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Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that I couldn't see him tonight, maybe a little space was good, healthy. It might help to stop me from going full blown goo-goo over him. Although, admittedly, I had gone and fallen in love with him already, and that was before we had mind boggling sex so many times I lost count. Goo-goo was probably a forgone conclusion at this point whether I saw him tonight or not.
And just when I thought that maybe relationships were okay, that they were possibly not all on a ticking clock to failure, Pip turned up on my doorstep to prove that even the strongest ones could fall apart.
I was not the woman to help you deal with an existential crisis. Not by a long shot. Not unless you were happy to be given a lot of alcohol and very little food in the process, which, apparently, she was.
I collected a bottle of whiskey and dropped down on the couch next to Pip as she set her mug on the coffee table.
“You wanna talk about it?” I asked because that was what you asked in these situations, even when your insides felt like they were crawling and you didn’t actually want to know. Because the knowing couldn’t be erased. The knowing stayed with you long after the conversation ended.
She sniffed and accepted a swig of whiskey and a slice of pizza then slouched into my lumpy cushions. There was no way I could let her sleep on this thing tonight if that really was her plan.
“I thought we were working through it, you know? Our counselor was really good, making us stop and think about things. But maybe it was just too far gone. Maybe it broke too long ago and now it’s set badly and there’s no fixing it.” She took a bite of pizza.
I hadn’t admitted it to myself until this moment but part of me had secretly been hoping that maybe there was some cheating involved. I didn’t know what it was about that situation that softened the blow of a collapsing relationship. Did it seem less messy, in my inexperienced relationship-brain? Less messy than falling out of love or growing apart, because how do you fix those things? Yes, cheating was easier, cleaner, you cheated, you won’t do it again. Problem solved. The ridiculousness of my brain terrified me sometimes.
“Did something happen?”
“Nothing at all, and too many little things to even count.” She sighed.
“Do you still love him?”
“I always will.” It was a sad, almost resigned confession. “But I don’t know if it’s enough. Not anymore. It might have been when it was just the two of us. When we didn’t have the kids and the house and all the other bullshit. When it was just us everything was simpler, but now … it’s like I blinked and lost all this time and I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know who we are anymore.”
I sat in stunned silence. How was being in love not enough? I thought that was the whole point? Once you were in love, you could do anything, right? Whatever came your way you handled it, together.
God, I was so naive. Being in love didn’t change anything. It wasn’t this magic pill that fixed everything. It made things worse. It made it harder because there was so much more to lose. It took you all the way up to the roof and sat you on the edge and then told you not to fall off. But the fall was inevitable. It always had been. I’d just been trying to convince myself otherwise, because I wanted to keep Mack. But if this had taught me anything, it was that I couldn’t. Not like this.
Yes, I was in love with him, but ending it now would surely be easier than six months, a year, two years from now. Wouldn’t it? My stomach twisted as a war of emotions played out.
I was being a selfish bitch. I shouldn’t be sitting here wallowing about my own situation. I should be comforting Pip in her time of need, like a good friend.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though it was a woefully undercooked response given what she had just confessed.
She took a swig of whiskey. “God, I’m going to be a divorcee. And I know there’s not actually anything wrong with that, but after the shit my parents went through—after the shit they put us through—I swore I wouldn’t do it, not to myself, not to my kids … But here I am.”
“Can I play the role of devil’s advocate, for a moment?”
“Go ahead.” She shrugged, still cradling the bottle.
What on earth did I think I could say to turn this situation around? “Could all of this be a test or something?”
“A test?”
“Yeah, like, the universe only gives you what it knows you can handle or whatever, right? So maybe this is a test for your relationship.”
“If it is a test, we’re failing.”
“Pip, I feel confident in saying that I don’t think you’ve ever failed anything in your life, it’s not in you.”
She smiled at her own lap at that.
“What I mean is…” I had no idea what I meant but I’d started this train and had to see it through. I couldn’t accept that their relationship was just over. “That maybe, even though this feels like the end, it’s not, maybe it’s just another chapter, and once you get to the end of this one another new one will start. Does that make sense, or am I just deliriously tired?”
“It does make sense, and I agree that this is a chapter, and there will be many more, but I don’t think they’re going to look the way they do in your head.” It wasn’t pity in her eyes, but it was close. “Why are you so tired? Big night?”
“Didn’t sleep well.”
“Uh huh … any particular reason why?”
