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Brooklyn
It feels like my entire world is collapsing around me. I jump when the door slams shut. I try to inhale, but it feels like I can’t. My chest is tight and every breath burns. I fall to my knees on Tyler’s front porch and sob.
When I finally gather my strength, I pull myself up and hug my arms around my body. It’s only now that I register the cold night air biting at my exposed skin. I don’t know what this means for Tyler and me.
Are we done?
I walk back to my cabin, the door flinging open before I can reach for the handle. Mallory takes one look at me and pulls me into her arms. She wraps them around me as I break down again.
“This isn’t supposed to happen,” I sniff between words, each one catching in my throat. “I’m the big sister! I’m supposed to comfort you.”
She strokes my hair as I lie in a ball on the floor, my head in her lap.
“You can’t always be the strong one, Brook.” She wipes a tear away from her own eye. I know seeing me like this—a complete emotional wreck—hurts her just as much.
We stay like that for the better part of an hour. She strokes my hair as I go through fits of crying and silence. My head feels like a lead weight. I don’t think I can possibly cry anymore. I sit up and let out one long sigh.
“You just want to go to bed, or do you want to talk about it?”
I look over at Mal and shrug.
“Okay, well, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go start your shower and get you a glass of water. I think you’re dehydrated after all that crying.” She walks into the kitchen and fills up a glass then roots around in the cabinet before walking back over to me. “Here, take some Tylenol and drink this then get in the shower. Afterward, we’ll see how you feel.”
By the time I get out of the shower and into my pajamas, it’s just after 10 p.m., but I know I won’t be able to sleep. I walk back out to the living room, where I find Mallory flipping through Netflix with two glasses of wine on the coffee table.
“Thought you might need a little something to help you sleep.” She motions toward the wine. “If not, I’ll drink both since I’m on vacation.”
I flop down on the couch and reach for the glass. “Thank you. Exactly what I need.”
“So do you want to tell me what happened?” She puts down the remote and grabs her glass, tucking her feet beneath her as she turns to face me.
“I fucked up—like, catastrophically.”
“Well, I gathered that. The fact that you told me on the way home that you never told Tyler about Neal popping back into your life, and that you never dealt with Neal, directly solidified that.”
I nod and take several big gulps of the wine.
“Why didn’t you, Brook? I don’t mean to pile on here, because I know this is horrible, but why hide this from him? You told me early on you felt like he was the one.”
I know she’s trying her hardest to be sympathetic here, but from the outside looking in, yeah, it seems like such an obvious error on my part.
“I was scared and frustrated. I thought I’d taken care of the Neal situation before I left Chicago. I told him in every way I could think of that we were done—that there was no hope—and he seemed to get it, or so I thought. But then when you told me he was reaching out to you and our parents, it gave me anxiety. I know he was just doing it so I’d reach out to him and he’d have an “in” back into my life. It’s just so exhausting, Mal.”
I feel like I’m on the verge of tears again, so I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I repeat the process a few more times.
“I feel like, for years, I tried to get out of this relationship. I tried to express how I felt to him, and he would constantly talk me back into staying with him. I know that’s not an excuse, because I’m an adult and I’m responsible for my own actions. I think I just felt like it was easier to stay with him, because every time I left, it was so emotionally exhausting to constantly have the same talks with him and then the next day, he would turn around and act like I didn’t just tell him I didn’t love him anymore.”
Mallory places her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry you suffered so much in silence. Truthfully, I never knew it was that bad. I mean, I know you had cold feet now and then, but I just thought it was one of those things you guys would work out. Like maybe you would take some time apart and realize he was the one you wanted to be with.”
“I always had this internal battle with myself; I felt like I wasn’t justified in leaving him. It felt like the fact that I didn’t love him and didn’t want to be with him meant there was something wrong with me, because according to everyone else, he was perfect on paper. We were perfect together. Like he always said, we had so much in common and never fought.”
I feel my chest start to tighten again and take another few sips of wine.
“I guess I just convinced myself that hoping and dreaming for some Disney fairy tale version of sparks and chemistry and happily ever after was bullshit and I was just kidding myself.”
“So what now?”
I shake my head. “I dunno. I feel like I do need to reach out to Neal while he’s here and sit down and have a conversation with him. But at the same time, I feel like what’s the point? Because it’s not gonna go anywhere.”
