Chapter Twenty-Three
Harlyn
“Things are great,” I said to Caitlin during our weekly video chat.
“That is the most unconvincing lie I have ever heard you tell. And I have heard you tell quite a few lies.”
“I’m not lying. It’s great. I feel at home with all the people I work with. It’s comfortable and my new apartment is small but it’s cozy and I like it.”
“What about the city? Have you done some major partying yet? That was your homework the last time we spoke.”
“Not yet. I’m still trying to get settled in. The weather is starting to change so I need to make some adjustments to my wardrobe, then I can hit the town.”
“Harlyn, you’ve been there almost six months.”
“I know but it takes time. It’s not like when I come for a visit. I have real responsibilities during the week.”
“Have you spoken to your mom?”
This was why I hated video chats with Caitlin. She had a way of asking a simple question but looking so fiercely into your eyes that you had no option but to tell her the truth. It was probably the reason she preferred a video chat to a phone call or text.
I shook my head.
“Harlyn, you can’t ignore her forever.”
“Yes, I can. She fucked me over, Caitlin.”
“Please don’t say it like that.”
“What? It’s true. She pushed Janene away. Do you know how many nights I spent replaying every moment I had with Janene, trying to figure out if it was all a lie. Trying to determine if I was the cause of our split. Renee was so in my head I was convinced that Janene wanted to take that trip with Anabelle. If Colby hadn’t told me that he didn’t want the contract I would have spent the rest of my life thinking that I was so easily forgettable.”
“Your mom didn’t know that Janene was going to leave.”
“Whose side are you on?” I asked.
“Yours of course.” Her eyes softened. She did that thing where she twirled a stand of her hair around her index finger and I knew she was about to put down some tough love. “But Harlyn, Janene still made a choice.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I don’t answer her calls either.”
“She’s still calling?” Caitlin seemed genuinely surprised at that revelation. Of course, I hadn’t mentioned Janene’s attempts to reach me in over two months.
I nodded. “It’s down to once a week now.”
“If you don’t want to talk to her, why don’t you just block her?”
Caitlin knew why I hadn’t blocked Janene, she just wanted to hear me say it. I wanted to talk to Janene, I wanted to hear her voice every time she left me a message and I hated when the phone stopped ringing and her picture faded to black, especially if she didn’t leave a voicemail. But I wasn’t ready. Not even for the friendship she proposed we try to rebuild.
“She’ll eventually give up,” I said hoping that wasn’t true.
When her calls dwindled from every day to every other day, that first no call almost killed me. Then it became a pattern. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. For months she did that. Sometimes she left me messages, sometimes she just hung up. A few times she redialed but that was rare. When she shifted to every three days, that lull made me sick. I thought she’d never call again and then there she was, smiling at me again.
“When are you coming to see me?” she asked changing the subject.
“I told you, next month. I have nowhere else to go on my mandated week vacation. What kind of employer does that?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I mean. I don’t understand why I have to take the time off, just because I work sixty-hour weeks for months at a time? What a joke.” It was a company policy that after every project that lasted more than 4 months, you were required to take a week off. “I don’t want to stay here and I definitely don’t want to go to Denver.”
“Again, thanks. I’m excited to see you too! Have you booked your flight?”
“I hate New York,” I started to cry.
“What?”
“I hate it here. It’s loud and busy and there are so many people everywhere. Getting to work is a mess. My apartment is so small I can make a cup of tea from my bed. The lights never go out and the sound of traffic is nonstop which makes it very hard to sleep.”
“Oh, honey.”
“Don’t oh, honey me,” I laughed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This was all I ever wanted my entire life and now I have it and it’s wrong. It’s all wrong.” I wiped at my face
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go home. I think I just have to tough it out. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Put your stuff in storage and come stay with me. Maybe it’s Texas that you miss. Maybe this is where you need to be.”
I laughed at that idea. There was no way that Texas was where I needed to be though if I was honest, it was where I was the happiest, pre-Janene.
“Come on, take your week and we’ll figure out if you want to go back to Denver or if you want to find a new place, like California or Washington, maybe Florida.” Her eyes widened with excitement.
“If I don’t want to be in Texas, why the hell would I want to move to Florida?” We both laughed. “I like that idea though. Thanks for putting up with my crazy shit.”
“Hey, we’re all a little crazy sometimes.”
“Run and hide crazy? If I move to Texas, this will be my third move in a year.”
“Hey, it’s cheaper than therapy.”
“Is it?”
Caitlin started to play with her hair again and I braced myself for whatever she was about to say.
“I know you don’t want to hear this but I don’t think you’re going to be happy anywhere unless you talk to Janene.”
“Fuck, Janene,” I said.
“If you insist,” she said with a wide grin. “But I don’t think that’s going to solve your problem either.”
“I can’t face her Caitlin. You don’t understand how painful it was to see her in that conference room on my last day with RedPrint. The way she was looking at me, like she would give everything in the world for me. And she had. She put herself through hell to try and make my life easier. Who fucking does that?”
I hadn’t known it in that moment but I’d felt it. Something wasn’t right. Janene had asked me to leave and yet she stood in that conference room looking wounded, like I had been the one to end things. And I knew it wasn’t because she knew I was moving. Madeline had promised to leave that to me and no one else knew.
Her face looked pale and there were bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in weeks. When I stepped out of the conference room, I stood in the hallway and listened to her speech. Her words were positive and uplifting but her voice was dull.
It wasn’t until later that night when I told my mom that I was moving that it all started to make sense. I was set to fly out on Sunday so I’d waited as long as I could because I was a coward. I knew she’d be upset and I had convinced myself that the fewer days I had to deal with her angry tears the better. I had chosen Thursday night because Friday was the day the movers were scheduled to pick up the little bit of furniture I was shipping to New York. Even if she was upset, Mom always went to work which was great for my plans, but she’d return home and my bedroom would be practically empty and I didn’t want that to be how she found out that I was moving. So, I sat her down on Thursday night and told her my plans.
She told me I couldn’t go, that New York would be too overwhelming for me. When I laughed at her logic and told her the truth was that she was too overwhelming for me she got angry. She started to list off all the ways in which she had been there to take care of me. How she’d been protecting me all my life.
“When things ended with Janene, I pampered you. When Dani broke your heart, I brought you home to make things better. You didn’t need to go to New York then, you don’t need to go now.”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know what your obsession is with New York City. It’s dirty and loud, you’re likely to get mugged on every street corner.”
“About Janene,” I said.
“What?” she stuttered.
“You said when things ended with Janene. How did you know about that?”
“It was obvious. The way she looked at you, it was disgusting really. And then all of a sudden you didn’t talk about her anymore.”
“Bullshit!”
“Watch your mouth.” she said.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
I grabbed my mother’s phone and opened it up. She’d used the same four-digit code for as long as she’d had a phone. I scrolled through her text messages until I found a thread with Janene. It was old, several weeks old. The last conversation was Mom demanding to speak with her the day after we returned from New York. Then nothing. I played the video.
“You were stalking me?”
“I was there to pick you up. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“And so, you recorded us? You’re crazy. You know that. Batshit crazy.”
“Harlyn, you cannot speak to me that way.”
“How’s this one. Fuck you! I don’t ever want to see you or speak to you again.”
I left. Got into my car and drove around the city with absolutely nowhere to go. I thought about going to Janene’s to apologize for what my mom had done but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to face her and tell her that I should have stood up to my mom years ago. Somehow, I still ended up there. I parked and watched her apartment. The lights went out around 8 p.m. They’d both lied to me and Janene had sided with my mother.
I slept in my car and when the sun rose, I waited for Janene to walk outside, get in her jeep and drive to work. She had no clue that I wasn’t going to be there. No one did. The lady in HR had asked me when I wanted my last day to be, I gave her Thursdays date because I wasn’t sure I could stand to be in the same building as Janene two days in a row.
I drove back to my mom’s. As I’d predicted she’d gone into work because nothing ever kept her home, not even her broken-hearted daughter. To be fair, she didn’t know that she’d never see me again.
I let the movers into my room and while they carried away my bed, dresser, and a few other items from my Texas apartment, I packed my luggage. I didn’t leave her a note. I didn’t call her or text her. I placed my house key on the entryway table and walked away.