Free Preview Friday: Public Displays of Convention, chapter 1

Starting this new idea to advertise my third book, Public Displays of Convention: now available on Amazon! Every Friday will be a "Free preview Friday," where I'll post a chapter excerpt -- first half of the book only. Enjoy chapter one this week for free!

Today marks the beginning of my New Normal.

     Today, my worst nightmare is confirmed. The bottom half of my world drops instantly after reading the following message, barely an hour old on my phone: “Just wanted to tell you I’m seeing someone else now. Still care about you, though. Jared.”

     I stare at the message for a full ten minutes, thinking over and over, is this real? Our conversation from the previous afternoon is still fresh in my mind. If he cares about me as much as he claims to, how could he not have told me about this then? How could he drop this revelation on me in such a flippant, undignified way? The humiliation of this – the lack of an honorable face-to-face explanation – is more painful than the breakup itself. Anger simmers in my gut; boils into my lungs. Four years, wasted. My entire college experience.

     It’s late, but sleep is completely out of the question tonight, and there’s only one person to call.

     “Tess?” I say when she answers.  “Can I come over? I – I need to talk.”

     In best-friend-speak, this clearly means “I’m in the middle of an emergency.” Never mind that it’s barely been a few hours since we last saw each other. I feel terrible for imposing like this, but am not surprised when she says, “Of course you can, honey. You can even stay over if you want.”

     She’s a godsend, Tess Olsen – my best friend since fourth grade, and the only person I know who talks about Jesus the way most people talk about their crushes. Under her photo in our senior yearbook, where students shared their career goals, all she wrote was her ambition to become a “Proverbs 31 Woman,” with a husband and football team of children. She still has a box of letters to her future husband underneath her bed, per our teenage youth group assignment. I did that too for a while, but then gave up because…well, I had Jared.

     As her devotion deepened with age, mine seemed to waver, but she’s never judged or condemned me for it. So, somehow, our friendship still works.

     I can’t stop shaking as I pack my school bag with some overnight necessities and a change of clothes. With uneven breath, I dive straight into snowy oblivion.

     Tess’ apartment would only be a five-minute walk in normal weather, but the thick wall of snow – unusual for the end of March – makes each step heavy, and I’m a little disoriented with the wind whipping brutally at my face. Still, adrenaline keeps me trudging on.

     As tears begin to freeze on my cheeks, only one thought repeats: Why couldn’t I be the one to move on first? It sounds shamefully petty, but it’s devastatingly true. I knew Jared could never be “The One,” but I clung to him anyway, thinking it was such an honor to be chosen by a visually stunning, impossibly charming, seemingly genuine man like him. Yet, there was never a time I felt secure enough to believe I was good enough; the thought of being cast off for a woman who could match his allures was always imminent. What a self-fulfilling prophecy that was.

     Finally, I see Tess through the glass windows of her apartment lobby, and that’s when I officially lose it. Once inside her apartment, she places a box of Kleenex and a glass of water in front of me on the kitchen table, and waits for the story to begin.

     Once I start talking, the words come out in such a sloppy, tangled mess. I’m amazed she can comprehend any of it. She knows the basic story: how we met at the party of a mutual friend early in my freshman year. I was barely legal; he had just turned twenty-one, and it was love (infatuation? lust?) immediately after “Nice to meet you.”

     But there is much that she doesn’t know; much I made sure she’d never know: the way he’d tell me my opinions were ridiculous; my clothes were either too loose or too tight, revealing too much of a tempting figure, or too much of a too-fat one. The way he refused to introduce me to his other friends, or tell me anything about his family.

     I expect Tess to be angry for withholding all this from her. For a while she’d had inklings that something “wasn’t right,” but I was so careful about keeping his dark side a secret, I don’t think she had enough evidence to stage an intervention with me. By the time I finish speaking, she looks very near tears herself.

     “I feel so worthless,” I whisper.

     She shakes her head. “If only you could see what I see, Anna-Kate” she whispers back. Like a child I lay my head against her shoulder, tears still gushing. I can’t believe it’s happening like this. I knew the end had to happen sometime, and soon – but not like this. I always thought I would handle it with tact and grace. This is just pathetic.

     “Does anyone else know about this?” Tess asks.

     I don’t quite know how to answer without sounding like a fool. There were other friends, like Carrie and Liv, who knew bits and pieces of this anti-love story as it tragically unfolded, but not any more than Tess knows. I rarely talk to Carrie since she transferred schools, and I stopped mentioning Jared to Liv when, sensing my love for him was greater than his ever was for me, she told me “You’re such a smart girl, AK. But you’re acting really dumb right now.”

     Actually, that comment was enough for me to distance myself from her entirely. Now I realize how true it was, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

     I shake my head at Tess to say “No.”

     “I know you’re feeling worthless right now,” she says. “But your worth does not depend on him. Please believe that.”

     I want to. I really, really want to. But Liv was right – I was a smart girl acting very, very stupid. Every date, every kiss with a man I knew all along was not “The One” was all to feel a little less lonely, a little more secure. And it worked for nearly four years, most of the time. I disgusted myself then; I’m more disgusted now.

Check back next week for Chapter 2!