Totally and Completely Fine

by Elissa Sussman

God, his eyes. It wasn’t the color of them—brown—but rather the way he looked at me. His attention completely, utterly focused. I felt pinned by his gaze. And I liked it. I wondered if he felt the same way. Because all I could do was stare at him, unblinking, like I was trying to see into his soul. Which could be seen as either flattering or creepy as hell.

He was nearing the type of thin that looked better on camera but made him look a little like a bobblehead in real life. Not that I was going to tell him that. I’d save it for the right moment, like a wedding speech or something.

Wrinkles that were considered sexy and stately on a man of his age but horrifying on any woman over twenty-five.

“It just seems like so much work,” I said. “Uh, yeah,” she said. “Dating is work.” “Didn’t it used to be fun?” Not that I’d really dated before Spencer. I’d had fun, though. “Dating hasn’t been fun since the internet was invented,” Allyson said.

“I don’t think you ever get over someone who died,” Ben said. “I don’t even think you get over grief. You go through it.”

“It’s not the same, though, is it?” He sounded miserable. “We were friends. But you and he were…you guys were…” I stopped him. “That’s not how this works. There’s not a limited amount of grief and you need to make sure I get the right ratio of pain. It’s something we all share. Something we should share.”

He was kind and curious and interested. Asked questions. Laughed at jokes. Looked into your eyes when he spoke to you. Remembered names. His so-called charm, I realized, was basically just good communication skills. Which unfortunately was a novelty among men these days.

“Regrets are tricky. Because once you start picking apart your life like that, wondering what could have been, you start to realize that everything you have now would be different. And I don’t regret where I’ve ended up.”