Experienced

Chapter Twenty

Bette thought about it. About how much easier weddings were when you had someone to split the cost of the hotel room with. When you had someone to travel with and chase canapés with and mock the best man’s Beat poetry speech with. Quite apart from the emotional aspects, the heartbreak, the devastation, the inability to do literally anything else, Mei dating someone else had put a real logistical spanner in the works. They were bound to run into each other on the same train and Bette’s last-minute hotel room was now significantly shabbier than the one she and Mei had originally reserved.

And she couldn’t quite believe that Mei hadn’t been in touch. There had been no messages, no calls. They hadn’t spoken since the night of the hospital. Erin must have confessed to her that she’d spilled the beans, because the last time Bette and Mei had spoken about the wedding they were traveling together, they were staying together, they were attending together. Mei hadn’t seemed the sort of person to just vanish. But without so much as a conversation, everything had changed. It helped, in a way, in terms of making Bette furious. It was harder to be quite so desperately in love when Bette was so disgusted by what Mei had done. She couldn’t pine, couldn’t fathom wanting to spend any more time with someone who could do this.

Mei should have had to have the difficult conversation. Should have had to do the breaking up. Instead, Mei had allowed a break to slide into a breakup without any effort or communication on her part whatsoever.

One night in front of Grey’s, so angry that her hands were trembling, Bette had passed her phone to Ash. She had spent days opening and closing their thread on WhatsApp, hovering over the call icon, drafting messages and opening lines in her head. Ash didn’t hesitate in deleting Mei’s number, in archiving their conversation, in blocking her on Instagram.

Bette had had a string of fine days in a row. Days when she had slept seven hours, and then got out of bed in the morning in an okay mood. At work that day she had happened across Mei’s name on the calendar and didn’t have to take a little walk away from her desk. There’d been days when she thought about it, sure, but didn’t feel overwhelmed by it. But now it was late, Ash was asleep, and Bette was hopelessly far from being so herself. Her phone was on mute across the room, because that’s what the sleep health website had told her to do. Giving in, desperate for something to distract her, she got up and swiped across the screen.

Ruth:Taking a shot you’re awake.

Ruth:Nothing specific it’s just you mentioned you still weren’t sleeping that well.

Ruth:And I’m awake and bored and so just thought I’d text.

Ruth:But you’re probably asleep! So no worries!

Ruth:You don’t need to reply to this in the morning.

There was unfamiliar anxiety bleeding through Ruth’s texts. It was clear that this was less checking in and more Ruth needing something from her.

Bette:I’m awake

Bette:so awake

Bette:if I had to drive straight through to Scotland I could do it

Bette:I’m that awake

Ruth:I’m so awake that I’ve given up on sleep entirely. I’m in the front room. I’ve got a book. A dull book, and even that’s not putting me to sleep.

Bette:do you want to chat?

Bette:I kind of hate talking on the phone

Bette:but I think I’d rather that than the glare of the screen

Her phone rang in her hand.

“I’m so honored that you deigned to speak to me. That my voice is the lesser of two phone-related evils.”

“Just barely, but you’re welcome,” Bette replied. She put the phone on speaker and placed it on the pillow beside her. “So what’s keeping you up?”

“Oh nothing in particular. How are you?”

“Yeah, no, we’re not doing me tonight. I’m fine. Let’s do you. What’s keeping you up?” she repeated, with slightly more force this time.

There was silence on the end of the line and Bette thought for a moment that Ruth might deflect again, might avoid the conversation entirely.

“It’s the PhD,” she replied, her tone already apologetic. “It’s so boring.”

“Yeah?” Bette said. It felt useful, good, warmed her to be able to be an ear for Ruth. Since they had met she’d been the one in crisis. But Ruth had texted her. Not Heather. Not Jody. Not Gabe. Ruth had come to her for help. She tried not to bask in the glow of being that person, of Ruth knowing she could be helpful as well as a bit of a mess.

“Yeah,” she said, and then exhaled audibly. “I just don’t have enough time for everything I have to do. The funding is so shit, and I have to take on so many tutorials just to keep my head above water, and the last thing on my list is always my research.”

“God, that’s so hard,” Bette replied.

“It is. I had a meeting with my supervisor today. She basically said she thought I’d be much further along. I don’t know how I possibly could be. Now that term has started again I have constant classes. But she’s right,” Ruth said, her voice speeding up, tangible panic creeping into the edges of it. “I should have made more use of the summer. I’ve got to get everything done in the next six months. I should be finalizing things and I’m not. It just feels impossible. I can’t…I can’t…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Bette interrupted, working to keep her voice as soothing as possible. “I mean, not that I have any idea what you’re going through, but I do know that you don’t have to have all the answers now. You’re not going to fix everything at eleven-thirty on a Monday.”

“No, but maybe if I sit here and let myself freak out I’ll just decide to quit instead and then I won’t have to worry about it at all,” Ruth said, her voice still pitched high, her breaths coming too fast. “I can just find something else to do, something that doesn’t stop me sleeping and doesn’t make me feel physically sick. I—”

“Breathe, Ruth,” Bette said, cringing at how patronizing it sounded. She thought of what helped her when she got worked up: Adriene, the YouTube yoga lady, and her breathing. “Breathe really really slowly. In for four, out for five. Deep as you can.”

Ruth did. Her breaths were shaky at first but soon evened out, steadier and steadier as Bette breathed with her. The relief Bette felt was tangible.

“Thanks,” Ruth said, eventually. “Sorry.”

“Stop,” Bette said. “It’s really fine. It’s more than fine. You’re okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Would it help to talk stuff through? Do you want to tell me about your research? Tell me all the translated novels from the twentieth century that are going to change my big gay life?”

“I can’t believe you remember what my research is. We haven’t talked about it since…”

“Since the first date. The date,” Bette corrected.

“Yeah,” Ruth said, her voice soft and intimate. “Thanks for remembering. But maybe—I’m not—can we talk about something else? I’m not trying to deflect, I think it just might help to talk about something else for a bit.”

“Okay, should I outline my PhD for you?” Bette replied. “It’s actually really clever; I’ve been working on it for ages.”

“Absolutely. I can’t think of anything I’d love more.”

“Okay,” Bette said, turning over onto her side, looking at the phone on her pillow. She imagined Ruth there instead and felt her stomach flip. “It’s called You’re My Person, colon, an examination of platonic love and female friendship on screen, and it’s foregrounded against the rise of young women marrying later and living alone around the turn of the millennium. It utilizes, as its key text, the cultural significance of the relationship between Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, with supporting documentation that includes that season four Sex and the City episode where Charlotte says the girls can all be each other’s soulmates. I have a whole section, called crying laughing face crying laughing face celebration face, addressing the fact that Sandra Oh and Kim Cattrall both left their shows, and had to remain really important soulmate friends via sort-of in-character texts and one-sided phone conversations at important narrative moments.”

There was a long pause, and then: “I would very much like to read this thesis,” Ruth said.

“Well, settle in,” Bette said. “I have thought about this…a lot.”

Bette sent her feet to the bottom of her bed in search of a cool patch and launched into it.