Free Why I Love Singlehood: by Elisa Lorello, Sarah Girrell

not happening. You don’t need that. You don’t need him to sit there blindly, throwing it in your face.”
    “Throwing what in my face?”
    “The fact that he’s got you wrapped around your finger, and you both know it.”
    Anger swelled inside me like a slow whirlpool.
    “You are way off base,” I said, trying not to raise my voice.
    “He’s taking advantage of your feelings for him just so he can feel good about himself, and you’re letting him.”
    “Min, you know I love you, but sometimes you’re just too damn judgmental for your own good. I mean, I appreciate that you care and don’t want to see me hurt, but this isn’t a black-and-white world.”
    She looked hurt. “I am not judgmental.”
    “You’re telling me he’s blind. Well maybe, you know, he’s just not that into me, like the book says.”
    Minerva dropped her pen and looked at me, incredulous. “Oh God, you didn’t, did you?”
    “Didn’t what?”
    “Read He’s Just Not That Into You . Please tell me you suffered a minor brain injury. Please tell me you bumped your head on a shelf one night or you couldn’t sleep and needed something to dull your senses.”
    “It actually makes some good points once you get past the condescension and banality.”
    “When? When did you do this to yourself?” she demanded.
    “Um, I don’t remember.”
    I’d taken a copy home from the reading room the day after my date with Nick from New Bern but hadn’t actually read it until a couple of weeks ago, after I’d overheard Shaun mention the Jeanette to a colleague who’d joined him for an iced coffee, referring to her as his fiancée. I finished it in two nights. I even made notes in the margins.
    “So then why aren’t you cutting ties with him?” Minerva asked.
    “Because we’re friends. And as long as he wants to be friends, then that’s fine with me. And may I point out that he ’s always been the one who wanted to remain friends. He never once said that we should part company.”
    As I said the words, I could actually hear them saturated with rationalization. What’s more, I could picture the He’s Just Not That Into You authors saying something in response like, “If you want a friend, get a dog.”
    “And that’s exactly what worries me,” Minerva said, her voice hushed. “He knows how you still feel, and he’s taking advantage of that.”
    “I don’t ‘feel’ anything,” I said in defiance. “Can’t you be friends with your ex? Is there a constitutional amendment banning it? I mean, really, who says you can’t?”
    “And how does the Jeanette feel about it? Does she even know about you?”
    “Who cares?”
    Minerva opened her mouth in disgust. “Oh, that’s a great attitude. Eva, put yourself in her shoes: imagine that you’re Shaun’s fiancée and he’s still friends with his ex-girlfriend of three years—his former, live-in lover . Would you be OK with it? Wouldn’t you be wondering why Shaun insisted on remaining friends with this woman? Furthermore, would you trust a woman who said, ‘Who cares what she thinks?’— she meaning you ?”
    Shitters.
    I had never seen it from that point of view before. Maybe Shaun wasn’t the one who was blind. Minerva was right. Blatantly right. But my ego was too proud, too wounded, and feeling too foolish to tell her so.
    I looked past her table.
    “I’ve got a customer,” I said, and stood up to attend to him without saying anything more to Minerva for the time being. She went back to her books, calling out as I walked away, “By the way, the macaroons are perfect today.”
    Later in the afternoon, after Minerva and most of the Originals had left, Car Talk Kenny remained perched in the corner with a J. D. Rhodes novel. As I straightened up the end tables, I heard him utter, “She’s right, you know.”
    I stopped in mid-straighten, and looked at him. He revealed only his eyes for just a moment.

     
    The first time I met Car Talk Kenny, rather, the first time I’d