Lynn Osterkamp - Cleo Sims 03 - Too Many Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

the check.”
    ““Wait, Cleo. The evening doesn’t have to end this
way. You know I still love you.”
    Other diners were looking at us and a waiter was on his way
over. It was tempting to sit down, but I stayed strong. “Give me the keys
right now or I’m going to start shouting at you,” I said.
    He handed over the keys and I walked out with as much dignity
as I could muster.
    In the car on our way down the mountain, I asked the question
at the top of my mind. “Why, the Flagstaff House, Pablo? Why did you take
me there to break up with me?”
    He sighed. “I didn’t take you there to break up with
you, Cleo. I took you there to celebrate our graduation and our exciting
futures as artists.” Then he launched into the “we can still be
friends” spiel. I saw it as a sop to his guilt.
    “Forget it, Pablo. Forget me, like I’m going to forget
you,” I said. “Have a good life.”
    We didn’t speak or see each other again before he left. I
didn’t answer his calls, didn’t go out where I might run into him. Of course I
was nowhere near as blasé about his decision as I pretended. I felt blindsided,
rejected and abandoned. Now that I’m a trained grief therapist I can look back
and recognize the stages of grief I went through. First was shock, denial and
isolation. I stayed home alone, cried, slept a lot, and was as miserable as I’d
ever been. When I got tired of wallowing in self-pity, I moved on to anger. I
burned all the pictures I had of him and threw out the things he’d left at my
apartment. I started telling our friends what a shit he was.
    The pain was intense for many months. I missed Pablo in so
many ways and so many places. And I missed my vision of our future together.
But I gradually let go of what was and moved on to what was to come. I
committed myself to working intensely on my own art, painting with Gramma in
her studio part of every day. I took a part-time job as a nanny to Elisa’s
one-year-old daughter, Maria. And I got involved in a relationship with Brian,
a hunky graphic artist, who didn’t want commitment any more than I did at that
point, but who was always ready for a good time.
    § § §
    Six years later, Pablo moved back here to help his parents
after his brother got involved in a gang selling drugs and ended up in jail. He
called me to meet him for coffee at The Trident one summer night. When I walked
in, he was sitting at a quiet table reading a book, just like in our student
days. But he looked different. Thinner, longer hair, face more finely drawn.
    We hugged awkwardly, but we didn’t kiss. I had thought about
this day often over the years. More in the early years, less later. I had asked
myself how I would feel seeing him again. Angry? Happy? Excited? What I hadn’t
anticipated was what I actually felt— nothing much.
    We brought each other up to date on our lives at the moment,
but carefully avoided talking about our shared past or about what we’d done in
the six years he was away. Pablo told me about his brother’s problems and the
impact it had on his family. Then he said he had decided to go into police work
to help keep kids like his brother out of gangs. He was already taking the
Police Academy training. And he was living in Longmont with his family.
    I said I had just started a doctoral program in clinical
psychology at the University of Denver, because I wasn’t making enough money
from my art to support myself, and I didn’t want to be a nanny for the rest of
my life. I also told him how worried I was about my grandmother, who was
becoming increasingly forgetful. At Grampa’s encouragement, I had moved in with
him and Gramma while I went to grad school. It would save me money and he
needed the help now that Gramma was declining. He had offered to help me with
school costs so I wouldn’t have so many loans.
    I think Pablo and I both had the same reaction. We were here,
but the old magic wasn’t. We were the past, not the present. With our
respective