The Ninth Wedding
The next day, as soon as he wakes up, J texts V:
I’m leaving tonight. Do you think it’s a good idea for us to meet ?
By the time he’s out of the shower, there’s a reply. It’s not a text or a call, but a voice message. He takes a deep breath and hits play.
“Good morning, J. I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and ultimately I don’t see what the point is of us getting together to talk in person.
We both know how the conversation will go.
..or if you don’t, you should by now. All I’ve wanted from you is space, and you are unable to give that to me.
For all the right intentions, I’m sure. But the intentions don’t really matter, not at this point.
I need to focus on myself now, and on this new life I’m building.
I can’t focus on you, not in the way you want me to.
I don’t want to hurt you. This is not at all about hurting you, even though I am sure it will make you hurt.
I don’t regret any of our time together, and I hope someday to have more time together.
But right now, my time has to be my own.
There is no way to co-own it. So I think it’s best to say goodbye.
And I know this is the wrong way to do it.
But don’t you think us seeing each other and me saying this to your face would be even worse?
Because you would try to stop me, and if you tried to stop me, I would hate you.
I don’t hate you now. Not at all. I hope this makes sense.
I’m just rambling at this point. You know what I mean, don’t you? Goodbye, J. At least for now.”
V isn’t sure how J is going to respond. When her phone buzzes with a new text, she approaches it with trepidation.
I won’t try to talk you out of it, he’s written.
Good answer, she replies. Then, with shaking hands, she starts getting dressed.
J rides the subway and feels profoundly resigned. It manifests not as sadness but silence, not anger but emptiness. He is standing on the dance floor after the last song, blinking as the lights are turned on and what once felt magical is now a mundane, borrowed room.
He knows there is nothing he can do. He hasn’t done anything catastrophically wrong, but even if he cashes in all his bonus points, they won’t get him the prize.
He’s honestly not even sure what the prize is anymore; the woman he wants to fight for, the woman he wants to be with.
..she only exists in the past. He’s figured out that much, at least.
The trick is giving up on V without giving up on love altogether. That is the hard part. The really hard part. Because the lesson can shift so easily from She isn’t worth the pain to It isn’t worth the pain .
He has left people for much less than this.
He has been left by people for much less than this.
He has been cheated on, vivisected, ghosted, and blamed.
He has also blamed, also ghosted, been bored or reckless with affections he should have cherished.
With V, he had thought it would be different.
And, he supposes, it is different. It’s yet another broken link in the relationship chain, but it broke for a different reason.
The whole time they were together, they should have been working on the times they wouldn’t be together, so the distance wouldn’t matter.
But instead they considered it a positive that when J was gone, neither one felt the need to spend much effort on keeping in touch.
Because there was always an end date to the apartness.
Now, however, they’re really, indefinitely apart, and there’s no way to keep hold.
She found a new life, and there is no place for him in this new life.
He still doesn’t know how this happened. But he is certain now that it has.
The first words she says to him are “I’m sorry.” Seeing him so forlorn, so defeated, and knowing that she’s the reason the clouds have gathered...she doesn’t feel regret, but she does feel sorry.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, brave-facing it. They are at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, right by the bandshell. She hadn’t wanted them to have another awkward meal. Better to walk around, talk it through.
“I know you’ll be fine,” she says. She wants to console him, physically console him, then catches herself—if she’s going to do this, she has to do it clean. No touching. No nostalgia.
“I’m surprised you like this city so much,” he says. Which almost seems ridiculous, because it’s a nice day in the park; they are surrounded my people who seem happy with their choice to be here.
She does not point this out.
Instead she admits, “I am, too. But honestly, if work had taken me to London or Paris or Sydney, the same thing would have probably happened.”
“You leaving me?”
“Me leaving home.”
“Is that what this is about?”
V wants so badly for him to understand this.
“It is,” she says. “I keep thinking back to Matthias from university. You know, when graduation got close, I understood I had to break up with him. I couldn’t see a future for us; he was annoying, self-centered, and needy.
I thought it would be an easy break, because of the end of school.
But when I told him, ‘I think it’s time for us to go our separate ways, now that we’re graduating,’ he told me, ‘What are you talking about? That’s no reason for us to break up.
Neither of us is going anywhere.’ It made me so angry then.
And what really pissed me off is that he ended up being right.
Until you, I hadn’t even left Sweden. You’ve taken me places, more than anyone else ever has.
But I’ve felt like a guest, J. You haven’t made me feel like a guest, but that’s how it’s been.
Now I don’t feel that way. Now I feel I’m actually living somewhere else.
And even though it’s exhausting, it’s also exhilarating.
I took control of my life when I was a teenager, but that was a matter of survival.
Now I get to do it on my own terms, and even if I fail, I’ll still be better for it. ”
“I wish you’d told me,” J says.
“I couldn’t tell you because I didn’t know.” She can’t help it; she reaches out and touches his arm, just for a moment. “Sad but true.”
J knows this is not about him. She is making it clear it’s not about him. But he wants it to be at least a little bit about him.
“I wish I’d asked you to try long distance,” he tells her now. “Really try. Not what we ended up doing.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” V says, in a way that signals to him that she’s given this some thought. “That was never what we did. Do you know what I think you want?”
He is almost grateful to her for saying this, because now he actually feels a flash of anger, a coming to life of another different set of emotions.
She is cutting him loose; why should he care what she thinks he wants?
How is that even part of the equation anymore?
Still, he’s curious what she’ll say, so he says, “What do you think I want?”
He’s put needles in his question, and he can tell she’s felt them.
Still, she answers, “You want someone to come home to. Someone okay with you traveling, but always there when you get back. And the funny part is that I’ve discovered I might want that, too.
Once I get myself steady, I might want someone else steady, who also lets me roam.
But here, J. Not there. And you want to be there. ”
“It’s my home,” J says.
“I know. Believe me, I know. But the truth is...even if we were both in the same place, I’m not sure I want to be the girl that someone else comes home to. I want to do the coming home.”
There is still a part of her that thinks she is making a big mistake, that is telling her it’s not too late to repair the damage she is doing.
Who is she to turn away J’s tenderness? Why can’t she at least consider giving long distance a try?
How will she feel, when he’s singing songs that she had no part in—or, even worse, songs that come from the cracks she is leaving in his heart?
But then she thinks about going back and knows she can’t.
She convinces herself for the thousandth time to keep going.
The two of them run out of words. What needed to be said has been said, and there were no other words behind it.
It used to be that love could carry them through their tightrope silences; it was the safety net beneath them, assuring them that they did not need constant conversation, constant reassurance, to keep steady and true.
Now they’re just two people on a rope, walking in different directions.
It hurts every time, J thinks. The end of each relationship is a wound that becomes a scar...but they never appear in the same place. There is always room for more wounds, more scars, more hurt.
They walk in the park, and it’s nearly unbearable.
To fill the void, J starts to tell her about yesterday’s weddings (leaving out Thor and Meta’s, of course).
He makes her laugh, telling the story of Eddie and the forgotten ring.
They walk and talk about other people’s weddings for about ten minutes more—the path has taken them on a loop, and they return back to their starting point.
Their tone has shifted into something deceptively pleasant.
They don’t make a big deal about their goodbye—V wishes him a safe flight, and J wishes her good luck with Secret Project.
She doesn’t tell him to let her go, not in the way she did in her voicemail.
He doesn’t point out that it’s strange not to know when he’ll see her again.
“Okay then,” he says at last. They hover for a moment, feel foolish, and both open their arms for a hug. It doesn’t last long, but it’s also a real embrace, not a politeness.
“Have a safe trip,” she says again. Then she turns and leaves. As he watches her go, J can feel his thoughts shift.
She now lives in his life in the past tense.
There is no other place for her.