She asks about his songwriting, and he gives her what paltry update there is. He tells her about what happened with Skye and Detroit, and George (whose prognosis remains good) and Lisbet, and also about a strange nervousness he feels about playing Thor and Meta’s wedding.
“But you’ve played so many weddings before,” V says. “Why would this one make you nervous?”
“Honestly, it was probably you,” J tells her, unable to stay a ghost for too long, and feeling the need to put some of his blood back into the conversation. “Not just the fact that you’d be there, but also the fact that Thor is your boss, and basically the only reason I’m there ties back to you.”
“I think you’ll be fine. Thor is a genuine fan. And Meta...well, I can never get a read on her. But I’m sure that if she didn’t want you playing, you wouldn’t be playing at her wedding.”
J sighs.
“What?” V asks.
“Maybe I’m just tired of weddings.” It’s not that he hasn’t had the thought many times before, but it’s rare for him to say it out loud.
“Why?”
“I think when I have things going on in my life, I enjoy it. But when I don’t, I feel like I’m a spectator in the world, and the weddings make that more obvious. I don’t mind being an observer, but I find it hard not being able to share my observations.”
“You can still share them with me,” V offers.
J can tell: She really means it.
Still, he says, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“You haven’t lost me,” V says.
“How can you say that? I have.”
“No. You haven’t. We have a choice here, to either devolve or evolve. I want us to evolve. And the only way to do that is to keep talking, to talk this through. So when I say you haven’t lost me, you have to take me at my word.”
“No,” J says. As simple as that, it’s exactly what he means.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, it’s over. Although I recognize that you would like to still have all the good parts of our connection while severing theother parts, that isn’t how this is going to work. I lost you, and you’ve lost me. I loved you, and ultimately that didn’t matter—that’s the worst feeling of losing there is. Even if I end up believing that we weren’t meant to be together, and even if we manage to evolve into some other kind of relationship, if we talk ourselves through...there is still the overwhelming feeling of failure. Not just in terms of you, but in terms of making any relationship work.”
V nods. “I know what you mean. But I think it’s also a trap we fall into—staying in something that isn’t right because we don’t want to have failed, because we don’t want to lose. When I got to New York, I told myself,This is your chance to try to be alone. Which at first sounds horrifying, because the whole world seems to be telling us that we should never be alone, that the only way to find happiness is to find someone else to be there with you. I have spent my whole life trying not to be alone. And for all I know, I won’t end up alone. But I’d at least like to give myself the option. To not feel I’ve failed because I am stepping away from what we have in order to navigate more on my own. What’s funny is that of the two of us, I feel you’re much better at being alone. But you also have much more pride than I do, so it makes sense that you’d hate to lose more than I do.”
“I at least seem to have the pride-fall pattern down well,” J says. “If only I was smart enough to see it coming—but I guess pride doesn’t let you see it coming, does it?”
“You’re going to be fine,” V says. “We’re each going to be fine. Don’t you feel that, at least a little bit, right now?”
And he has to be honest with her. He cannot make himself a ghost.
So he tells her, again, “No.”
There are hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of songs about falling in love, being in love. There are more about having yourheart broken. But how many songs are there about loving someone and having the nature of that love change? How many songs are there about going from lover to friend, from sex to affection? How many songs are there about being happy alone?
Walking home, J wonders these things.
He knows, theoretically, that V is right: He hasn’t really lost her, if he chooses not to lose her. But at the same time, he doesn’t feel a reason to make that choice. Maybe he doesn’t have the right songs to guide him. Or maybe there’s a reason there are ultimately more songs about heartbreak than about anything else.
V texts an hour later suggesting that, since they both have to be there early, they go to the wedding together. J says he’ll just meet her there. He is surprised when he gets a call from V at nine.
“Get your tux on and come early,” she tells him. “Thor and Meta seem to have hit a snag. And Thor’s asked for both of us to come to their hotel to help.”
J meets V in the lobby. He is in his tux and is carrying his guitar. She is in what could only be a bridesmaid dress, tight and teal.
“I chose it,” V says, tracing J’s glance. “Believe me, the other options were worse.”
