2. Rhodes
2
Rhodes
I drive away from the scene of the crime in shock.
But I still manage to turn on an emo playlist almost entirely made up of Green Day songs and start screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs to cope with this goodbye.
I hate it.
Saying goodbye to the woman I love, who I think shares my feelings, and hoping she returns in a few weeks, maybe more or less, is…unsettling. What if she decides to stay in Montana or Wyoming? What if she wants to continue traveling? What if she finds a hot cowboy and doesn’t need me anymore? There are so many possibilities, and I don’t want to think about any of them. But that’s also impossible since losing her has been top of mind for the two weeks since we kissed, she pulled back, and then doubled down by purchasing a camper.
I turn up the music even louder and pound the hammering beat into my steering wheel. There are tears in my eyes that blur my vision and force my vocal cords to vibrate and twitch with emotions I have no control over.
She’s leaving me.
And I may never get her back.
She’s never done this before—moved to other parts of the country that required a phone call or text to keep in touch. But this is still different because I told her I love her. It feels more like a rejection even if this trip is designed to help Paige find herself, which is exactly what she should do. It’s important and necessary and right.
It’s what I’ve wanted for her. I knew she wasn't ready for a committed relationship. Besides the revolving door of boyfriends in her life, I knew there was more she needed to figure out. She wants to know how to stand on her own two feet. It doesn’t matter that I can see the feet she’s standing on, and the resolve she already possesses to discover what she really wants. She has to realize it herself.
But it still hurts.
I’m crushed, squashed like a poor bug on a windshield that was probably just minding its business, flying around, loving people, until WHAM ! Dead.
How am I supposed to protect her when she’s gone?
I’m completely powerless.
My love is like a balloon floating without a string, a left shoe without the right one, and lots of other depressing analogies that have me completely reeling.
Paige leaving might just be my kryptonite because I feel as though I’m coming apart from the inside out. I have no control in this situation, and I don’t like it. This whole scenario reminds me of what it felt like with my dad’s health struggles.
No control .
It’s probably why I avoided telling Paige how I felt because these emotions are all too big, too wild for my liking. It was easier to hide them. They wouldn’t be as real that way. But here I am, living with my heart outside my fucking body.
When I swerve outside the lane toward the shoulder, I determine I’m in no shape to drive right now. I need to calm down, get my emotions locked in handcuffs.
Almost to Ruston Way, a stretch of road bordering the water along Puget Sound, I look for the nearest parking lot, pull in, and wrestle with my seatbelt before getting out of the car. It’s closest to the train tracks, which sit higher on the bluff than the gravel rocks I’m pacing on. They crunch under my feet and have somehow become the loudest noise despite leaving my car door open and the music blaring.
My hands are in my hair, and I tug. Hard. Trying to feel something other than the noise my heart makes as it breaks.
I’m losing her.
And I have to figure out how to be okay with that.
This is her journey and not mine.
There’s a part of me that holds this guilt for not telling her how I feel sooner and waiting until we were doing some ridiculous blind dating experiment to do so. The nights I’ve laid in bed thinking about the last couple of weeks and how much it’s changed us makes me want to invent a time machine and go back to how things were when we were just friends.
But I can’t do that.
Instead, I’ve paused my entire life to spend that time regretting the lie I told.
I even posted an old stop-motion video last week since I didn’t have the energy—or time outside of berating myself—to film, edit, and post a new one. I’ve never had to do that. I’ve always been able to get my work done when I needed to. I love what I do. But not this time. Not now.
It was easier when we were friends, and the most I had to worry about was whether she wanted me to bring Chinese or Thai food over to her house while we watched Love is Blind , and which boyfriend’s name I needed to forget. Now I’m not so sure we can ever go back to that, or even close to it.
I pound at my chest, willing the traitorous organ inside to sit back down and shut the hell up. My confession did something to me. It opened me up to possibilities and hope and a whole lot of hormones I’ve been shoving down, down, down. But it won’t listen. It’s worse, and now I’m forced to just be okay with the complete havoc it’s having in my life.
It’s hard not to think my love drove her away.
She’s leaving isn’t she?
I’m split in two, wanting her to have everything she needs and wants in life while also feeling completely helpless. This much chaos in my life is making me sick.
I drop my hands to my side and stare up at the gray sky, which is more of a constant in Washington than any other color. To some, it’s dreary. But I love it. There’s a comfort in the particular dark, moody shade today and how it mimics the overturned tables inside me.
This isn’t going to be easy—the letting go, the loss of control, the questioning. But I have to. For Paige’s sake, I need to. For a potential future with her, I will. I remind myself I don’t have to like it, I don’t have to agree, but I have to accept it.
In the meantime, I’ll just need to be okay.
She said we can still keep in touch. I can text her without having to hide behind Roger Who Cleans anymore. I’ll throw myself into work and keep busy while she’s gone and force Amber to hang out with me every once in a while, which does seem odd now that we aren’t a trio.
It’s fine. I’m fine. This will all be fine .
I exhale deeply, puffing out my cheeks and resting firm hands on the hood of my car to steady my swaying body. I’ve been wanting to spend more time at the gym anyway. I can meal prep for the entire month, or join a bowling league if I want.
Maybe this won’t be so bad, enjoyable even.
“Shit,” I say on another exhale.
This is going to suck.