40. Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Katherine
I haven’t come out of my room in three days.
That’s a little lie, I’ve been to the kitchen to get very nutritious meals that consist of ice cream and Twinkies, and to go to the restroom.
Other than that, I have wallowed.
I’ve come to the conclusion I’m going home because even looking at my bed makes me cry.
Emailing Tommy was actually the easiest part of this whole thing, giving me something else to think about.
Not that it stopped my brain for too long.
How pathetic do you have to be for your soulmate to not even want you?
Ella’s stopped trying to talk to me about it, and it’s not that I don’t want to talk to her, but it’s hard. She knows every reason why this is hard for him, too, but right now I’d like a little bias on my side. Really, though, I’m a little girl who would really like her mom right now.
I haven’t even called her because I just know I’ll be worrying her for no reason. I’ll be home soon and I’ll curl up with her and she’ll make it okay right from our couch in New York.
Home.
Bella texted about a hundred times but I don’t physically have the energy to cry on the phone to her right now because I know that’s all I’ll do. I had to give her a very brief summary over text with the promise I’d be home in less then a week and asked if we could eat enough chinese food to die when I do.
“Honey?” Ella says from my bedroom door.
“I’m outside,” I call.
“There’s someone here to see you.” Her voice is unsure.
My heart jumps for a second wondering if it’s him, the same way it has every time I’ve heard the doorbell ring. But any hope for that went in the first two days I spent lying in my bed.
“No, Ella, please,” I start to say standing and turning to see her standing in the middle of my room with someone I hadn’t thought in a million years would be here. “Mom?”
“Hey, honey,” she says, opening her arms that I don’t hesitate running right into, burying my face into her neck. I can still smell the city on her, my clothes smell like sunscreen and fresh air. Hers smell like smoke and traffic and everything I can’t wait to be around again.
I can’t stop myself from crying again.
“But how did you get here?” I think I’m still in shock seeing my mom here, it’s like seeing snow settle on the ocean. Out of place but exactly what I needed.
Ella comes back outside with a tray of iced tea and sets it down on the table between all of us.
“Thank you, El,” Mom says, her cheeks are flush and she picks up a glass pressing it to her face, her favourite winter coat left on my bed now. I laugh a little and it feels like the first time in forever. “Hey, no laughing at your mother, it was like 40°F in New York when I left yesterday, or was that the day before that? Anyway it’s hotter here than I remember.” She takes a long sip before placing it back down again. “Well when El called me the other day telling me everything, I couldn’t not, honey.” She leans across, taking my hand in hers.
“I’m sorry I know you didn’t want to worry your mom but I just didn’t know what to do, I had to talk to her,” Ella says from her seat and I don’t blame her. It’s not exactly like I’ve been easy to deal with the last couple of days.
“I understand, Ella, thank you,” I tell her, gripping on to her hand with the one Mom’s not holding, we look like some kind of weird support group, or a witch coven. Truly this is exactly what I needed, and Ella knew that even if I didn’t.
“Well, I’ve got to get to the shop, I’ll leave you two to it.” She gives us both a hug before leaving us to look out into her garden, the flowers that were barely blooming when I arrived are in full force now.
“So,” Mom finally breaks the silence knowing I won’t. “Tell me about him.”
“Mom, I don't think I can without crying again,” I half laugh, half sniffle knowing I’m right.
“And you don’t think I’ve seen you cry before? Honey, cry and talk, it's good for the soul.” There is no point fighting it.
So I tell her everything, from start to finish. The fighting, the wedding, the lighthouse, my new tattoo—which she loves—everything.
She’s moved her chair closer by the time I’ve finished, me leaning my head onto her shoulder as we both stare out into the garden. The sun is much lower in the sky now than when she first got here.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I first met your dad?” she asks, still not moving. We don’t talk about Dad a lot, just in passing, here and there, but big stories are saved for times like these.
“Well, yeah, you met at the hospital. ”
“And did I tell you how much it broke my heart when he ran away from me?” I don’t say a word. “When I first saw him in that corridor, I’d just lost a patient, a car crash, it was my first. Then there was your dad, his first shift and the first thing he sees is me crying my eyes out.”
Her voice shifts only a little but as I look at her face, her eyes are misted in a way I haven’t seen in years.
“I’d barely said five words to him before my stone started to glow and his face, god his face… I might as well have slapped him, but then he just ran. It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.” I can’t look away from her. “I finished my shift and went home to Nan and cried as much as you, I imagine. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know anything he was going through.
“We avoided each other like the plague but no matter what, we’d end up running into each other all the time. It was awful, I debated leaving the hospital but I just couldn’t. So after a year—”
“A year?” I say, cutting her off. How did I have no idea about all this? I had made Mom and Dad’s story some kind of fairytale in my head, about how everything had come together perfectly.
I felt like I’d be a failure if my story wasn’t as perfect as theirs. I feel something in me change, like it all clicks into place. Maybe that’s what Dad was talking about. Maybe he knew even if I didn’t go looking for my soulmate they would still find me at the right time. That I shouldn’t waste so much time searching and looking. I don’t know how but it kinda makes me feel better?
“Yeah, a year later, he turned up at Nan’s with a bunch of flowers. We sat out on her porch for like two hours while he told me everything, that he’d just started his divorce when he ran into me that day and he just couldn’t do it until he knew he was properly outside of that relationship. I think I fell in love with him right then. That even though he wanted nothing more than to get to know me, he didn’t, because he was worried about someone else. That’s who he was .
“Anyway, the rest is history, I guess, but what I’m trying to say, Katherine is that it’s okay that it’s not perfect right now, or tomorrow or next week. Because it will be, if not with James, then with someone else. You’re going to be okay, Kat, I promise.” She pulls me more into her and hugs me again and I believe her.
Something pulls at me when she lets go of me and looks back out into the garden.
“I feel at home here, Mom,” I tell her and I hate myself a little for saying it. Like I’m betraying her in some way, and I don’t know why I need to say it, but I do.
“Then why are you leaving? You can stay.” And every bone in my body believes that she would be okay with that, every part tells me she’d be happy for me if I did, but…
“I can’t be here while he is too. My heart hurts just being on the same planet as him, the least I can do is put a few thousand miles between us.” It hurts to even say it out loud. To admit this is the end of something before I feel like it’s even started. To admit he’s done this to me, that he’s broken my heart, that maybe I’ve broken his too. I can’t know that last bit but I feel it.
“Oh, sweetie.” She pulls me into a tight hug and I tell myself I won’t cry again, I won’t. I’ve cried enough and I won’t.
I do feel at home here, I love it here, but New York is my home too, and if I stay here, I don’t think I’ll ever heal. I need to go back, I need to take this job and focus my energy on something else. Then I’ll come back, maybe in a year or two, and when I come back, I’ll face it.
I’ve spent all this time trying to find him and now I have. He doesn’t want me and now I guess it’s time I had a new dream.
Posted 22nd November 2024 21:46
I’ve been filling a void.
A big, very deep void that my dad left behind.
I’ll never know how I didn’t see it or realise it, but I thought if I found my soulmate that void would be filled. The love I had and got from my dad would be replaced by someone new, by my soulmate.
I’ve only now realised that’s not how love works. You can always make more love, always let more people into your heart. But the people that were there before, they don’t lose their space. They always have a hold on that little corner of your heart, and the more people you love, the more you let in, that’ll never fill that corner.
I was stupid to ever think it would.
Stupid to ever think this quest or adventure, however I dressed it up, wasn't just a distraction. Something else to fill my head so I didn’t have to deal with it. So I could keep pretending for a bit longer.
Soulmates aren’t a fix all. They aren’t super glue, they are people. I’ve put mine on a pedestal for so long that I forgot that when I found them, they would just be a person with their own problems and baggage just like me.
I think maybe we shouldn’t put so much weight on our soulmates. Coming from me, that's almost funny.
I should feel deflated, so much more disappointed, but really I’m relieved. I found my soulmate, I reached my goal and okay yeah he doesn’t want me, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I can’t make him love me if he doesn’t want to. But I can control how I move forward from this though.
This is maybe the most free I’ve ever felt.