A week passes and I still don’t see or hear from Jensen. Chloe tells me that Liam has done his due diligence, but he also hasn’t spoken directly to him. I start to wonder if Jensen has disappeared off the face of the earth. If it wasn’t for the fact that Chloe and Freya knew him too, I would wonder if he ever existed at all. It’s like the time we had together was a figment of my imagination, or the most lucid dream ever.
I start work back at the department and it’s going as well as can be expected. I definitely have more sympathy for the crying girls, and less panic attacks when people get emotional. We begin soliciting for interest in the study, and gathering a group of couples and singles for the different groups.
The rest of my life is strange. I’ve quickly made friends with Chloe. Freya seems to like her as well, despite Chloe’s frequent soliloquies about how amazing love is and Freya’s just as frequent gagging noises and suicide emulations. While I enjoy their company and humor, I can’t help but feel like something is missing.
It’s strange that I survived the first twenty years without Jensen in it, and he was only a part of my life for a few short months, but the lack of his presence is noticeable and startling. It’s like a phantom pain. The limb is gone and I know it’s gone, but the ache remains.
I’m walking home Friday night when I see a moving truck parked in front of the duplex. I stop and stare for a minute, heart pounding, breath coming out rapidly in the cold air, sending puffs of white out and up to the heavens, a smoke signal that no one will ever see.
What do I do? What do I say? Do I do anything? I’m struck with a sudden fear that if I see him and he speaks cruelly or simply ignores me, that something inside me will die and I’ll never retrieve it.
When I get closer, I see people moving items around and into the truck, but none of them are Jensen. They’re all strangers in uniforms boasting the name “Sanford’s Movers.”
There’s a guy with a clipboard standing by the open end of the truck. He’s wearing a dark blue long sleeve shirt with a name tag sewn over one breast. It says “Charlie”. He’s got a bushy mustache that’s a bit longer down the sides and it reminds me of drinking Jenga night.
“Hello,” I say as I approach.
“How ya doin’ ma’am.” He nods at me.
I stop next to him and watch a couple of guys carry Jensen’s mattress out of the door and down the steps.
The thoughts of what happened on that mattress make me take a deep breath and swallow before asking, “Do you know if the former occupant is returning?”
“No, ma’am, I can’t say I have that information.”
“Can you tell me where you’re taking these things?”
“No, ma’am.” He shakes his head.
“Can you tell me anything?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
I’m not sure why I’m thanking him—he didn’t help me in any way—but Charlie nods in acknowledgement and I wait until his guys are out of the way before I walk up the steps and back into my place.
I pull out my phone to call Jensen but it goes straight to voicemail. I’m like one of those girls that I used to advise to let it go and move on with their lives. I’m pathetic.
I call Freya.
“Hey poopies,” she answers the phone.
“He’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“The movers are here. They’re taking all his stuff out.”
“I’ll be right there.” She hangs up before I can say anything else.
An hour later, Freya and Chloe are at the door, armed with bags of food and movies.
“I brought reinforcements,” Freya says, motioning to Chloe.
“And I have some news,” Chloe says.
They come in and put their bags in the kitchen before we return to the living room with bowls of food.
“Jensen’s gone,” Chloe says as we’re sitting down. They put me in the middle of the small couch and they sit on either side.
“I know,” I say. “I called Freya and told her—”
“No,” she interrupts me. “He’s not at his parents, either. They don’t know where he is.”
There’s a pause while this information settles in. “What do you mean, they don’t know where he is?”
“He was there and then he took off sometime yesterday and they haven’t seen him since. They told my mom, and she told me when I called after I talked to Freya.”
“The movers wouldn’t tell me where they were taking his stuff,” I tell them.
Chloe shakes her head. “That’s not really his stuff. All of the furniture, all of his things, his dad bought for him. His dad’s also the one who paid the movers to take everything out and put it in storage until ‘Jensen comes to his senses.’” She finger quotes in the air. “At least that’s what my mom said he said. And you might as well give up on calling his cell, his dad cut the service when they realized he was gone. He is completely off the grid.”
Freya pats me on the knee. “Remember what you said to me, the first time we met?”
“I said a lot of things. None of which were useful.”
“That’s not true,” she admonishes. “You said something about how letting someone else affect how you feel is handing over control of yourself to them.”
“I’m an idiot.”
“Shut up! It’s true. Only you control how you feel and how you react to things. I’ll admit, at the time I hated that you said that, but later when I thought about it, I realized you were right.”
She moves closer and throws an arm over my shoulder.
“I know you don’t want to hear this now,” she says. “But it will all be okay.”
“She’s right,” Chloe adds. “And we’re here to help you through it. And so is Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, and Joe Manganiello.” She waves a DVD at me.
We watch the movie, and since it’s not very plot-driven, I find myself watching Freya and Chloe’s reactions to the movie more than the movie itself.
Once it’s over, I ask them, “Do you find that you experience emotions when you watch movies?”
Freya shrugs. “Depends on the movie. But yeah, I guess so.”
“Steel Magnolias,” Chloe says. “When Julia Roberts dies. Makes me cry every time.”
“Braveheart,” Freya says. “I cry through, like, the whole thing. When his wife dies, when he’s drawn and quartered at the end. Chills.”
“Oh yeah!” Chloe agrees. “The Notebook,” she says after a second.
“Yes!” Freya smacks her on the arm. “That one is so sad!”
“But Ryan Gosling is so hot,” Chloe says.
“Totally.”
My head moves back and forth between them as they talk. “That’s it.”
“That’s what?”
“That’s how I’m going to incite emotions in people. Make them watch movies that they find emotionally stimulating while they are in close proximity to their significant other. Or a stranger, for the control group. We’ll have to put them somewhere where they can’t see the other people, maybe with screened-in cubicles or small offices near each other. We can probably study proximity as well and how much of a factor that would be.”
“Huh,” Freya says. “Are you going to pay people to participate in this study?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to pay people to watch movies. How do I jump on that gravy train?”
“I always cry in the beginning of The Lion King when Simba’s dad dies,” Chloe says.
“Right? Disney is so messed up with that stuff.”
They continue discussing movies that make them cry, and I catalogue the information in my mind for future reference. I wish I could call Jensen and share the news with him. I never got a chance to tell him about my idea at all. The thought makes my chest hurt, but I can’t do anything but keep moving forward.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional l
ove, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.
–Elisabeth Kubler-Ross