Page 4 of Below the Shadow of the City

Sparse, hot tears meld with the cool rain. I’m mad at myself. For fucking up yet another date, for forgetting to toss an umbrella in my bag, and for wearing shoes that are going to be sopping wet by the time I get to my apartment.

The longer I stand on the sidewalk, my fists balled up at my sides in frustration, the more the rain coats my entire body. I decide to stop delaying my walk, I could have been halfway home if I made the choice earlier. My headphones are somewhere lost at the bottom of the black hole purse I got off the Urban Outfitters clearance rack years ago, I’m already too annoyed to wrangle them out.

There was a time I could have romanticized a night like this. The way the rain makes the flickering bar lights sparkle and amplifies the sound of cars rolling by is cinematic from a point of view that hasn’t been marred by rampant pessimism. I trudge down the sidewalk and shiver from the late summer breeze.

Even the way my apartment is softly aglow from the light above my oven would be warm and inviting to someone else. I slink across the parquet flooring and flop onto my couch. Surely, cheerful Celia is having a better night now that she’s moved on past the obligatory date with me.

Maybe she’ll meet some hot drummer from Greenpoint and they’ll hit it off and have an amazing life together with exotic cats and an expensive espresso machine in a sunlit kitchen. Or maybe her band will make it big and she’ll tour the country.

In any of these hypothetical futures I imagine for her there's one common thread, I’m not going to be a part of it. And she’ll be far better off.

While my phone rests in my palm I open Instagram, and the first picture that pops up on my feed is Perrie.

Her glistening white teeth grin beside a tall blond in front of Big Ben, filtered to make the gray skies seem intentional and artsy. They contrast her flaming bright red hair, wild curls that practically fill the frame. Even now, I recall exactly what they felt like twirling between my fingertips. Perrie’s still in London, where she’s been since February. The tall blond is new, and after some light stalking I see she’s a graduate student studying psychology. I could use her insights right about now.

Not wanting to reopen the wound more than I already have, I close out of Instagram with a swift aggression. My final digital act of the evening is to message Margo, part of this well-rehearsed routine by now. She’d gotten countless messages apologizing for how badly I’d fucked up her blind dates. She must have run through her entire contacts list for me at this point, I’m baffled that there’s anyone left in all of Brooklyn for me to meet.

I think I’m going to take a break from dating.

Permanently this time.

You’ve been too gracious, and I don’t think there’s anyone left in Brooklyn for me.

I toss my phone across my couch and curl up on the cheap velour. Bass rattles from a car on the street below, barely muffled by the pre-war bay windows in the living room.

Every failed date ends in the same way. I return to my apartment and am greeted by the light above my stove and the stillness of the space. And every time I wonder why I bother meeting strangers that I know I’ll never allow myself to fall in love with, or even take home for a quick hookup.

I’ve asked the “what’s wrong with me” question more times than I can count since January, though the answer remains the same as it has been for every relationship before her and all that will come after. No amount of tarot card pulls, therapists, and soul searching can give me a true answer as to why Perrie decided to leave me on a random, boring Sunday. She was the latest in a lifelong string of relationships that came to a similar end. All of them

I circle around the apartment and fling all the windows open to let in the cool damp air, more effective than my struggling air conditioner. Despite just returning from a fifteen minute walk in the rain, I feel like my walls are closing in on me. When I prop myself on the edge of the couch again I replay the scene of Perrie leaving.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she had said, exasperated, as if us sharing the cushions together was some boiling point she’d reached. I was curled up with my laptop scrolling Tumblr, occasionally flipping it around to show her something I’d found amusing when she made her final statement. Our legs were intertwined, we practically melted into each other when we laid this close together. She untangled herself and sat up straight, refusing to look at me. Her ginger curls framed her face like a final curtain call.

After her hasty statement, it became a blur. She left for the night in a rush of flowing hair and leather duffle bags, and didn’t return until the following Saturday. That morning, Perrie walked into the apartment like I wasn’t even there and packed her things in silence as I begged for an answer. Three year relationships weren’t supposed to end like this. There was supposed to be passion, fireworks, something. Had I grown to be such an afterthought that breaking up was merely another chore for her to check off the list?

I’d been lulled into a false sense of security, we’d spent over a thousand days together, her presence beside me each morning was as certain as the sun rising. I knew her morning routine to the minute, I picked up her favorite drinks at the store without a second thought, our existence was perfectly symbiotic. Foolishly, I’d assumed synchronization was the same as love. I thought she was the one who would be different.

And after that final Saturday, she vanished. Like a complete ghost. Her existence was almost questionable, I had to remind myself she actually was real. That we had in fact spent multiple years together supposedly in love with one another.

In hindsight, there were plenty of things I’d overlooked. Logic could tell me that the breakup was overdue. Perrie was callous, combative, and had a superiority complex. I could frame her cruelty as comedy, but I’m sure my rose-colored glasses had done plenty of heavy lifting.

I’d ignored things like biting words and insults tossed around like they were “no big deal.” That’s what Perrie said about them, she’d claimed that every nasty comment was a joke, that her brand of comedy was darker and snarkier than most. She’d sometimes cushion them with compliments. For every snide remark about my personality or appearance, there’d be a sweet sentiment. Until the kindness grew to be more infrequent, and her comments became more pointed.

Despite all this, I held tight to the sweet words she’d say, the simple actions shared between two people that confirmed affection, and the fact that she’d stayed the longest of any relationship I’d had.

When we first split, I tried to look for signs. First, for the exact inflection point when she’d decided we were over. And then, signs that she actually ever liked me in the first place.

I loved her though, and I wanted to convince myself she loved me too.

Blocking her would mean I’d lose the singular string connecting her life to mine, so instead, I painfully kept her on my socials, her specter would still haunt my feed on occasion. It was probably an act of self harm to do so, but my pitiful self secretly craved the pain.

Months passed, winter thawed and the trees outside my window regrew their buds. The sun warmed the floors in my living room, and I remained there, frozen completely. She fled the country and moved on quickly. And my friends assumed I’d evolve past the heartache, after all, most people knew how to. My hair grew out, then I cut it, my nail color changed multiple times over. But there was still a piece of me that died on January Twentieth and would never be revived.

Perrie wasn’t the first to disappear in a flash. She was the final, though.

I’m cursed, I’m certain.

I have an uncanny ability to kill a relationship. It’s a pattern, it has been for over a decade now. Things are fine, great, even, until out of the blue, they’re not. But somehow I’m still surprised when they leave.