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Rachel
New York City no longer felt like home.
I guess it’s possible that it never did. That I always found a way to convince myself it was home. That I was comfortable as a nameless face among millions, to blend in with the crowd. That the best place to be quiet was in a place where you couldn’t be heard, no matter how loud you screamed.
The subway ride from the airport had me sweating. It was easy enough to blame it on the humidity. On the heat from miles upon miles of concrete. On the human bodies crammed into that metal box like sardines. It was easy enough to pretend I wasn’t as nervous as I was.
This was the final cord to cut: my engagement with Tim. When I ended it with him, I was flinging myself fully into the void. Trusting Mason completely to catch me. I was giving up the security of Tim’s money. The comfort of his loft overlooking Central Park. The ease of his cook and his butler and his assistant. The peace of mind of his name next to mine on a marriage certificate. A warm body in bed, promised. A hand to hold in the cold, guaranteed. A pair of eyes to catch in the mirror as you brushed your teeth each night signed, sealed, and delivered. I was giving up a nice life. A quiet life, a life that wasn’t really mine, that probably wouldn’t ever really be mine. But a nice life nonetheless.
Maybe that’s why I hadn’t told Mason about Tim. About our engagement. About the secret I had been keeping from the start. About the lies I told him during all those weeks because of it. I wasn’t quite ready to cut that cord. I still didn’t quite trust the arms that were to catch me when I did.
I got on the subway. I climbed the stairs at the stop near our building, walked with sure steps down the sidewalk. I breathed in deep and went straight up to the lobby door.
I already had my eyes on the elevator across those shimmering marble floors. Already saw my finger pushing the top button, already saw it glowing golden. Already heard the words from my mouth as I stepped onto the rug I once found beautiful, “Tim, there’s something I need to tell you.”
But I only got as far as the lobby door when an arm came out to stop me.
I stared at the arm barring my way. Frowned at it. Looked up in confusion as the doorman said, “I’m sorry, miss.”
I followed the doorman’s arm to a pile of hastily and carelessly stacked boxes by the trash bins.
Because I was standing beside my things which had been ordered out of the apartment. Sent out to be trashed.
Tim had somehow learned about Mason.
I wasn’t sure how. Or when even. But he had. That I was sure of. There was no other explanation for suddenly getting tossed out of my home. There was no other explanation for my things boxed up and already covered in dog piss on the sidewalk. The doorman had already turned away. The door already was closing.
I was alone.
No. No, no. I wasn’t alone. I had Mason. He’d forgiven me. I’d forgiven him. We were going to be together. We were going to have the forever we’d once promised each other. I believed that. I did. I trusted it. I trusted him. I had Mason. I had him. I was not alone.
But I had the same feeling that I did when I found my apartment empty that night I returned from my performance. I believed in Mason then, too. And yet I somehow already knew. I got that same feeling as I stood there on the curb, trying to telling myself I was not alone, trying to avoid what was right there in front of me.
With trembling fingers, I dialled Mason’s number. As it rang I paced back and forth in front of all my life’s belongings thrown out onto the curb. The longer the time went by without Mason answering, the tighter I gripped the phone.
The heat from the sidewalk seemed to burn through the soles of my shoes, scorching my skin, drenching me in sweat despite the pleasant breeze. My throat was parched by the time Mason’s voice came on. It was the same message. The same message as all those years ago.
“It’s Mason. If you know me, leave a message. If you don’t, fuck off.”
I had that same feeling as I slipped my phone into my back pocket. That same feeling but worse than all those years ago. Because then at least there was something to destroy. There were drawers to break as I yanked them loose to check them. There were pillows to tear open, fluff to litter the floors of my living room with, leather to scratch as I clawed at the couch cushions. There were glasses to shatter when I scrambled around the backs of the cabinets, praying to find a piece of him, begging to stumble upon a sign, an answer, yearning for just the tiniest glimpse of hope.
There, on the busy, ruthless city street, there was nothing to destroy. It was all already destroyed. My things were already broken. Already scratched and dragged and dirtied. There wasn’t even me left to ruin. I was already ruined.
I called Mason over and over until my phone ran out of battery. I waited through all those hopeless rings as people left work, as couples passed by hand in hand to dinner, as teenagers wandered by in the middle of the night, buzzed from a couple of cheap beers. I waited there with my whole life on the sidewalk and tried to tell myself I wasn’t alone until I literally was.
The streets were empty save a car or two with silent, rolled-up windows. No one crossed the sidewalks in front of the building where I was once going to live happily ever after. Even the homeless had found a place to lay their heads, a corner of the brutal world they could call their own, even if just for the night. The doorman of Tim’s building had stopped peeking his head out at me, stopped checking to make sure I was alright.
He knew I wasn’t. But he couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.
I collapsed onto my suitcase because it was the closest thing I had to Mason. His eyes had been on it. His hands. It had spent thirty days in his home. Thirty days beneath his bed. We’d fucked above it. Whispered late into the night with it tucked away beneath us. Made promises and told the truth, all the goddamn truth with it in earshot. I’d lied to Mason with it right there under me.
I don’t know when I started crying. I just knew that the concrete had retained enough heat that by the time I stopped, the concrete was already dry of fallen tears. No trace of my pain. Not even something to point at and say, “Here, right here, was where it all fell apart.”
I was just a girl without a home.
That was my lesson. I wasn’t meant to be the girl with a Vegas show. I wasn’t meant to be the housewife of a rich man in NYC. I wasn’t even meant to be the girl heartbroken on the curb.
I was just meant to be alone. That was my role. My big, shiny, new role.
