Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Arden
"What is it about every single movie that makes it seem like these are supposed to be the best years in our life? This can't be it…"
I'm laying on the floor in my living room, limbs spread out like a starfish clothed in the remnants of my office-job. I try to go for more of a Devil Wears Prada are-those-the-chanel-boots look, but honestly, none of the men I work with have seen that movie and I certainly cannot afford Chanel anything at this point. Like everything else in my life lately, it's all carefully curated appearance with nothing substantial underneath, much like whatever this thing with Gabriel was supposed to be.
"I'm just saying… I thought it would be different than this…didn't they make it seem like it would be different than this? Do you know how many times I was asked to get coffee today? Do you… and it's not about getting coffee, it's about the fact that no one with a penis ever gets asked. As if the thing between their legs prevents them from balancing a tray, if it was actually as big as any of them liked to pretend maybe they could use it to balance the tray but no…"
To send your voicemail, press one. To re-record press two.
"Shit shit shit." I sit up quickly and the phone falls from where it's been propped on my boobs as I ramble for what the voicemail gods have obviously deemed 'long enough.' I hit one on the keypad and send the voicemail off to Stella where it will sit in an unanswered inbox like so many of them. I don't blame her. After our sophomore summer, she signed up for an exchange program and after graduation she decided that her calling was in Italy. And that's where she ran as soon as she could. Her degree now sits in her back pocket as she is more focused on perfecting her pasta making technique than being a psychologist.
Which basically means we've been playing a game of telephone tag for as long as I can remember. Much like my houseplants, our friendship exists in a perpetual state of barely hanging on, both requiring a kind of attention I can't seem to maintain from a distance. It's easier to watch things wither than to admit I'm not good at keeping things alive once they're out of arm's reach.
"Ugh." I sigh loudly and dramatically let myself fall back to the floor. No one is here. I live alone now. And while this apartment is nothing to write home about, it is mine. Alright, not mine mine, but mine, because every month I send off most of my hard earned coffee-getting money to some dude I've never met. But it's the perfect space. Close enough to all the places I've loved without being trapped in them.
I don't think enough people talk about the weirdness in living alone. It isn't something anyone prepares you for. Or rather, the weirdness that becomes you. It's not always loneliness. Though, that creeps in also. The quiet is kind of nice. But the all out weirdness of knowing you're not beholden to any other living thing so long as you are alone in these walls. Probably why I've defaulted to staring up at the ceiling fan and watching it spin with my boots kicked off and bra thrown across the room but I'm still dressed just enough because the complete paralysis of having to take off anything non-essential has me rooted to this spot.
It's nestled on a short street lined with buildings just like it. When I graduated I could have left the city like everyone else. This city is transient and moves in waves. You see it every fall as the bright-eyed freshman land amongst their new peers. You see it every spring when the grads pack up and leave her behind. While all the buildings here have survived hundreds of years of students, she's used and then set aside for the glitz and glamor of the big siren cities that come calling once degrees are in hand. Reid heard that call too, joining the exodus that happens every spring. Maybe that's why I stayed. Our relationship wasn't over yet, not with the city, at least.
Having just crammed the contents of my day into another inbox, overstuffing it into the void like I do so many things, I'll just lay here a little longer waiting for return phone calls I know won't come.
I watch the fan circle. Imagining how fast it would need to be moving before it spun right off its rotator and came crashing down on top of me. The only sound I hear besides the non-stop self-narration is the whooshing with each rotation, or maybe every several rotations, I'm not sure. It's the kind of mindless thought that allows me the hyperfixation needed rather than focusing on all the things I need to be doing and thinking about.
When did this become my life? Too tired to move. Alone in silence. Sometimes the only meaningful conversation I have in a day is with myself. This didn't used to be my life, back in college when the halls were filled with friends and laughter. Now the only sounds are those from the apartment itself and my growling stomach.
Today was exhausting. Not because work is hard as much as it can be frustrating. Frustrating to watch all these men around me, throw their dicks on the table to see whose is biggest. Spoiler alert, none of them. I know this because if they had anything meaningful between their legs or between their ears, they wouldn't compete in this ongoing cock fight. It's almost comical. Or it would be if I wasn't always the one left watching them bro-eachother-off. The way they all pat each other on the back for a job mediocrely done is just a frat-boy circle jerk. Even my succulent, Pricktor, seems to be withering under the toxic masculinity, and those things are supposed to be impossible to kill.
Speaking of cocks… there’s something I need to do.
I take a deep breath as I swat my hand blindly in hopes of finding my phone within reach so I don’t have to move again. Leaning into the physical and emotional atrophy that’s occurred now. There should be something grounding about having my spine on the floor and my limbs stretched out like this. I think it’s supposed to help a chakra, or balance, or anxiety, which I have been newly diagnosed with.
Not officially diagnosed, but more of a general, ‘do you ever feel anxious’ question during my last physical, ‘don’t most people?’ was my reply. Apparently, most people do not . Or rather, they just don’t admit it. Lesson learned. I took down the recommendation for a therapist, called my mom, and filed that away. I’ll tell you what won’t help my anxiety? Another hour taken from me each week to talk about all the things that already happened. The only ancient history I’m interested in is occasionally actual ancient history, never my own.
I prop my phone back on its boob-perch so perfectly positioned that it sounds like I’m putting effort into this call while in actuality it just means I don't have to pick my head from the floor. I uncomfortably glare down my nose to scroll through the contacts to find his name so I can rip off this bandaid. R.I.P.
Rip is a fucking stretch. It's like one of those loose bandaids that hang from your heel and you’re not sure if you’re better off exposing the blister or forcing it back down as you shove your foot into the high heel you know will cause your toes to be numb and filled with blood by whatever time you stroll in. Only to slip on the more practical work shoe a handful of hours later. In this case I’ve decided. Blister it is. I hit the call button, switch the call to speakerphone and lay it against my sternum so I can feel the vibration of the ring.
Dropping my arm back to the wood floor and resuming my position as full starfish. Gabriel and I have had this pseudo-casual semi-consistent relationship on the back-burner for long enough.
Three rings.
"Hello?" he answers with more of a question. Probably because we spend so little time on the phone.
"Hi," I say with more confidence in greeting than he did. The beat of silence goes on longer than I should let it. I’ve gotten in the habit of giving people the breath to catch up, to fill the silence. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t. And that’s my cue…
"I don’t think you should come over tonight."
"Working late?" Fair question considering I am typically either working late or lying about working late as the go-to excuse.
"No, I’m already home, I just, I think I need a break, this isn’t really working out."
"This?" he says with such incredulity, like the idea that there even was a this is shocking, or maybe he’s offended that it isn’t working out. He couldn’t actually see this as going well, could he?
"I just think we are looking for different things," I continue, trying to let him down more gently. But this whole thing has been gentle. This whole thing has been based around convenience, reasonable compatibility. And it’s been fine for both of us, working within schedules, but laying here for the last hour the flurry in my stomach at the idea of seeing him later was more at the inconvenience of shaving my legs than it was any sense of excitement. There was a time that was part of the appeal. Perhaps knowing that even the best version of him could only ever result in the worst version of us, and I would never find myself in a position trapped by the addictive comfort of love. It wasn’t love.
"Arden, seriously? Are you even listening to me?" Wow, I guess not.
"What do you want from me? You’re busy, I’m busy…" It’s not a lie.
"What do I want?" he laughs, chortles almost, "I want a girlfriend…" he says. A girlfriend. Not ‘you’. Which is how I know this is the right decision.
We were both placeholders, and worked well enough, but the thing about using people as placeholders, is that there's clearly something you are keeping them in place of. And eventually, you realize it just isn't enough. The shape of whomever you're holding as the cardboard cutout in your heart, isn’t shaped in a way this person can walk through. Not without going full KoolAid man and crashing through. And let’s be honest, there’s nothing about Gabriel that makes him an I’ll-crash-through-a-wall kind of guy. That has been part of the appeal. That, and again, the convenient scheduling.
He sighs in defeat, and it's honestly more of a fight than I thought he would have even put up.
"You want a break, take your break, but I won’t be waiting around for you to decide this is something you want."
This.
Maybe if we had ever seen each other as more, we would be talking about each other as people, not just the semi-frequent sexual encounters and meals we labeled a relationship.
"I’m sorry" I offer in consolation.
"You’re not and I don’t need you to be."
And with that the line goes dead. I curl my head up from where it’s remained on the floor during this whole call, and yep, Call Ended. Relationship, too. I should probably be more disappointed than I am. But I don’t feel much of anything. It never took hold. It never got far enough into my bloodstream to infect the rest of my cells, it never pumped its way to my heart. Which is for the best, this all is.
I let out a dramatic groan that sinks into the floor with me as the ceiling fan continues its metaphor for my life. How profound.
My phone buzzes against my chest, and for a split second, I think it might be Gabriel having an emotionally mature revelation. But no, it's just my birth control alarm. Predictable. Right on schedule.
The wood floor beneath me has gone from grounding to just plain uncomfortable and I can feel the secondhand embarrassment from the houseplants in various stages of decay. I should probably move. Order takeout. Feed myself something other than the stale crackers and spite that have been sustaining me all day.
With heroic effort, I peel myself off the floor, my skirt making that distinctive sound of synthetic fabric separating from wood, like velcro but sadder. The apartment feels different now that I've officially ended things with Gabriel. Not emptier, exactly, but more honest. Like it's no longer pretending to be a space that might someday house a real relationship.
I shuffle to the kitchen, my stockinged feet sliding on the hardwood like I'm doing a very lazy impression of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. The contents of my fridge are a perfect representation of my life choices at the moment, half a bottle of champagne I nabbed from a work celebration, three different types of mustard from three different take out orders, and a yogurt that expired yesterday.
The city sparkles below me, all potential and promise and overpriced real estate. The sky is turning that specific shade of purple and orange that makes everything look like it's being filtered through an Instagram preset called Millennial Disappointment. Below, students are starting their Thursday night migrations between bars, their laughter floating up to my window like a reminder of when I used to be that carefree. Or at least drunk enough to fake it.
I open the champagne with a pop that sounds like the exclamation point to my day. The end of a chapter, maybe. I don't bother with a glass, that feels too civilized for a woman who just ended a relationship while essentially planking.
Somewhere out there, Gabriel is probably already updating his profiles, adding himself back into the pool of eligible men who list ‘adventures’ as an interest but really mean ‘golf.’ And somehow, watching the lights flicker on in apartments across the street, I feel more connected to this city full of strangers than I ever did to him.