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“Cara! That’s amazing! Why the hell do you look like you’ve just told me you have been diagnosed with cancer?” I ask, happy as hell for my friend. I also mask the panic that overtakes me because it means Cara will be leaving London. I push the thought down; this moment is not about me.
“Because. It would mean leaving here. I know you moved here partly because I live here. And you’re in this weird thing with Simon, and this shit with your Dad being sighted. I don’t want to leave you here to go through this alone.” She says in a rush of words which are infused with true anguish.
At this declaration, I just stare at her. Besides my sisters and my friend, Nadia, from undergrad, Cara has been the one constant in my life. But for her to consider not taking this amazing opportunity because of me is crazy.
“Cara,” I begin, not quite sure what to say. “You have to take it. I’ll be fine. I have my work, and Paris is a two-hour train ride away. You can’t stay here for me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Addie, I know that, you idiot.” she says with an exasperated scoff. “Of course I am taking it. It’s my dream. But I am worried about you, my love.”
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “Addie, I know you’ll say you don’t care about stuff like this, but I have watched you over the last couple of months. I am worried you have spent your entire life avoiding your dreams for fear of having your heart broken by not having them come true.”
“Cara—” I start to protest.
“No, just hear me out, please.” She cuts me off. “You’ve spent your whole life not believing you could trust anyone. You chased this career because you didn’t want to need anyone financially and you wanted a profession that would put you above reproach. I get it. Your dad is a criminal and your mother was basically dependent on him.” I flinch at this.
“But, you are neither of those things. You have decided to ignore every example of unconditional love you’ve ever seen and focus on the acts of your parents to form your opinion of what families look like.”
I shake my head at her, but I can’t say a word. I am too overcome by emotion. She has never said these words to me before, and I don’t know how to take them.
My father’s absence has shaped the way I navigate through life. I don’t see how it couldn’t have. I was his favorite. He spoiled me. I was his baby, even when I wasn’t. I loved him more than anything. When I was a little girl, he was my Hercules. He hung the stars in the sky. And then he just left me. Like I was nothing.
“Addie, I just want you to give yourself a chance to live your dreams…to do what you love, simply because it makes you happy”
Her comment makes me feel, suddenly, so alone.
It wasn’t her whose father walked away without looking back. It wasn’t her who sisters graduated early and left her behind to face the loneliness and fear of living with a parent who you weren’t sure cared about you. She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t have the right to sit here and judge me. I feel thirteen years of stifled resentment come rushing to the surface.
I snap my head up to look at her. For once, I am not trying to hide what I am feeling. I let her see, reflected in my eyes, the full force of my anger and hurt.
“Not all of us had the luxury to dream, Cara. Not all of us had parents who didn’t let us down. We didn’t all get to lay in our beds and sleep and dream. Some of us lay in our beds and prayed we wouldn’t wake up and find our mother gone, too. Some of us had to worry about forgetting and using the wrong last name and having everyone discover who they really are, Cara.” I say her name with a contempt I know she feels like a slap. Good.
“I am sorry you think my life is a waste. But it is all I’ve ever wanted.” I grab my purse and open my wallet.
I reach in for a twenty-pound note. My hands tremble as I place the money on the table. Unable to meet Cara’s eyes, I stand up to leave.
“No, Addie, no. That is not what I meant. I just want you to be happy.” She reaches for me, her voice panicked and high-pitched.
Putting on my jacket, I laugh mirthlessly. “Me too, Cara. Unfortunately, that’s not in the cards for me. At least not today. But you enjoy living your dreams. I’ve got to get back to my life.”
I turn my back and walk away from my best friend. And as I step out into the cool, dreary September afternoon, the tears I want to shed are stuck in my throat.
September 19, 2014
The sounds of vendors setting up stalls serves as my music as I race through the streets of Islington on my morning run. I am running for my life. For my sanity. Since my fight with Cara yesterday, I haven’t been able to breathe. I can’t believe the way I lashed out at her.
I can’t believe how much it hurt to have the truth spoken so plainly. I have lived my life with a very single-minded purpose.
I don’t want to be my mother. I don’t want to ever depend on a man and have him leave me high and dry. I chose law as a profession because I wanted to proclaim to the world I was the furthest thing there was from a criminal.
I know these things. Why did it hurt so much to hear Cara say them? To know she knew them, too? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know I owe my best friend an apology.
My run has given me at least that much clarity, and as I approach my b
lock of flats, I start preparing what I’ll say in my head.
Stepping into the building, I stop short. Cara’s there. Sitting in one of the comfortable chairs dark green and white arm chairs in the reception area with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of what looks like pastries in the other.
Our eyes meet for a moment, neither of us says anything. I feel ashamed of what I said to her. Of how I flung her concern back in her face.
