Page 62 of Tanner

While the age thing still nags at me, there’s something that actually has me feeling sick. Tanner went home with someone else. I don’t know if anything happened between them, but the thought of him being with another woman has me trying to catch my breath. Suddenly, the age thing doesn’t matter anymore because I’d rather him be twenty years younger than me than be with anyone else.

Actually, when I say twenty years younger, eight doesn’t seem so bad.

Is it all just perspective? Can I talk myself out of this stupid perception I have?

It’s not like I’m miraculously fine with it, but I’ll be damned if I want him with anyone else … painting someone else.

I’m being selfish. Tanner Sexton deserves to be with a woman who accepts him for who he is.

And I just made the biggest mistake of my life.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I ask out loud to myself.

I just let the greatest man I’ve ever met walk out of my life. I’m absolute crazy about him, all of him … everything about him, and I let him go because of a childish detail.

Call it fate or serendipity or just being at the right place at the right time, but I find myself standing in front of the tree Tanner painted, and it feels like a knife to the gut when I notice a local gang tag painted over it.

I take a deep breath and dial his number. After a few rings, his voice mail picks up. Not prepared to leave a message, I go for cavalier to hopefully make him smile and forget that I’m a total ass.

“Hi, my name is Harper. I think we met one night where I was a complete ass, yet you let me follow you onto the subway. I was hoping we could go back to that day. Start over, so I stop making a fool of myself? That would be nice. So … yeah, give me a call, okay?”

I hang up, knowing I lost my game toward the end and needed to save myself from ruining it even more.

* * *

He hasn’t called me back. After scrubbing April’s apartment from top to bottom, I binge-watch Friends.

Of course, the episode where Rachel decides she loves Ross comes on. She’s waiting at the airport for him to return from China, but Ross comes out of the gate with Julie on his arm. Yeah, that sounds about right for me. I can’t even find solitude in Friends anymore.

“You know, I just cleaned that yesterday,” April says as she watches me clean her toilet.

“I clean when I’m anxious.”

“He’ll call.” Her voice is reassuring.

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then, it’ll be okay.”

I sigh and put away the cleaning supplies, deciding to take a shower before climbing in bed.

Sleep finally takes over around three in the morning as drowsiness supersedes the anxiousness in my body.

After the alarm rings, I have even more issues getting ready for work, and I know it’s going to be a shit day.

After school, I stay late, tutoring a few students who signed up for after-school sessions. Then, I organize the next three weeks of lesson plans until I have no more room to store the papers that have been copied and stapled.

Finally, shutting off my light, I head toward the subway. The tree Tanner painted comes into my vision once again. Today, someone has painted over the entire fence and put up posters for a Jay-Z concert that’s coming to the Barclays Center.

Without hearing anything back from him, I feel like my heart has been painted over, too, never to feel as alive as that tree once did.

Melancholy, I know, but I’m in a downtrodden kind of mood today.

I never got to thank him for the tree or for the painting of the caressing couple on the door. I lift up my phone and call him again. Of course, it goes to voice mail.

“It’s me again. You said you liked to hear your thank-yous instead of having them written, so here it goes. Thank you for the artwork. Thank you for the reminder of the first night we spent together. Thank you for the tree that signified our second night. I’m glad you didn’t paint anything after our third because I don’t think it would be so kind.” I laugh a little at my joke, but I know he probably won’t find it funny. I rein it back in. “Before I get cut off, I just wanted to let you know that it has meant more to me than you can imagine. Hope you’re well. Bye.”

And that’s how you leave a message for the man you’re pretty sure you’ve lost forever.