Page 130 of Experiments in Offline Dating

“My dad. He might . . . I keep thinking of the things I should have said. The plans we made but never got to.” I hugged him tighter, and he squeezed back until I could speak again. Maybe I was just overcome and mixing things up in my head, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Will you . . . try to fix things with your dad? I just—Don’t waste any more time.”

He took a deep breath and then another, and I thought he might refuse. But the third deep breath came with a nod. “Promise.”

They called for my gate, and I planted a kiss on the fabric in the middle of his chest, breathing him in for one last excruciating moment. Then I took a step away from him, and then another, one foot at a time. When I was too far for him to reach out and touch, he called my name.

“Maya.”

I turned back. I’d never seen him look the way he did then. “I’ll never see you again, will I?”

A sob burst out of me. An open-mouthed sob, bitter, desperate, and shattered. And I kept sobbing as I turned around and walked away.

Chapter 44 An Experiment in Testing Simone’s Famously Short Patience

After a triple bypass, a few weeks of touch-and-go, some downtime, and several dramatic weeping sessions on my part, Dad was much better. They told us that before we knew it, he’d be playing tennis again. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves back to our old, comfortable routines.

Over the next couple of months, I listened to all the interviews I had recorded in Ireland, all of those loved-up couples telling me their stories all over again. Simone would do most of the editing, but I wanted to listen closer, to hear the message in each one, the angle, to discuss on the podcast, to make a story map for the season, a journey that we could all go on together.

But each interview I listened to was so full of love and admiration, so full of comfortable conversation and playful teasing—the clockwork of many years of togetherness. And it made my insides churn.

It hurt. I felt emotional and uneasy. I felt like someone had reached into my chest and removed a vital part.

The most disconcerting part of the whole thing—my instinct was to run to Tadhg. If only his fingers could hook around mine, I knew the ache would ebb.

I had to train my reflexes not to look for him. I would read a great line in a book, and I’d instantly think to tell him. I considered what to make for dinner and thought, But Tadhg doesn’t like broccoli, before the realization hit that he wouldn’t be there to eat it. My lizard brain was struggling to remember that I wasn’t in Ireland anymore. That he was gone. That he wasn’t coming back. It felt like some primal, animalistic thing that I couldn’t control.

There wasn’t any contact. I called. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I called anyway. More than once. Straight to voicemail. I emailed Jackie a little, and asked him some questions about the show and checked in on him, and he always answered in his usual jolly tone, but he wasn’t forthcoming about Tadhg, and I punished myself with the worry that he was disappointed in me for how I’d treated his son.

I was disappointed in me. I’d expected more from myself, but I’d been wrong. I had learned that I was a coward, and it had been a bitter revelation. I didn’t feel great swells of emotion often, and when I did, I really didn’t handle them well. I was confused. Even months later, I was so confused. Being with Tadhg had been something akin to internal sensory overload. I didn’t know how to compute that sort of emotion. I didn’t know what it meant for me, or what it meant for my life, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with it.

I felt like there was something wrong with me. It reminded me of those times when I’d gone on birth control pills and they’d flooded my system with synthetic hormones that weren’t mine and left me hungry and short-tempered, blue and teary. I’d tried four different types and then I’d stopped cold turkey and never gone back. A few weeks later, I was myself again. But this was different. I didn’t know how to quit this. I didn’t know how to get it out of my system. I didn’t like the feeling of being off balance, of not feeling at home in my own skin, of not being in control.

Tadhg had forced himself to talk about his feelings for me, and it had been difficult for him, and I had responded in the worst possible way I could have. Emotion had risen up my throat and choked me, and all I knew for sure was that it hadn’t felt good, it had been painful, and I was afraid of it. I was angry at him for throwing this at me when we had agreed that nothing like it would ever happen.

If I could turn back time, I would go back and do it over and over until I got it right. I would stay calm. I wouldn’t just blurt out a reaction without thinking about how it would make him feel. I would take the time I needed to figure out my head and my heart and my gut and have an honest discussion with him. Because how could I speak honestly about something that I didn’t understand myself?

But I’d fucked it up. I’d been an unforgivable asshole. And I didn’t have a time machine. I didn’t even have a way to apologize. I knew there wasn’t anything to do about it but move on and try to learn from my mistakes. Only—the moving-on part was proving difficult.

One day I got an email from Jackie. It was a picture forwarded from his daughter Blánaid. The photo was of Jackie and Tadhg having a drink on the pretty pink bench in the flower garden, side by side, laughing at something with the same exact smile—a similarity I hadn’t noticed before. The accompanying note, all in caps, was from Jackie: THANK YOU, MAYA.

I stared at Tadhg’s smile until tears blurred my eyes.

When Simone’s birthday rolled around, I didn’t want to leave the house. It was hard to leave the house. It was even difficult to get out of bed some days. But it was her birthday, so I sucked it up.

I made homemade ramen broth, one of her favorites, and arrived ready to cook with veggies, seaweed, jammy eggs, the fattest udon noodles I could find (inauthentic but her favorite), and a drumstick each from KFC. It was a thing. Or at least I was going to make it a thing.

“Hey, you.” She gave me a brief, hard squeeze. “Where have you been? I’ve been missing your constant jabs. Everyone else is just way too nice to me.”

“That’s because . . .” I tried to make a snappy joke, but I gave up. “Yeah. I know. Sorry.”

She gave me a quizzical look but didn’t press me. “What’s all this?”

“We’re having homemade ramen, and a bespoke cake from the place around the corner with the incredible icing, and sake cocktails, and KFC drumsticks. From KFC. Because you’re obsessed with KFC.”

She put her hands on her hips, and I felt just a little bit lighter. “I’m not. It was just the challenge! I also do other copycat recipes! How many times do I have to explain this?”

“A good few more, if I had to guess.”

“What’s that?”