30. Blue Moon

One night we were out at a bar and Addam asked the bartender if she knew how to make a Superman shot. She looked confused, so he pulled up the recipe on his iPhone and handed it over to her. Next thing I knew, a tray of shotglasses filled with blue liquid sat in front of me, one for each of my friends.
"You've got to try this. It tastes just like Blue Moon ice cream!" He said, his eyes lighting up like a little boy after he got his favorite treat from the ice cream man.
"Blue Moon makes ice cream?? So does it taste like beer?" I asked, partially grossed out because Blue Moon beer makes me dry heave. For some reason, it tastes like celery juice, and I hate celery. I have yet to figure out why no one else thinks it tastes like that god-awful vegetable.
"No. Ah, I always forget you guys don't know what that is down here. Blue Moon is a kind of ice cream they only make in the north. It's my favorite. Taste this shot. It tastes JUST like Blue Moon ice cream."
We gulped the sweet, tangy shots, and I considered the flavor. Tasted like the leftover milk from a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. Strange. But he was obsessed with that ice cream. He ordered the shot every time we went out, and he was always so excited to tell new people about it, which led to my brilliant Valentines Day gift idea (Well, this and the fact that my coworker had just ordered beer for his girlfriend from her hometown, so I guess you could say I stole his idea). We'd only been dating a month and a half by the time V-day rolled around (but we'd been talking two and a half months), so I figured ice cream would be a good gift for that timeframe. It's like a glorified box of chocolates. I did some research and found out that, yes, Blue Moon was only sold in the north. No biggie, I'd just have it shipped to me. I called around to see if anyone would ship to Texas, and the first two companies said no. Then I found one that would ship it on dry ice for a whopping $35 shipping and handling fee. OK, so it was a VERY glorified box of chocolates, but I knew he'd love it.
----
I tried to plan out how I was going to give it to him. We'd go out to dinner, and then I'd tell him to come back to my place to get his present. I'd make him wait in my room with his eyes shut, then I'd run into the kitchen and scoop a few pastel blue spoonfuls into my nicest bowl. Then I'd make a stop at the bathroom where I'd stashed my sexiest lingerie (and by "sexiest lingerie" I mean the only lingerie I owned). I'd change into that, then saunter into my room with the bowl behind my back. Then I'd say, "OK, you can open your eyes," and he'd think me in lingerie was his gift. But then, as I came closer and pushed him onto my bed, I'd say, "Just wait. There's more." Then I'd make him close his eyes and open his mouth. And that's when he'd get a spoonful of his real present. And then, surely, his eyes would pop open in pleasant surprise, and he'd exclaim, "Blue Moon Ice Cream! How did you get this??? You're the best!!"
If only things had gone as planned.
---
I flew back to Texas on Valentines Day from a work trip in Florida. Addam was late picking me up from the airport. "I'm such a horrible boyfriend! I'm so sorry I was late. I stopped to get you flowers." He looked embarrassed as he pointed to the bouquet of roses sitting in his backseat.
"Don't worry about it! Really. It's fine!" I said, trying to reassure him that I wasn't mad, because I truly wasn't.
"OK, you can pick anywhere you want to go for dinner. I'll take you anywhere."
My stomach churned at the thought of food. I'd had a bad batch of grouper fish in Pensacola and hadn't been able to eat anything for the past four days.
"Actually, why don't you pick. Really. You're the picky eater anyway." He had strange rules about his food: No onions, don't let the vegetables touch the meat.
"Are you sure? Why are you turned in the seat like that? Is something wrong with your neck?" he asked with concern.
"I think I pulled a muscle or something when I was stand-up paddle boarding." Truth was, I hurt it opening a jar of salsa, but I didn't feel the need to share that little tidbit with him or anyone else for that matter. (But I guess now the cat's outta the bag, eh?)
He offered to massage it later, but I planned on having Brady snap it back into normalcy, one of the perks to being friends with a chiropractor.
"I don't care where we go or what we do tonight, just as long as we can go back to my place so I can give you your present." Despite the kink in my neck, food poisoning, and the fact that Mother Nature decided to shit all over my parade that day with a fun little monthly gift, I was determined to follow through with my Valentines Day Master Plan.
---
That's the problem with Master Plans. They're so perfect in your head, but never seem to live up to how you imagined them. We didn't go back to my place that night. He convinced me to sleep at his place instead. Two nights later I scooped a spoonful of his much-touted ice cream into his mouth, and he smiled and said, "Blue Moon! Thanks!"

I never got a Valentines present from Addam.

19. The Replacements

There were a few more back-and-forth emails that I won’t bore you with. More of him explaining how much he likes me, but he’s just trying to be realistic. More of me saying I was hurt because it seemed like he didn’t think I was worth the hassle of a long-distance relationship. We were going in circles, and I knew I shouldn’t respond, but I couldn’t stand the thought of not talking to him, even if I was only accusing him of not caring about me.

Finally, I cut off communication. Every once in a while I’d respond, write down any mean, hurtful thing I could think of. But I’d delete it before I’d send it. I had to forget about him.

A facebook chat popped up later that week from my friend Brady. We had a *thing* back in college. It wasn’t dating because we didn’t go on dates. But it wasn’t just hooking up, either, because I can count the number of times we had sleepovers on one hand. I met him at a party. He was tall with brown hair and green eyes, and I could tell by the way his shirt tightened across his chest that he had a rock-solid body under there. He kissed me that night. I was drunk and thrilled.

Turns out we had a class together. Ballroom dancing of all classes. We waltzed, tangoed, foxtrotted, and cha-cha’ed together the rest of the semester. He’d come over on Monday nights to watch Laguna Beach. It was his guilty pleasure. He’d kiss me when he left, and sometimes he’d put his hand on my leg while we watched TV. But nothing ever came of us. He was switching schools after that semester, moving to Texas to attend chiropractic school, so he wasn’t interested in a serious relationship of any kind. That, and I’m pretty sure I was more interested in him than he was in me. Anyway, he moved that December and we kept in touch every now and then. He started dating a girl named Rae when he moved to Texas, fell in love, and had been with her ever since. Lucky bitch.

That was four years ago, so the random Facebook chat caught my attention.

B: Are you busy?
W: Not really, what’s up?
B: Things aren’t good with Rae.
W: Aww, I’m sorry. What’s going on?
B: I messed up.
W: Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good.
B: We broke up. Well, she broke up with me.
W: OK, I’ll ask the obvious. Why?
B: Her mom and I kissed, and she found out.
W: WHAT???
B: We were really, really drunk. She kissed me. I didn’t pull away in time. Her cousin saw it and told Rae.
W: Holy shit. That poor girl.
B: I know, I really, really messed this up.
W: Well, I don’t really have sympathy for you right now, because that’s pretty fucked up. So, being that I’m not full of words of wisdom for you, is there anything else I can do for you?
B: Yes. I can’t stop thinking about her. I just want to call her, but she doesn’t want me. So, can I call you instead? You know, so I don’t call her?

Well, wasn’t that convenient? I needed someone to take my mind off Cayden, and he needed someone to take his mind off Rae. I knew I had to be careful though, because we were both vulnerable, and I was about to move back to Texas, where we’d be living in the same city. Sounded like a perfect set up for some really bad ideas down the road.

W: Of course, call me whenever you’d like.

My phone rang.

----

My roommates threw me the best going away party I could have asked for. We all dressed up and went out to a fancy restaurant none of us could afford. Then we threw a huge bash on our roof. Everyone came. That night, we had the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen in my time in NYC. Hell, it was the prettiest sunset I’d seen in my life. It symbolized a beautiful ending. An ending to my time in NYC. An ending to me and Cayden.



After the party, I wanted nothing more than to email Cayden to tell him all about it.

So I called Brady.