Jane stepped out of the subway entrance at 58th Street, looking up at the sky, basking in the sunny spring morning. She’d taken the subway to her stop uptown after saying goodbye to Adam, but now she rejected the idea of going back to her empty apartment. She wasn’t quite ready to return to reality just yet. On an impulse, she turned and headed across Columbus Circle instead, making her way past the rows of bicycle pedi-cabs soliciting tourists at the southwest corner of Central Park.

She wandered slowly up the western edge of the park, dodging the morning joggers and bicyclists. She hadn’t even realized where she was heading until she came upon the Strawberry Fields memorial. She smiled to herself, recognizing it – the bench where she and Adam had sat – still there, just the same. She went to it and sat down again, closing her eyes, remembering how it had felt that day when he asked her to be his girlfriend. It was all so many years ago, but still so fresh in her memory.

She pulled out her phone, searching for his name in her contact list, feeling slightly giddy to have the personal cell number of someone so famous. Not that she would call it right now, of course. She didn’t need to call him to hear his voice. She closed the contact list and toggled to her Music app instead, pulling up the Maroon 5 playlist and hitting shuffle.

I can't seem to find

The pretty little face I left behind.

Wandered out on the open road,

Looking for a better place to call home.

Jane wondered idly who the girl was in this song. It was Hands All Over, the title track off his most recent album. How many little girls later was that?

Now you've lost your mind,

The pretty little girl I left behin—

The song cut out abruptly, interrupted by the phone ringing. “Could his flight have been delayed?” Jane wondered, looking up at the cloudless sky. She squinted against the glare to make out the name on the screen: Marcy.

“You’ve got some explaining to do, lady!” she heard her friend’s voice say.

“What’s up?”

“Did you see TMZ?”

Uh oh, Jane thought. “That didn’t take long,” she said out loud.

“Adam Levine Spotted in NYC with Mystery Gal Pal,” Marcy read.

“How bad is the picture?” Jane asked, smiling. “Were we fully dressed?”

“What?!”

Jane started to giggle.

“What the hell happened?” Marcy shouted.

“We had a nice time."

“Did you sleep with him?”

“Mmmmm,” Jane sighed, still unable to wipe the smile off her face.

Marcy didn’t sound so happy, though. “Have you completely lost your mind?”

“Oh, what’s the big deal?” Jane said. “We’re two consenting adults. Who cares if there’s a little gossip.”

“I don’t care about the gossip. I’m just remembering how long it took you to wipe yourself off the floor the last time you got involved with him.”

“Hey, you’re the one who told me to go!”

“I didn’t think you’d be dumb enough to go to bed with him!”

“It was just sex,” Jane said. “Just really good sex.”

“Please.”

“What?”

“Are you still in love with him?” Marcy asked.

Jane shook her head in irritation. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was two nights!”

“Whatever, Jane.”

“What is your problem?”

“I’ll tell you what my problem is. I’m the one that has to pick up the pieces the next time you fall apart over this guy. That’s my problem!”

Jane had had enough of this conversation. She was sick and tired of Marcy telling her what to do. “This is my life, not yours. Remember?”

“Fine. Do whatever you want,” Marcy responded. Jane could hear the sound of a toddler starting to cry in the background. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

She ended the call before Jane had a chance to say goodbye.

Jane rolled her eyes. She wasn’t about to let Marcy spoil her good mood, she thought, as she flipped back to her playlist, advancing to the next song. She recognized the opening riff from Not Falling Apart, a song off the second album – another song that wasn’t about her but might as well have been.

Now I can't walk, I can't talk anymore

Since you walked out the door,

And now I'm stuck, living out that night again.

I'm not falling apart.

Jane didn’t know if it was the lyrics or the conversation with Marcy that suddenly brought back the rush of memories of the time after she and Adam broke up. The truth was, she had fallen apart, just as Marcy said. It was the first time in her life that she’d ever been truly on her own. “She always belonged to someone else” – that’s how Adam had described her in She Will Be Loved. Up until then, she’d gone straight from being her parents’ little girl to being Adam’s.

She’d dealt with the loneliness by throwing herself into her law school studies with ferocity. Eating and sleeping didn’t really make it onto the agenda. She probably would have landed herself in the hospital if Marcy hadn’t come by regularly to check up on her. And dating, that was absolutely out of the question. She knew she had to learn how to function on her own first.

She still remembered the spring of her third year of law school, out shopping for clothes at H & M, and suddenly there was Adam’s voice filling the store. It was a full two years after Songs About Jane first came out when This Love was finally released as a single. That whole spring, it had played on the radio incessantly. All the TV appearances had started then as well – The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live, American Idol – and of course the music video every 15 minutes on MTV. Adam rolling around in bed with his beautiful model girlfriend. No, he hadn’t fallen apart, had he? She knew when she saw the video that it was time to get her act together. The next time one of her male classmates asked her out, she said “yes.”

Jane took a deep breath. It had taken her three years to pull herself up out of that dark hole she’d been in back then. She couldn’t afford to fall apart like that again.

“It was just sex,” she’d told Marcy. She wanted to believe it, but she knew it was a lie. What had Adam said, when she’d told him about Jeremy? “I’m a tough act to follow.”  He’d been kidding, but it was too true. He was her template for everything a man should be. Being with him again these past two nights, she’d fallen right back into the mold. He led, she followed. Now he would call her up whenever he came into town, and she’d come running. And she would count the days until she heard from him again. And she would obsess over the tabloids showing him hanging out with other women. And she would be in constant agony wondering if each visit would be the last. She was crazy if she thought this wasn’t going to end badly.

Two nights with him, and she was already getting attached, but he just wanted a – what had TMZ called it? A mystery gal pal? A nameless New York City good time girl. He probably had one in every town. He’d told her as much when he’d taken her picture this morning. “To keep you straight from all the other Janes,” he’d said. Another joke that hit a little too close to home. It wasn’t like he had room in his life for anything more than that. He worked constantly. He was on the road for months at a time. Sitting here, daydreaming about when he asked her to be his girlfriend all those years ago – it was delusional.

I heard you say you needed me.

Now what’s the problem? I can’t see.

You destroyed me.

I won’t fall apart again.

I’m not falling apart.

Jane turned the music off. The whole thing was just a recipe for getting her heart smashed. She had to put a stop to it before she got in any deeper.

She pulled up Adam’s name again in her contact list and began to compose a text:

“Thx for a great time. Better if we’re not in touch. No regrets.”

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