and added my name to the sign-in sheet. “Ready to go home?”

“Yeah.”

We didn’t talk much on the subway ride home. But when we got back to my apartment, Jenny turned to me.

“Was she one of your closest friends?” Jenny asked. “The girlfriend you mentioned when you brought Thomas home?”

I swallowed. Jenny was sharp, and it was times like this that I remembered she had a memory like a flytrap. “Yeah. That was Missy.”

Jenny nodded. “I thought so. For what it's worth, I think you and Thomas make a better couple.”

I felt my face turn pink, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to say. I supposed in a sense, though, she wasn’t really asking about him so much as telling me.

“They used to be good together,” I managed to say, and Jenny gave me a look that seemed to say, Sure, whatever you say. But she let it drop.

The next day, we had brunch at a diner just a few blocks away. Soon after, Jenny headed uptown to catch the bus back. I gave her a couple little gifts to take back to our parents, including some swag from my new workplace, and Jenny promised she’d try to come down and visit again soon.

As far as Missy London, I never saw her again after that night with Jenny. But I eventually heard from Kiara that Missy had moved back to North Carolina to be closer to her mom, that she wasn’t drinking as much as she used to. It was a relief to hear that. My feelings toward Missy would always be a little complicated, but she hadn’t been wrong in the words she’d hurled at me outside the dance studio the last time we’d seen each other. In a way, she had made me.

After a long period of inactivity, Missy started updating her Instagram again. Photos and videos of Missy hanging out with Thomas around favorite New York City haunts were replaced with pictures of her new dog and long, contemplative walks in nature. I knew sometimes the social persona could lie, but I hoped that wherever she was, she was finally happy.

The woman I had admired deserved nothing less.