Probably for the Best

"Why are you here?" Ryan always asked questions he knew the answer to when he was frustrated.

She rolled her eyes. Exasperated, she looked out the floor to ceiling windows. Just through the reflection of the white oak wood paneling of the shop's interior her eyes caught some construction workers climbing scaffolding across the street. She looked back at him with a slow blink.

"I work here." She said, clearly familiar with his ruse.

Stubbornly he pressed, "No I mean, why are we here?"

A young man dressed in black slacks, a button up, and a red tie came through the door behind where the two were sitting and chatting. The street noise from outside drowned out the mass appeal low energy acoustic album that was falling from the ceiling speakers. 

"Hello sir, I'll be right with you." She called out to the man before returning her attention to the conversation. "I have to do my job, the actual reason I'm here, but when I get back can we please return to the point?"

"Sure." He said as she pushed herself away from the small corner table they sat at and made her way behind the counter. 

He stayed seated and put his elbows on the table and laid his head in his hands so that the pressure of them on his eyes made his vision turn pixelated. For some reason this comforted him. After a beat he got up and went towards the single occupancy bathroom. 

The bathroom was clean and smelled like lavender. His bathroom used to smell just like this. He remembered when Sarah and him had first started dating she had brought the cleaning supplies from here to his apartment because his bathroom was “a pigsty” according to her. 15 years was a long time ago. He turned to face the urinal and leaned back on the counter top and crossed his arms. She used to smile a lot more, he thought. He wrestled with what had actually made her happy. Was it him? He remembered her getting sick from crying so much when he broke up with her. The doorknob being giggled from the outside brought him back to the present.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out.” He said, almost under his breath. 

He washed his hands for posterity and nodded at the red tied man waiting for the restroom on his way out. Besides the three of them the building was empty. The midweek evening shift never drew much traffic. 

Sarah was still behind the counter. She brushed a blade of her blonde bangs from her eyes while she worked, going back and forth from the back counter to the front. He noticed the bunny ear knot keeping her apron on coming loose as he took a seat back at the table. The phone on the table in front of the seat across from him started to vibrate and the name Andrew lit up at the top. Below the name was an image of Sarah and a man pushing their faces so close together that if they weren’t clearly smiling you’d think they were melting into each other. 

“Thank you.” The red tied man said as he grabbed his order and left the shop. This time when the door swung open it brought in the cold October air and shot out earthy volatile aromas past Ryan's nose. When the smell subsided he noticed the egregiously simple soundtrack had ceased. Sarah was closing the shop for the night. 

“Ryan, did you even bring the mixer?” She said as she rounded the cash register heading back to the table.

“Yeah it’s in my trunk.” His head followed her as she passed him and flipped the sign on the door to its “Sorry We’re Closed” position and locked the door. 

“I can’t believe you still have it.” She said turning back to him.

“I don’t think I’ve used it to be honest, but yeah, I just brought it with me wherever I moved.”

“Hm. You know the last thing I thought when you reached out back in August was that I would get that mixer back.”

“What did you think?”

“Oh I don't know" the sarcasm thicker than the bottle of honey on the counter behind her, "I spent like two years trying to get over our relationship. So my first thought was, What the fuck does he want? Followed by a strong urge to throw up my lunch.” 

“Andrew called by the way.”

“Oh shit.” She clambered for her phone and started sending a text.

“How does he feel about us reconnecting?”

“Honestly, he isn’t too big of a fan. No one is to be fair. Everyone told me it was a bad idea to respond to you. My parents, Cheryl and yeah especially Andrew.”

“Why did you then?”

She sat down again and put the plate with a croissant on it in the middle of the table and paused for what felt like days to Ryan, “I guess…” She looked at him, “...personal growth? I talked to my therapist and he said it might bring some kind of closure. I know it sounds stupid to you but you know I was only like 23 when you dumped me, and it was kind of out of blue. It was traumatic for me.” 

“That’s not stupid.” 

“I’ve actually been waiting to finally talk to you about this. A month and a half since you messaged me, I think, and we're just now talking about it.”

“Yeah I guess we spent a while getting the pleasantries out of the way huh?”

“It was nice catching up, don’t get me wrong. I did always wonder what you were up to. I admit I looked on Instagram every once in a while but you never posted much.” 

“I’m still baffled that you lived in China for a year.”

“I am too sometimes.” She smiled. 

“Well I guess I should say too that…I always felt awful for how things ended. I just felt…trapped…I guess.”

“Wow, ouch.”

“I mean, seriously, your parents never really liked me all that much. I’m just not that hyper masculine, follows every sport, and loves manual labor kind of guy that I think your family wanted me to be.”

“They didn’t want you to be that. That’s ridiculous.” 

“Well, OK, it felt that way. Plus whenever we went to visit them I always noticed how your Mom and Dad never spent any time together, watching TV in separate rooms all day. I started to notice that happening to us and we were only in our 20’s. I got scared that I was locking myself into this passionless cohabitation.” 

She looked hurt by his analysis of her family and their relationship and the silence hung for minutes. 

“I actually do understand that.” She said, finally breaking the silence. “My parents were high school sweethearts and I wanted that too. That was the version of love I saw and idolized and of course it’s not OK to force someone into that but you made it seem like that’s what you wanted for years Ryan.” 

“I know. I thought maybe it was for a while.” 

“You really made me think you were happy.”

He hung his head down.

“Were you ever happy? With me?” Her tone was wrought with a need for reassurance. 

“I was happy, yeah. I didn’t realize till the end though, that I hadn’t been for a long time and I’m sorry.” 

“It was just so out of nowhere for me, I think that’s what hurt so badly.”

“Was it though? I had been taking hour-long walks almost every night, in the cold. I thought for sure eventually you would ask me if something was wrong, but you never noticed.”

“Yeah it was Ryan! Going for walks is not communicating! It was so easy for you because you had already been thinking about it for, god knows how long.” 

“I know, you’re right.”

“It hurt…so…bad.”

“I know.” 

“No, you don’t Ryan. You have no idea what that felt like. The nights alone, just crying. Trying to figure out what I did. How I must have been so bad to you to just get dropped. After 5 years. You have no idea-”

“Lena just left.”

“What?”

“The girl I started dating a few months after you and I had broken up. In June…she just…left. She threw out all of our stuff, she took the dogs, and she’s gone.”

Sarah looked around conflicted by her empathy for him and anger that was just starting to get out. “Well, if you want me to feel bad for you-”. 

“No, I don’t.” He said, holding back tears. “I just..I know how it feels now, to wonder what’s wrong with you. What is so fundamentally broken about you that someone can just leave you, like you were nothing.” He tore a piece from the croissant and continued. “I know I can be an asshole. I’m sure that Lena has her reasons. But I will never know them and I just-”. I just wanted you to know that you didn’t do anything wrong. We were young and I didn’t know how to tell you, hell I wasn’t even sure really until the end how I was actually feeling. I have my own issues and I know I hurt you, I just, for me...I need you to know it wasn’t you. That I am so... sorry... for hurting you like that.” The tears started to win.

Sarah reached her hand over to his and rubbed the top of his hand with her thumb and she let him collect himself before responding.

“Well…thank you Ryan.” They met at the eye line and they both smiled at each other. Her phone started ringing again.

“Hey sweetie…yeah…just closing up now. No, a dickhead customer came in right before closing…” she was standing now, looking down at Ryan's smile to make sure he took the joke alright, “OK be home soon, love you, bye.”

“Well you better get going, I parked out back by you so I can give you your old mixer back.” Ryan said, standing up. “ You really should get someone else to close for you since you manage this place now.”

“I’ll work on that.” 

She put the mixer in her back seat as he closed the trunk to his car. The sun had mostly gone down and the two shared a hug.

“Hey, maybe I could meet Andrew sometime.” 

“Oof, uhm, yeah maybe.” 

They both shared a laugh in the shared understanding that was a long way off. 

He got in his car and shut the door, the back of his head gently falling onto the headrest and closing his eyes.

When his eyes opened his phone was ringing, he was in his boxers half under the sheets and next to him was his opened laptop. He stared at the screen while holding the phone to his ear.

On the laptop screen was a Facebook messenger page to Sarah Greenwood with her profile picture of the squished together faces at the top, it read:

‘Sarah Greenwood

Aug. 11th 

Hey Sarah, I know it’s been a while and you probably don’t want anything to do with me but I really wanted to talk and maybe reconnect. 11:54pm’

“Hey, what’s up”. Ryan said, answering the phone. From the receiver another man's voice spoke back to him.

“Dude please tell me you didn’t actually reach out to Sarah last night?”

Just below the message he sent over messenger read:

‘Aug.12th

This user has blocked you. 7:21am’

“No, no I didn’t. I talked myself out of it.” Ryan responded.

“Good…Good…that’s just not the…” 

His friend's response trailed off in his mind as he sat staring at the screen. 

The laptop slammed shut.