Chapter 36
New Years Day was spent huddled under blankets on the new-old sofa, eating the snacks we’d stocked up on the day before, knowing full well we’d struggle to do anything as basic as cook for ourselves.
It was like muscle memory. We were so familiar and comfortable with each other.
Living together, even for a little while, came naturally.
It didn’t matter that years had passed. We were like the groove on your finger after you’ve worn a ring for so long, even when you took it off, the skin never really reshaped the way it used to. We’d reshaped each other.
I was flying back to London the next day, and by the time midday rolled around, I really felt the clock start to tick.
I didn’t want to leave. Being here with Becka felt more like home than anything in a long time. Life had taken us in such different directions. More than I ever could have imagined.
I hadn’t told her about my drunken thoughts about moving back to LA, because I didn’t want to put the plan out into the universe in case it never came to pass. I was committed to London for at least another twelve months, and a lot could happen in that time.
To say nothing of the fact that emigrating to the US was not as easy as simply hopping onto a plane and deciding to live the ‘American dream.’
I stood at the counter, thinking things through as the coffee brewed, filling the small kitchen with the smell of cinnamon infused coffee.
When it was ready, I poured us both a cup, adding milk to chase away the bitterness, and just a dash of sugar-free gingerbread syrup.
I rounded the kitchen island to hand Becka her mug before sitting back down on the sofa.
She spread the blanket over our legs, and we settled in together.
“You’re a much nicer roommate than Ben ever was,” she mused.
“He never made you coffee?” I asked lightly, more focused on not spilling my coffee as I tucked a cushion over my lap.
“He burned it,” she said darkly.
“Good thing you binned him off then.” I nodded approvingly, expecting her to agree, but when she didn’t, I looked over at her.
She looked contemplative.
“Becka?”
“Hmm?”
Her brow was furrowed slightly, mouth pursed.
“What’s that face?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“Oh, chill out,” she scoffed, flicking a hand at me. “I was just thinking about how much time I wasted on that whole…” She sighed. “All of that.”
Becka didn’t talk about Ben. She did not talk about their relationship – either iteration.
“It’s the New Year talking,” I said sagely, “makes us think about what came before.”
She was silent for a moment.
Then- “do you think they think about us?”
She’d said it quietly, though whether it was because she was afraid of the words, or afraid of what they meant, I couldn’t be sure. I took a deep breath, feeling the twinge that was more the memory of pain than actual pain.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, because she didn’t need to clarify who she meant.
“I don’t know if I’d want that,” I went on. “It feels like we all deserve to move on.”
Becka was silent. I kept waiting for her to speak, but as I watched, I felt like I could see her burying further into her thoughts.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I prompted, gently nudging her with my elbow.
She hadn’t talked about it, not really, and now that I thought about it, she also hadn’t really dated since the break up. Although if we were honest, she’d put herself out there more than I had. She had dating profiles. I’d ignored everyone. Until Patrick.
Becka squeezed her eyes shut, and I reached out to grasp her knee.
“Not really,” she said eventually. “It’s just this time of year. We’re all told to look forward to what comes next, the past is the past, all that bullshit. Like, we’re somehow supposed to chalk it up to some romantic misadventure. I just – urgh!” She threw her head back against the cushions.
“I wish I could put it down to experience, but I’m still so pissed at myself. I’m angry I gave him a second chance, even knowing what he did with the first one. I’m angry he made a fool of me – yes, he did, don’t try and say he didn’t. I’m angry… I’m angry that I’m not angry at him.”
She bit her lip, staring down into her coffee mug like it might contain the answers she wanted to hear.
“I deserved more.” Her voice wavered, but her words were firm.
“You deserve the world,” I told her.
Becka nodded. “I know. I know now that I tried for too long to change the fact that we weren’t right for each other.
Maybe we never were, and never would have been.
He isn’t a bad guy.” She shrugged, looking down at the hot drink cupped in her palms. “I believe he tried. You can’t make yourself feel something you don’t.
He wasn’t my perfect guy, but maybe he’s perfect for someone else. ”
I thought that viewpoint was far too magnanimous, personally, but I admired her rise above approach.
After a few moments, and a couple of discreet swipes with a tissue, I thought we were done. My hand was just inching towards the TV remote, when–
“Your turn,” Becka declared.
I blinked at her. “Beg pardon?”
“Your. Turn.” Becka swivelled to face me, and I had to resist the urge to shrink back from the intensity in her eyes. “It’s been two years since you broke up.”
My hand twitched to rub my chest.
“It’s been three years since we’ve been together on this couch–”
“-we’ve never been together on this sofa before.”
“Don’t interrupt. We’ve never talked about it. You’re emotionally constipated–”
“–I am not!”
“Don’t interrupt. You need to talk about it.”
I exhaled heavily.
“Don’t pull that face at me,” she said, “this was the deal. Me first, then you.”
I spluttered in protest.
“I made no such deal!”
“Yes, you did,” she said matter-of-factly.
“When?!”
Becka waved her hands. “In perpetuity when we became friends. Don’t ask me for the details, it is what it is. I pull my guts out, now you pull yours out.”
I screwed up my face. “Did you have to be so graphic?”
Because that’s what this would be – an emotional evisceration.
“Yes,” she said boldly. “Start at the last conversation you had. You’ve never actually told me what he said.”
I sighed, knowing she was right. I’d given her the gist, but not the words, and bless her, she’d never pried. Until right now, of course.
“Do I have to?” I meant it as a joke, but it came out too soft, and I had to clear my throat.
“It’ll be good for you, babes.”
I sighed.
So, I told her. I recited the facts like bullet points, not lingering too long on any one point, not allowing myself to live in any one moment for longer than necessary.
I repeated as much of the conversation as I’d allowed myself to remember, short as it had been.
I told her about the voicemail on Christmas, I even mentioned the social media posts of the English version of his single Hold Me, and the photos he’d recently posted from our Halloween night three years ago.
Strictly speaking, those last points weren’t pertinent to our actual breakup, but for some reason, I found myself getting carried away with adding context.
I was proud of myself for being able to recount this story with no overt displays of emotion. I had practised. It had taken more than two years, but it finally didn’t feel like I had a boulder pressing on my chest.
“What’s weirdly helped,” I said – and also hurt – I omitted, “was that no one knew about us. About me. Bar my folks, and you, there wasn’t anyone to tell, or to ask if I was okay.”
I hadn’t had to endure the pitying looks from people who knew, I didn’t have a group of mutual friends checking in with me.
“I did it all on my own.” I said, quietly, as much in realisation as fact.
Becka reached for my hand, silently offering support for something I’d never voiced before – just how fucking hard that had been.
Because no one had known, it had felt like I was mourning something no one else knew existed.
“Goddammit,” I muttered, wiping away an errant tear. “I was doing so well.”
“Hey,” Becka shook my hand, “you’re allowed to feel it. Sometimes you have to.”
“It’s so stupid,” I said. “In the scheme of things, my silent breakup was the least consequential casualty 2020.”
“Grief isn’t a competition,” Becka said firmly. “We all lost something. We all came out the other end a little beat up. No one has the monopoly on sadness, there’s more than enough to go around.”
She took my now empty mug and put it down on the table, next to hers.
I sniffled, but nodded, and because apparently the dam was open, I told her about his public relationship with Lee Hyejin, and how that had felt.
How I had been erased, not just as the mystery girlfriend, but from all the instances where I could have been identified.
She had taken my place in all our hidden histories.
I’d been wiped away.
Becka listened intently, and quietly. Her eyes scrutinised me with an almost uncomfortable level of attention, and then because she was looking at me like that, I continued and told her about Taeyang at Glastonbury, and how I’d had this same conversation with him.
I talked for so long that eventually, my words just sort of… ran out.
Becka was silent, just looking at me like I was a book she was reading, and I squirmed under her attention.
“I hate to say it,” she said with a sigh, looking away for a moment and biting her lip. “But I agree.”
My brows pulled together. “With what?”
“With him, the sun idol.” She gestured vaguely, and I followed the motion of her hand with my eyes like it might materialise the answer.
“The sun… Oh! Sol, you mean Tae?” I snorted, raising a hand to cover my mouth as I laughed at her.
Becka just slapped at my knee, ineffectually.
“You knew who I meant. Anyway, him – I agree with him.”
My laughter trickled off. “About which part?”
“The part where it doesn’t make sense. Before, I kind of got it. Don’t take this the wrong way-
“About to, but go on-”