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“Are you still there?” Cora asks, her voice coming through the speakers of the phone loud and clear. We’re on a FaceTime call, and I didn’t realize the phone had slipped and she was looking at the ceiling.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I let out a deep sigh, adjusting it.
I feel more lonely than I have in a long time. It’s strange too. Nothing in my everyday life has changed, yet there’s this aching hole inside of me that seems to grow as the weeks roll on. Avery is with Ash in Paris, Cora is suffering through a family holiday trip to Turks and Caicos, Justin is in Palm Springs convinced we’re on another break while I work through whatever this apparently is, and Clay is out there somewhere, but I don’t know where and I can’t bring myself to ask anyone.
There’s a long pause, and then she hums.
“Do you want to hear what I think?” Cora asks, pushing her sunglasses up her nose since they had slipped.
“Kind of.” I pull the blanket on my lap tighter around me. It’s not cold inside, but the gray skies make me want to snuggle down.
“I know you loved Justin, but you were never in love with him.”
I don’t want to talk about Justin. There’s nothing to say. But Cora seems worried about me and feels I need this therapy session, so I’m going to give it to her.
“How can you say that? We were together for almost six years.”
Six years. I let out a huff. I’ve often thought about going back through the calendar to see exactly how many days total we were physically together, and I bet even including the first six months when he lived in the city, it wouldn’t even total nine months.
How sad is that.
What’s also sad is that I think she’s not wrong.
“But were you really? Listen, I don’t doubt that some part of you loved him, and had the arrangement between the two of you been different, you might have fallen in love with him, but Em, you weren’t. Two people who are in love never would have purposefully chosen the path you two did. Your entire relationship was long distance, and I never wanted to come across as not supportive of you, but it was weird. He became weird. In the beginning, sure, these things happen where one person has to work on location, but all these years later, what kind of relationship was that?”
“We can’t help where we live. Our careers dictated that,” I tell her defensively.
“But did they?” A seagull cries out in the background. Maybe this therapy call isn’t just for me; it’s for her too as she’s hiding from her family.
I know she’s right. At first I justified the distance because my career kept me traveling so much and his was brand new and he was trying to make a name for himself, so what did it matter where he lived or where I lived? We weren’t going to be together anyway. But my traveling eventually slowed down, and regardless of where we were, I did dream of being able to come home to him. The thing is, his job isn’t that unique. He’s a computer programmer. Once he had a solid two years of experience down, there were plenty of jobs for him out there, and plenty that were remote as well.
I let out another deep sigh. “Want to know the worst part about all of this?” I ask her.
“Of course.”
“I’m not even sad it’s over. In fact, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in a long time.”
Did I have this moment of panic as Justin walked away from me at the wedding? Yes, but it was just that, a moment. Once he left, my days weren’t any different. We weren’t different. It’s not like other relationships where you spend a majority of your time and every night with that person. I didn’t miss him in the traditional sense because there was nothing to miss.
“Over this last year, a lot of things have been eye-opening for you. You got to witness firsthand what a true and deep love between two people looked like, you allowed yourself to open up to the possibility of someone else, and even though things feel a little unstable at the moment, we’re all kind of in this place where the next phase of our lives is about to happen.”
“Is that place called our thirties?” I let out a chuckle.
“Seriously, don’t joke. You know I’m a year older and closer than you are.” She adjusts her hat, making sure it’s pulled down tighter on her head to block out the sun.
“Ah, forever older,” I tease.
“And wiser.”
“He’s still calling me,” I tell her almost begrudgingly. I glance to the bookshelf where I used to keep a photo of us. I took it down the day I thought Clay was coming over and never put it back up; that also should have been telling.
“Why? Are you answering?” she asks with an edge to her tone.
“No. He left a voicemail wishing me a happy Thanksgiving, but I just replied the same in a text.”
“You know what I think?” She pauses, and I wait. “I think Justin fell into this habit where he liked to string you along. I’m not even sure if he realized he was doing it, but I think he liked to say he was with you. He’s always been a little bit of a showboater about dating you, and not in a way where he’s proud of you, but more proud to be with you. He loved telling people you were his girlfriend, but as for loving you, his reasons definitely changed after the fame came.”
I’ve thought about this before. He knew me before we became Avery, Emma, and Cora, the superstar pop trio. Then he liked me for me, and now I think he likes me for who I became.
