Chapter Twelve
Erin’s face was just a foot away from Julia’s and she swore that chardonnay mixed like heaven on her breath. It carried notes of pears and sweet oak through the air, wrapping her in the breeze of springtime rain drizzling on soft grass.
They just looked at each other, Julia carefully thinking about her next words. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t give into the feelings she dumbly admitted to Keegan just days before.
Blind dates were meaningless and she could pretend for a few hours and then act like it never happened. It got her out of the house, out of her bed on the weekends. This? This was something completely different.
This was not meaningless, and she wasn’t ready for whatever came after. She wasn’t ready to share her space with someone else again, to trust them with her thoughts and body, knowing they’d hold all the cards and be able to throw them away at any point–a wrapped fragile crystal figurine gripped in the calloused hands of a giant, trusting it will caress and not crush.
She wasn’t ready for another goodbye.
“I, I,” Julia stuttered.
Everything was short circuiting. Erin made her feel so young, like she wanted for once to be that reckless again. Like she wanted to turn off her brain and finally follow her heart. But every step forward felt like two steps back.
When Julia couldn’t finish her thought, Erin leaned just ever so slightly closer to her. With fingers full of comfort, she dragged one hand up the arm that Julia rested against the back of the couch. It wasn’t seductive. It wasn’t done in a way to tease and then take away. It was a sensual touch that engulfed her like a rolling mist. Erin’s eyes glimmered with what could be. Julia felt it. She felt the sparks ignite from Erin’s fingertips and sink deep into her skin.
When Julia didn’t speak right away, Erin’s eyes held what could only be described as doubt–not of whether she wanted to be doing what she was right then, but with fear of rejection. She was afraid Julia wouldn’t want her, and that was harder to wrap her head around than anything else.
Julia wanted to be even closer than they already were, disappearing between shared breaths and sticky skin. She wanted to scream yes, yes, yes from even the most dilapidated rooftops. Something, something buried deep within her told her she couldn’t.
Instead, she did what she always did; she retreated back to the sanctity of safety–the consistency of her complacent life–even though she wasn’t complacent anymore.
It didn’t matter how badly she wanted to say yes. All she could think about was it being too much, too soon, when pictures of Marin still bore into her from all sides. So, she pulled away slowly, all of a sudden too aware of where she was and what she was surrounded by. Marin. It always came back to Marin, a history written in stone.
“I didn’t mean to–” Erin stood up just as Julia did, her arm outreached with concern.
Her eyes dulled as she blinked them furiously, as if she was the one who messed up the consistent tempo of their friendship, as if the pulsing heartbeat between them became too great and the rhythm fell to ceaseless movement.
“You,” breathed Julia, rubbing her hands on her face. “You. You, you, you.”
“I’m sorry if I–”
“No, Erin.” Julia faced her, her voice full of misplaced understanding.
Her eyes pleaded with hope that she’d understand, that she’d know it wasn’t her. Even though in a way it was. It was the inexplicable way that their bodies gravitated towards the other–sun and moon threatening to collide to create an entire new day.
“I can’t explain any of this.” Julia’s voice was higher than usual, the strain spreading from her toes to her vocal chords. She motioned to the space between them and Erin understood, her arms dropping to her sides.
“I kno-” Erin began.
Julia couldn’t do it. She couldn’t see the disappointment on Erin’s face.
“It’s getting late.” Julia tried to smile, but it felt forced and tight on her face.
They stood there for a few breaths, absorbing the finality in that statement like a paper towel in water. Erin weighed Julia’s eyes, the squint in her brow shifting lightly as if she was gauging how big of a risk to take.
“Right,” Erin said as she slowly nodded her head, the realization a lead sinker. “Can we just talk abo–”
“I think you should go,” Julia lied.
Erin’s eyes turned down as her lips pressed into a straight line. She looked around almost as if she had lost something–as if she brought something she would need to take back before she left–her eyes wandering anywhere but Julia. She looked so hurt, and then her composure was back as if it was there all along.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow,” she said finally.
She grabbed her jacket from the closet, the sound of a swinging hanger grinding on metal grating through the hall. Then the front door closed.
Keegan emerged from the open door in the guest bedroom. Perfect timing! She came out with a scowl on her face, her phone hanging to her side in her hand. Julia pictured Keegan leaning her ear against the door, listening after she hung up with Ben.
“How much did you hear?” Julia sighed as she picked up the plates scattered on the table, them haphazardly clinking as she walked to the kitchen sink.
“What didn’t I hear?” Keegan scoffed sarcastically. “Jesus, Julia! What the hell was that about?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You never want to talk about anything anymore.”
“What the hell,” Julia turned towards her, the frustration painted bright red on her face, “was with that line of questioning?”
“What the hell was with how you kicked her out?”
“I didn’t kick her out,” Julia huffed, “and you don’t get to keep turning every question on me.”
“Right, you didn’t kick her out and I just asked questions that we were both wondering.”
“You were interrogating,” Julia clarified.
“And you got to know her a little more!” Keegan tried to smile forgivingly, but Julia had nothing to offer other than a fed-up side eye.
“And you thought it would be a good idea to bring her here to what? Get cozy with me? And then invite conversations about a blind double-date?”
“It made more sense in my head,” she sighed.
“How did that make any sense to you!” Julia shouted the question, convinced that she could feel the smoke billowing from her ears.
“Because,” Keegan yelled back, but then her voice got quiet, “I thought I would be able to tell if it bothered you… or her…”
“Of course it bothers me. I don’t want to date!”
“That’s the only reason it bothers you?” Keegan raised one eyebrow.
“Yes,” Julia answered immediately, but something felt wrong about it deep down.
“Did you see how it bothered her?” Keegan’s voice sounded like a whisper in the silence–the rustle of branches in the quiet night.
Julia wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Erin laughed at the conversation, leaning in more as she chuckled behind her glass. She picked on Julia with Keegan. She wasn’t bothered.
“Behind that playful banter,” Keegan continued, “I could have sworn there was a look of jealousy on her face. But for some reason, you pushed her away when she asked you out. Why?”
“Why did you invite her without asking me?” Julia was tired of the argument already. She was always tired. Keegan opened her mouth to respond but Julia added, “and don’t give me that I wanted to know more about her bullshit.”
“There goes that idea,” she said, slumping onto the couch.
“Next.”
“Because–”
“Next.”
“I like it when you smile.” Her voice was steady, and she spoke slowly, as if scrutinizing each word on a balanced scale.
Julia sighed as she leaned against the sink, her head pressing into her hands.
“Next.” Her voice was beyond exhausted, her shoulders slumping over her weary body.
“She makes you smile.”
“Next.”
“I like it when you laugh and there are some days I can’t even make you do that anymore,” she paused, waiting for Julia to interrupt her again, but she didn’t. “But her? There’s something about her that makes you light up.” Julia didn’t say anything while she began to scrape plates into the sink. “I know you won’t let anything happen between you two because–” she paused in thought, stood and then disappeared in a rush down the hallway.
Keegan came back, standing like a weathered concrete bust between the entryway to the kitchen and the hallway, just seconds later with empty hands on her hips. Julia turned from the sink and leaned against the counter. What now?
“So, why did you do it then,” Julia asked, not caring where she had just walked to or what she was planning, “if you knew I wouldn’t let anything happen? If you knew this could only make it harder?”
“Because you deserve to smile.” Her voice sounded defeated as if she still couldn’t understand why Julia still didn’t see it, as if it was laying right in front of her in plain English, but she was claiming illiteracy. “Because you deserve to laugh until your stomach hurts, like Ben and the kids do for me. You deserve to look at someone without feeling pain.” Her brown eyes were clouded with tears. She fought so hard for Julia. She fought so hard to make her see she was the little bird flying across the blue sky, a world of possibilities before her. She was the heroine at the end of the story, the one who thought she gave up everything for nothing, finally getting her own happy ending.
“I had all of that,” Julia’s broken voice whispered, her eyes burning.
“With the wrong person,” she whispered back, her voice just as strained.
She fought so hard to help her understand that she didn’t fail Marin. She didn’t sit on the sidelines and allow it to slowly disappear before her. She didn’t let her slip through the cracks. Marin failed her. Marin wasn’t good enough for her.
“I did this because you don’t think you deserve happiness anymore.”
“I’ve never said that.” Julia’s voice was barely audible as she stared down at the stainless-steel sink, a single silent tear escaping and pinging on impact.
“You don’t have to.”
They stood there in silence, both defeated in a game that had no winners, no survivors. The television was still playing in the background as the sunlight faded outside, the blinds allowing stripes of sun-kissed dust to invisibly flutter between surfaces. Julia wished her problems could fade with that light–could disappear behind the horizon as the quietness settled over her.
She heard a car’s engine start, the wheels slowly turning out of the drive–a beckoning, a second chance. For a moment, as the silence sunk in, she wanted to run after Erin. She wanted to open that front door and rush to her car like one of those cliché rom-coms. She wanted to tell her not to go.
But what would be her reason to stay? Other than a few fleeting rushes of nervousness and warmth, what else did she have to go on? She knew she couldn’t trust her gut. Marin made sure of that.
The real reason she hadn’t done something about the flutter of bee wings in her stomach every time she was in Erin’s presence wasn’t that she was afraid of losing her job. It was just a job, never as important as she told herself it was. It wasn’t a part of her identity, as much as she believed it was. It wasn’t what got her out of bed in the morning anymore, never the reason she refused to snooze her alarms. It wasn’t what kept her going.
The real reason was that she knew she was a cyclone–rotating pressure, sucking everything into her gravitational pull until there’s nothing left. She leveled years of hard work, of sweat, and tears. What if she ruined Erin like she ruined Marin? What if after those few months–after she enacted her inevitable damage–Erin would leave too?
That didn’t mean Keegan wasn’t right. Maybe she was just sabotaging everything. Maybe it was okay to lose control. Maybe she was allowed to be happy again without feeling like she was unworthy of it. Just maybe.
By the time the scales in her mind tipped favorably into that even being a possibility, Erin’s car was gone, leaving nothing but ice mapping out her tire tread.
“Where is it?” Keegan asked, now inching closer to her, hands gripped on her hips.
“Where is what?” Julia set another plate in the sink, avoiding her eyes.
“The envelope, Julia.”
She froze, her heart rate betraying her mind and vibrating her chest as if it held thousands of tiny metal balls, clinking as they bounced off one another.
“Why?”
“Where is it?” she asked again. She knew it was still there. Even after all that time, she knew that Julia didn’t have the nerve to sign it.
Julia leaned against the counter. She took a deep breath and collected her ricocheting thoughts before sighing. She walked past Keegan towards the foyer, her hand resting on the side table drawer. She opened it slowly, the cold bronze knob stinging her fingertips. Inside sat the envelope, the one she pulled out of that frozen mailbox. She held it up and turned back to face Keegan.
“Here.” She didn’t hand it over.
“Why?” Keegan’s voice was soft with disappointment. “Why is it still here?”
Julia couldn’t answer. She breathed deeply, her lungs threatening to stop functioning forever. Had her nostrils always been that small, not allowing the proper amount of oxygen? Had her chest always risen and fallen in such a demanding manner?
“Sign the papers, Julia.”
“I did,” she sighed, pushing the envelope back in the drawer.
“Then why is it still here?”
She wanted to laugh and say something like baby steps, but it wasn’t. It was more like an ant stretching their legs with the anticipation of filling the footprint of a giant. It was too much.
“I want you to be happy,” Keegan took a step towards her and held her hand, “even if you don’t think so, you deserve at least that. Sign the damn papers. For once, put yourself first. For once, chase after happiness.”
Julia didn’t have anything to say to that. And so, Keegan helped her clean up the rest of the mess, their night ending a lot earlier than usual. The sobering silence wrapped around them as one washed and the other dried dishes, falling back into routines so easily.
“Just so you know,” Julia dried her hands on the towel hanging off the gray cabinet above, “I’m not going on that double date.”
“Julia!” Keegan gasped. “Come on!”
“I don’t want to and I’m tired of you talking me into things that I don’t want to do.”
“That’s fair, I suppose.” She sighed exasperatedly, and then spoke in her most childish voice, “but, what if we compromise?” Julia rolled her eyes. “Do it just this time so Ben can impress her, and then I’ll never guilt you into another date.”
Julia thought about it. One night and she’d be free from any chance of another awkward conversation with a stranger in dim lighting. One simple favor, and all the dating soap operas would be over.
“Deal.”
“Really?” Keegan asked in surprise, her head jerking up.
“Really,” Julia replied. “I will go. I won’t complain. I’ll blow her socks off, and then you don’t get to ask me to do this anymore!”
“That did not take nearly as much convincing as I had planned,” she laughed. Then, lunging for her all at once, Keegan shouted, “You’re the best!”
“But!” Julia interrupted.
“Ugh.”
“It’s not happening next week. I have too much going on right now.”
“Fine,” she conceded.
After a little while, Keegan left with the usual hug, another murmured apology, and a see you tomorrow. For once, she longed for the silence that followed the door closing. For once, she was okay with it.
She sat back on the white couch, pouring herself the remaining wine as she looked at the walls. She held the cold glass to her lips as she thought. Grabbing a clip from the drawer in the coffee table, she twisted her hair into a bun.
Keegan was right. It was time. It’d been time.
She stood with the glass in her hands, her toes curled into the fuzzy gray run beneath her feet. She was frozen with fear, her body filled with lead. Taking a second to gather her wits, she walked back to the foyer where a light on the wall gleamed into the entryway. She approached the side table and opened the top drawer again. The envelope, that damn envelope that sealed her fate.
She wasn’t defeated; she was bankrupt in an eternal struggle of negative worth–too far gone, too deep to crawl out. She had no fight left in her, but she couldn’t keep going on like she was. She couldn’t keep putting someone, something else first, that no longer existed. She couldn’t hold her heart in a glass case, locked with steel chains, for someone who’d never come back to finally release it.
She had no reason to continue holding onto that envelope like it meant something, like it would change anything. So, with shaking hands, she picked it up and held it before her.
This was goodbye.
Inside it felt like her wounds were still fresh–aching with every move as bruised tissues expanded with each breath–but as she opened that front door, wrapped herself with her sweater and once again began walking to that mailbox, it ached a little less. It was like a single stitch arched across and slowly willed it closed.
She placed the envelope in the chilled metal and raised that flag again. She closed the lid, her finger lingering just for a moment. This was goodbye. She breathed deeply as her hands fell to her sides. Swirls of her warm breath danced above her.
She turned and faced the moonlit night–her face a beacon for the light year distance of a future life shining down on her. It wasn’t a sad gasp of air, but a breath of relief. It was the feeling of shackles breaking and crashing to the floor as you finally have the freedom to step forward.
Julia walked to the kitchen, a slight sway in her step. She reached for the wine cooler and pulled out another bottle. She didn’t need another, but she wanted it for what was to come next.
She tilted her overly full drink to her mouth, splashing a little wine on her shirt. Instead of changing it, she clumsily tore it off, exposing her black sports bra and loose fit jeans hanging off her hips. She threw the t-shirt onto the chaise, her chest rising with her expanding lungs. Now she faced the project she wasn’t entirely talked into.
She had to do it, and she had to do it right at that moment.
Regretfully, she set down her glass again and went to the basement to pull out a box. She reached for the tape hanging in the stairwell on her way down. Pulling the deconstructed box from the corner, she taped the bottom. After dragging it back up those stairs–the thudding ringing in her hazy ears as it hit each step–she threw it on the floor in what she figured would be the center of the house, the flaps opened wide.
One-by-one, she walked through each room pulling pictures off the wall, from shelves and tables. She took the photos tucked between books on the oak shelf in the living room. She took down every moment that lined the hallway.
She opened the drawer of her bedside table and removed the picture of Marin she used to look at before drifting into sleep. Her twenty-eight-year-old smile was so genuinely sincere, caught off guard as she admired the relentless gray waves on a beach off the Jersey Shore.
She piled them into the box, checking every surface for lingering lost memories. At what seemed like a lifetime later, she fell backwards on the couch and picked her wine back up.
The walls looked so bare. It wasn’t a natural look–not the way protruding tree trunks blend into the rough terrain in the forest–and it bothered her already. But at the same time, it was a weight lifted off her shoulders, as if the empty walls filled part of that empty space within her.
When she walked back to the box, she slowly closed the lid–the velvet feeling of the cardboard grazing across skin. She taped it up, and then added another layer, just because. Carefully, she dragged it down the stairs to the basement.
Dim light crept in through the only slanted window. A single cobweb she hadn’t demolished yet clung to the corner, the only life left there. Decorations in labeled totes lined the wall, dust covering their lids. They hadn’t been opened in a year, or had it been longer than that? When was the last time that garland hung from the mantels, cheery red and green colors reflecting soft light off the muted walls?
She pushed the heavy box a little further into the corner and left it there. As she turned the light off and made her way back up the stairs, the last step always creaking under her weight, she didn’t look back.
The empty walls–the paint color just slightly unmatched where the same pictures hung for years, shielding the layers from the light–didn’t bother her as much as she feared. The emptiness wasn’t as loud as she expected; it was a trickling river, white noise soothing her soul.
She thought that when that day would come–if it ever did because, let’s face it, that chapter was never written–she would’ve cried. She thought her heart would break all over again, a year of scarring only adding miles of ocean depth to the pain. Somehow, she didn’t shed a tear. Maybe she didn’t have any tears left to give. Maybe she had already given too much.