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“Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.”
~ Gloria Naylor
KATE
The name Eric flashes across the screen. I take a deep breath, then another. When it comes to Eric, patience is a virtue.
“What?”
The word stumbles out of my mouth too quickly, my mood suppressed and not caring for the idle chit-chat Eric is known for partaking in.
“Is that all I get?” he complains in his high-pitched tone. “You’re on babysitting duty this week. I can’t take that hostility on top of everything else.”
Eric had recently broken up with Tristan over his own insecurities. Tristan went to Dubai to film a movie, and Eric was adamant Tristan would cheat on him. Despite Charlie and me trying to convince him he was in his own head, Eric acted on impulse and broke it off the day before Tristan left. It’s been precisely thirty days since that happened, and Eric has been nothing but a sad and pathetic excuse of a human being. There’s miserable, and then there’s Eric Kennedy.
Between Charlie and myself, we are babysitting him emotionally. This week is my turn, and I already miss the peace from his over-dramatic retelling of how much comfort-eating he’s been doing and how the scales refuse to lie to him.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, closing my eyes momentarily to get a grip on myself. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“You and me both. What’s up your puss, or shall I ask who is up your puss?”
“Nothing,” I respond, flatly. “I mean no one. Can I call you back? I’m just about to leave the office. It’s been a hell of a day.”
It is a lie but a much-needed one. I need to clear my head, and Eric is the last person I want to speak to.
“Fine, reject me, just like everyone else. ‘I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me’…” he cries.
I groan into the speaker. Eric breaking out into song brings out the worst in him. His desperate need for my attention only accelerates my need to head home to a bottle of much-needed wine.
“Listen, drama queen. I’ll call you back when I’m liquored up and immune to your melodramatic mood.”
“Thanks, doll. Speak soon.”
The line goes dead, the silence like pure bliss.
It’s late, just after seven. The office is practically deserted with only the sounds of the cleaners hovering with their equipment while they work in silence. It’s not unusual for me to stay back, seeking solace in work rather than go home to an empty apartment.
The sound of my phone pings, alerting me to a text message. With frustration, I curse openly at Eric and his desperation during his so-called emotional breakdown only to see another name on the screen.
My chest begins to hitch, the heaviness of the text message impossible to ignore in front of me. Taking a deep breath, I allow the air to give me the confidence I need to shield me from the humiliation I’m almost sure to feel.
Dominic: There’s nothing left to say.
My eyes dart over the words, half-expecting them to change into something less hurtful. Slowly, my shoulders curl over my chest, followed by an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.
I spent a week waiting for any sort of respons
e from him. Anything at all to show me he at least cared for me in any kind of way. I conjured up different scenarios in my head, like what he’d say as far as him busting into this office demanding to strip me down to nothing so he could devour me.
Yet everything my warped mind begins to envision is everything he’s not.
I tried to play with fire, I got burned, and his text cements just that.
This moment is exactly how he said it would play out. Just somehow, over the last two months, I allowed myself to become someone I am not. I isolated myself more so than usual, detached my emotions from reality, almost as if I were walking in someone else’s shoes.
Eric, being assertive even in his own mess, questioned me multiple times, but I always found a lie worth telling to protect our friendship. At least that’s the story I led myself to believe.
Every lie I spun became easier as if the truth no longer existed. I’d done things, out of character, out of my comfort zone, trying to latch onto someone who, from day one, made his intentions perfectly clear.
Yet, I craved something more, foolishly allowing my emotions to walk silently beside my tough exterior. I blamed society with all its ageist bullshit of ticking clocks and whatnot. I narrowed down my ache to experience intimacy with a man because of my circle, watching my friends and family on their journeys to find love and happiness.
Placing my phone down on the desk, I go through a few contracts in desperate need to steer my mind onto something else before I make a stupid decision like respond back.
There are a few emails that need answering, and one from Lex’s assistant trying to sync dates of our travel schedule over the next few months. There’s a summit in London Lex insists I attend since many of our stakeholders will be present. Going back home seems fitting. It’s been over a year since I last set foot in London, and boy, do I miss my family.
But going back home will invite my family to ask questions about my personal life, which apparently, is their business. My mother, God love her, has always been a traditionalist. Marriage, babies, everything I don’t have. I was never one to really want to settle down, nor does the idea of babies entice me. Sure, I love my goddaughter, Amelia, and the other children I spend time with, yet I equally enjoy handing them back at the end of the day.
Around me, that’s where everyone’s journey has led them—happiness with a chosen person and extending their love by growing a family.
Lex and Charlie are happy, expecting baby number three and well-settled into their family life on the West Coast. Even Adriana found love with Julian. The universe works in mysterious ways with them, but nevertheless, they are in love and have just brought their daughter home from South America. The last I’d spoken to Adriana, she was the happiest I’d ever heard her, and despite my own opinions on Julian, he has made her happy, and it isn’t my place to get involved in their relationship.
Back here on the East Coast, it’s been a while since I caught up with Nikki and Rocky. The last I had heard, things were dicey between them. Again, not my place to get involved, especially since I have no wisdom to impart on the subject of infertility.
And perhaps my decision to remain single isn’t without reason. Love appears wondrous and satisfying, yet with that comes heartache. Lex and Charlie have had their fair share of ups and downs, and unfortunately, I was caught in the crossfire without even knowing it at the time.
Adriana and Julian—I don’t even know where to begin with how difficult that was.
