38 Everything will turn out okay
38
Everything will turn out okay
When Tristan asks me to meet up outside work, in a café between his firm and the magazine’s office, I suggest meeting up at home instead. He insists, refusing to go into details, sadly but affectionately, avoiding the four funereal words that foreshadow any breakup: “We need to talk.”
“I think it’s better if we meet up somewhere else. Can you do it? I feel like…we need some air.”
“Tristan…it’d be better at home. Really. Don’t worry. We’ll do it right.”
I notice his voice is trembling much more than mine, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard for me.
When my alarm clock rang this morning and I saw the date on my phone, I understood that this was coming to an end. This journey, this evolution through memories, has reached its final destination. And it’s natural, because the trip lasted exactly as long as it should have. Now I understand the point of all this perfectly: everyone needs their own deadlines, their own time, their own processes, to come to understand and get over things. Grief is complicated.
Please, let’s not try to impose a calendar on pain. It has its own. The heart doesn’t understand rushing. I wish it could, but it’s a grumpy, stubborn old man who shares a house with a child who laughs as much as he cries.
Everything is ending today. And we’ll do it right. Today I’ll say goodbye to Tristan, and there will be no more Tristan and Miranda. Actually, there will be no more Tristan, because taking refuge in my memories was fine for a while, but in the end, it healed me. When wounds start turning into scars, you have to pull the lever to stop the conveyor belt. And if I have to choose between the future or living as my father does, I choose what is to come, especially since there’s no one I need to pass down the legacy of my history of Tristan to.
I was going to say we die today, but I’m afraid we’re already dead and even buried. Today we’re spreading the ashes between his Atlantic Ocean and my fire.
When I get home, he’s already packed up some of his stuff. It doesn’t bother me, because we both know what’s coming, and it doesn’t feel like a betrayal. It’s just about making it easier, shorter. But when I drop my keys down on the hall table and look at him, he stops pulling books out of the bookshelf like he was caught red-handed. I want to tell him not to worry, but my voice won’t come out. He stands up and looks at me with tears welling in his eyes. I nod, as if that could transmit to him that I’m sorry too, that I’m really sorry.
He takes a step toward me and hesitates, like he’s asking permission to hug me. Before we sink into a tight embrace, I can see that he’s holding back a sob. We rub each other’s backs in a dance that doesn’t make sense anymore, because we’ve already proved that when ice and fire dance, they destroy each other.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Me too. I’m so sorry.”
“We tried.”
“I know.”
“I can’t do it anymore,” and his voice is ragged around the edges like the pages of a very old book, “but the truth is it’s not about you. I would stay for you my whole life, but you don’t deserve the part of me that would stay, Miranda.”
“I know.”
“I hate myself for not being able to, but I can’t.”
“I understand.”
“I hate you too for not wanting the same things I do, and you don’t deserve that. But I admire you.” He pulls back a little and looks into my eyes. “I admire you for staying true to what makes you happy and being who you are. And I know I should learn from you.”
I sob. For a few minutes, there are no words, just wishes that will never come true ricocheting off the walls and the floor in the form of tears and sobs.
“I thought you weren’t going to understand,” he says, wiping away his tears. “And you were going to hate me.”
“I already went through that phase.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand, and that makes sense. I pat his arm, go over to the couch, and collapse onto it. He hesitates before he comes over and sits next to me, like he’s doubting whether he should.
“I don’t know what to say,” he adds.
“Say what you feel. Or don’t say anything.” I shrug. “Actually, if you think about it, it’s all been said already.”
He nibbles his bottom lip.
“I ended up being nothing more than a man who loves you,” he mumbles. “And you deserve more than that. Your world turns too fast for me. I tried to speed up, but I don’t know if it’s because I don’t know how or if deep down, I don’t want to. And I started to get bitter.”
“I know.”
“I loved you so much.” He takes a deep breath. “I still love you. But I don’t have the strength to try anymore, especially because the truth is I don’t believe in this anymore. I don’t know when I stopped, but I don’t think you and I can really work. And I don’t want to wake up one morning in ten years and think that I’m just the inertia of what I didn’t do. I want things, but I can’t have them if I’m with you.”
I burst into tears.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you,” he croaks.
“I know. It’s just that…it’s painful.”
“Miranda…” He clears his throat, banishing his tears. “If you came with me…if you came with me, I wanted to grow old with you, but I can’t ask that of you. Not that, and not you being a mother. Not in a house in the suburbs or…”
We grab each other’s hands and hold on tightly.
“Stay,” I beg him in a flash of weakness. “Stay, and we’ll get married, and I’ll get pregnant, and we can move…even if it takes me an hour to get to the magazine.”
We hug.
“Is that what you want?” he asks.
“No.” I confess. “But I want you.”
“And I want you. And I love you so much, so, so much, that I could never accept being a little happier if the trade-off is you being a little unhappier.”
“Is this about the kid thing?”
“No. Yes, but no. I would wait for you, Miranda, in case you want to be a mother at some point, but life has gotten sick of sending us signs that this is impossible. Unsustainable in the long run. Because for us to exist, one of us would have to let go of too much. And neither of us deserves that.”
I nod. He’s right.
“These have been the best years of my life,” he whispers. His voice doesn’t seem to work anymore. “I came to Madrid a pretty gray dude, and I’m going back with a garden inside. But, Miranda, I’m going home. I never ended up feeling like this was home.”
“Thank you for…”
“Don’t thank me for love, Miranda. You shouldn’t thank someone for love.”
“It’s a gift.”
We both stifle another sob and nod.
“I need to ask you something,” he says. “I know I’m not in the position to ask you for anything. But I think I’m actually asking for both of us. Or at least for what I want to hold on to from all this.”
“Go ahead.” I wipe my tears, my makeup-streaked tears on my dress sleeve.
“Let some time pass. Don’t call me. Don’t write to me.” He presses his lips together so hard his whole jaw clenches too. He swallows. “I need to get some real distance or…or I’ll be weak. Because I don’t want to leave… I want to leave here but not you. It’s been really hard for me to make this decision, so I’ll fall if you call me. And I’ll show up at your door and beg you to love me the rest of your life and never let me go again.”
The last words get muffled by tears and a tight hug. Caresses. By the echo of the words that won’t be said anymore in this apartment. Almost unconsciously, we kiss each other, and I wish we hadn’t, because now our last kiss will always taste salty. I don’t believe in goodbye kisses, because those two words shouldn’t fit in the same phrase. It’s a sad kiss, and kisses should never be like that. A kiss that reminds our mouths of the reason we’ll never have each other again.
Tristan jumps up from the couch with a deep sigh.
“Tomorrow, the place will be empty, okay? I won’t bother you at all.”
“I’ll help you.”
“No. No way. We did the first move together, but this is different; you’re not going to help me leave. I don’t want this memory to be part of our story. It’s not a fair ending.”
“Where are you going to go?”
He puts his hands on his hips and looks at the floor.
“I’m going to Vigo.”
I swallow.
“Right now?”
“In a few weeks. Everything is all arranged.”
Well, I have to admit he’s made a lot of effort to do things right. I should have done the same.
I stand up.
“I’m going to…to leave you alone.”
“Where are you going?” he asks, alarmed.
“To my dad’s house, okay? You…no rush. Take your time.”
“I found an Airbnb…”
“That’s not necessary.” I smile sadly. “Let me grab a few things, and I’ll go stay at my dad’s, seriously. You can stay here until you need to leave. You can pack up in peace. I guess you have to send these boxes to Vigo.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s that then.” I head to the bedroom.
“I’m not going to kick you out of here. I feel awful.”
“Why? I’ll spend a few days at my dad’s house, and he’ll take care of me. We did it right, but I have a broken heart, and I need him. So you can pack up at home, and nobody needs to…” I roll my eyes and swirl my hand, trying to make it clear I’m not going to drag it out.
“It’s your house.”
“But it was yours too.”
While I pack up some clothes and toiletries in the bedroom, I realize the significance of that “was.” And sometimes, the verbal tense can be the most tangible proof that yes, everything will turn out okay.
The last time I see Tristan, he’s standing in the living room, his hands in the pockets of his old jeans, with big bags under those eyes whose color I still can’t identify after five years. I get a sudden flash of the memory of the jovial gleam in his eyes that made me swipe right on Tinder when I met him for the first time…and then I shove aside the Tristan who showed up at the office that first day five years ago. How little we knew back then…about ourselves.
We could have gotten caught up in prosaic details that would lighten the mood a little, like how he can leave his set of keys, with the key chain I gave him when we decided to move in together, in the mailbox, but I think neither of us want to rob the moment of its importance. It’s not a solemn occasion, but it still deserves tenderness and respect. It was love.
“Goodbye,” I say.
“Goodbye,” he says back.
“Take care of yourself.”
He sucks his teeth and looks at the ground, biting his lips.
“You too.”
I turn my back to him, holding in a sob, clenching it between my teeth until I drag my suitcase to the door. As I’m opening it, he calls out to me.
“Miranda…”
“Yeah?”
“In the end, it was without me.”
“Yes.”
We both smile, maybe because for a moment, we travel back to the Enchanted Forest of Aldán, to making plans that were a lie. Leaves crunch under our feet, the walls disappear, and we see glimpses of the crumbling walls of an abandoned castle through the greenery. And even though the ghosts somehow haven’t caught up to us there, we’re promising to love each other so much that if we need to, we’ll learn how to let go.
“Be happy, please.”
“Promise. You too.”
“Promise.”
I close the door very slowly, like I don’t want him to hear it clicking into the frame.
The sob tears out of me before the elevator has even reached the third floor.
Accepting it doesn’t mean it’s not sad. Just because it’s necessary doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
But if I’ve learned anything after this journey, it’s that everything will turn out okay.