He takes a moment, strums a few chords, and then, as the clerks in the other room close their windows and pack up to leave, he sings:
There must be a way to solve every lovers’ quarrel, I want to think
As long as the heart was in the right place, if you didn’t mean anything
Forgive Eddie for his sins
He just forgot the fucking rings
If there’s still love in your heart please take him back in
THE NINTH WEDDING
The next day, as soon as he wakes up, J texts V:
I’m leaving tonight. Do you think it’s a good idea for us to meet?
By the time he’s out of the shower, there’s a reply. It’s not a text or a call, but a voice message. He takes a deep breath and hits play.
“Good morning, J. I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and ultimately I don’t see what the point is of us getting together to talk in person. We both know how the conversation will go...or if you don’t, you should by now. All I’ve wanted from you is space, and you are unable to give that to me. For all the right intentions, I’m sure. But the intentions don’t really matter, not at this point. I need to focus on myself now, and on this new life I’m building. I can’t focus on you, not in the way you want me to. I don’t want to hurt you. This is not at all about hurting you, even though I am sure it will make you hurt. I don’t regret any of our time together, and I hope someday to have more time together. But right now, my time has to be my own. There is no way to co-own it. So I think it’s best to say goodbye. And I know this is the wrong way to do it. But don’t you think us seeing each other and me saying this to your face would be even worse? Because you would try to stop me, and if you tried to stop me, I would hate you. I don’t hate you now. Not at all. I hope this makessense. I’m just rambling at this point. You know what I mean, don’t you? Goodbye, J. At least for now.”
V isn’t sure how J is going to respond. When her phone buzzes with a new text, she approaches it with trepidation.
I won’t try to talk you out of it,he’s written.
Good answer,she replies. Then, with shaking hands, she starts getting dressed.
J rides the subway and feels profoundly resigned. It manifests not as sadness but silence, not anger but emptiness. He is standing on the dance floor after the last song, blinking as the lights are turned on and what once felt magical is now a mundane, borrowed room.
He knows there is nothing he can do. He hasn’t done anything catastrophically wrong, but even if he cashes in all his bonus points, they won’t get him the prize. He’s honestly not even sure what the prize is anymore; the woman he wants to fight for, the woman he wants to be with...she only exists in the past. He’s figured out that much, at least.
The trick is giving up on V without giving up on love altogether. That is the hard part. The really hard part. Because the lesson can shift so easily fromShe isn’t worth the paintoIt isn’t worth the pain.
He has left people for much less than this. He has been left by people for much less than this. He has been cheated on, vivisected, ghosted, and blamed. He has also blamed, also ghosted, been bored or reckless with affections he should have cherished. With V, he had thought it would be different. And, he supposes, itisdifferent. It’s yet another broken link in the relationship chain, but it broke for a different reason.
The whole time they were together, they should have been working on the times they wouldn’t be together, so the distance wouldn’tmatter. But instead they considered it a positive that when J was gone, neither one felt the need to spend much effort on keeping in touch. Because there was always an end date to the apartness. Now, however, they’re really, indefinitely apart, and there’s no way to keep hold. She found a new life, and there is no place for him in this new life.
He still doesn’t know how this happened. But he is certain now that it has.
The first words she says to him are “I’m sorry.” Seeing him so forlorn, so defeated, and knowing that she’s the reason the clouds have gathered...she doesn’t feel regret, but she does feel sorry.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, brave-facing it. They are at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, right by the bandshell. She hadn’t wanted them to have another awkward meal. Better to walk around, talk it through.
“I know you’ll be fine,” she says. She wants to console him, physically console him, then catches herself—if she’s going to do this, she has to do it clean. No touching. No nostalgia.
“I’m surprised you like this city so much,” he says. Which almost seems ridiculous, because it’s a nice day in the park; they are surrounded my people who seem happy with their choice to be here.
She does not point this out.
Instead she admits, “I am, too. But honestly, if work had taken me to London or Paris or Sydney, the same thing would have probably happened.”
“You leaving me?”
“Me leaving home.”
“Is that what this is about?”
V wants so badly for him to understand this. “It is,” she says. “I keep thinking back to Matthias from university. You know, when graduation got close, I understood I had to break up with him. I couldn’t see a future for us; he was annoying, self-centered, and needy. I thought it would be an easy break, because of theend of school. But when I told him, ‘I think it’s time for us to go our separate ways, now that we’re graduating,’ he told me, ‘What are you talking about? That’s no reason for us to break up. Neither of us is going anywhere.’ It made me so angry then. And whatreallypissed me off is that he ended up being right. Until you, I hadn’t even left Sweden. You’ve taken me places, more than anyone else ever has. But I’ve felt like a guest, J. You haven’t made me feel like a guest, but that’s how it’s been. Now I don’t feel that way. Now I feel I’m actually living somewhere else. And even though it’s exhausting, it’s also exhilarating. I took control of my life when I was a teenager, but that was a matter of survival. Now I get to do it on my own terms, and even if I fail, I’ll still be better for it.”
