Don’t be an asshole.
I never knew if Mom came up with that one on her own or if she stole it from the Annals of Confucius. But I do know that it’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given me. I’ve always thought of it as my family’s secular version ofWhat Would Jesus Do?What would an asshole do? Figure it out, and then don’t do it. If you’re not in the mood to do the dishes, don’t be an asshole and leave your mess for someone else to clean up. If someone is a dick to you on the playground (Mom’s actual words, by the way), don’t be an asshole by pushing them off the swing. And if a guy breaks your heart? Don’t be an asshole and let today’s sadness dictate the next six months of your life.
That last piece wasn’t advice. It was a household rule. Growing up, anytime something really bad happened, I had exactly two days to wallow in self-pity. When the forty-eight-hour timer went off, I had to get off my sorry ass (again, Mom’s actual words), get back on my feet, and move the hell on.
I admit that I didn’t always stop wallowing after two days. But I did learn to get back on my feet no matter how miserable I felt. The rule was, if you insisted on feeling sorry for yourself beyond the forty-eight-hour mark, fake it. Put on a brave face and soldier on.
I know. It sounds harsh. And it is. The thing is, it works. This might surprise every psychologist and school counselor in the history of earth, but faking it is a miracle cure. Acting outwardly strong produces actual inner strength. Putting on a brave face builds a strong heart. It’s the “soldiering through” that makes you a soldier. It’s like dressing for the job you want and not the job you have. Putting on a suit does more than just make you look like an executive—it makes you feel like one. And once you start feeling like one, you start thinking and behaving like one. It’s playacting, but it’s playing the part that turns you into a player.
Thanks to Mom forcing me to pretend to be a soldier, I became one. Your father abandoned you? March on. Your stepfather walked out on you the day after you asked him if you could call him Dad? March on. Your best friend slept with your boyfriend? March on.
But there’s a big difference between being a soldier and being an impenetrable fortress. Sometimes something’s so bad you can barely walk, let alone march. Even Mom knew that. And when I was in the bridal shop holding up the breakup text for her to read, the first thing she did was hug me. And then she whispered words I never thought I would hear coming from her lips: “You can take more than two days for this one.”
It was the first time I’d cried in my mother’s arms since my cat got hit by a car in the second grade. Two full decades without breaking down in front of Sergeant Badass. But she let me have my cry that day. And trust me, it was a doozy. And it didn’t exactly end in the bridal shop, either. I cried all the way home. I cried walking up the six flights of stairs to my apartment. I cried myself to sleep that night, and the next morning I cried myself awake. And the day after that, I cried as I sat behind the bathroom door listening to my mother calling the church and the caterers and the wedding guests with the news that they could take Sunday, May 6thoff.
But the day after that was Monday. My forty-eight hours were up. It didn’t matter that Sergeant Sara “Deal With It” Zapata had given me official orders to take more than two days off. She had trained her little soldier too well, and at nine o’clock Monday morning, I was standing dry-eyed in front of twenty college freshman delivering practice questions for the Biology 101 final. And so I had continued, day after day, night after night, a brave soldier fighting a war against her own emotions, a careful surgeon sewing together the pieces of her own broken heart.
The problem was, it was all a front. For two weeks, I had been pretending to be fine. For two weeks, I’d been waiting for my outward appearance of bravery and strength to mold my inside emotions into conformity. Day after day, I’d soldiered on, believing that any minute, Tyler would become a remnant from my past and the sadness and humiliation and heartbreak would all be behind me.
But it wasn’t. For the first time, faking it wasn’t working.
And I knew why.
Because you can’t leave behind a past that hasn’t happened yet. The worst was still ahead of me. Thirty hours from now, I was supposed to be walking down the aisle in my waist-extended white dress toward a teary-eyed man in a tuxedo who had never looked so handsome. Thirty-five hours from now, we were supposed to be dancing the first dance of our married lives under the full moon. And forty-eight hours from now, we were supposed to be snuggled side-by-side in airplane seats as we flew off to Cancun for the most romantic week of our lives.
I could get over the past. But I couldn’t get over the future. I still had to survive my canceled wedding day. I still had to survive the honeyless week of my honeymoon. And I had to do it all knowing there were three parents, five bridesmaids, four groomsmen, and over fifty guests thinking,Poor Clara. Poor, pathetic, one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-pound, thirty-three-inch-waist Clara. I wonder how many chocolate eclairs it will take her to get over this one.
“Hey,” a quiet voice said.
For a moment there, I’d almost forgotten I had a guest in my passenger seat. But there he was, sitting beside me.
“Sorry,” I said. “I think I got a little distracted.”
“I can drive for a while,” he said. “Take a little break. Have a nap if you want.”
“I don’t need to rest,” I said, feigning a smile. “I slept like a drunken baby last night. I actually took this spontaneous camping trip—”
“Clara?”
I looked over to find his expression was dead serious.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ve been taking care of me all morning. Let me take care of you for a while. I’ll drive.”
I felt like I was about to cry. But this time, it was not from sadness. It was from gratitude, triggered by the sound of the wordslet me take care of you. No man had ever said that to me before; at the moment, it sounded better than a heartfeltI love you.
The traffic was at a dead halt, and Ian got out of the car and walked around the back to the driver’s side. “Scoot over,” he said as he opened the door. “You ride shotgun.”
I sniffled, fighting off a tear. “I appreciate this, Ian,” I said as I climbed over the console.
He slid into the driver’s seat.
“What are those?” he asked, pointing to the back seat.
“What are what?”
“Those boxes in the back. I just noticed them.”