Remy
REMY
T he next time I see Melissa, her house is filled with packed and labeled boxes. The kitchen is the last room to be tackled.
After yet another canceled Friday dinner, Mel says we’re welcome to assist her in packing the remaining boxes ahead of their move next week. I’m the only one to accept the offer. Once again, the realization dawns that I might need my friends more than they need me.
As we deal with the boxes together, Melissa filling them up and me taping them closed, she asks, “How’s book two going, Rem?”
I think of how best to reply, but Melissa’s mind is already elsewhere. “Maybe we should keep these plates out,” she says to herself. “Or are those the ones we’re donating?” She confers with her checklist. Eventually, she clocks my hesitation and says, “You’ll work it out. Just take your time.”
“The problem is, I don’t have much time.” I try to rip duct tape with my teeth before Melissa nudges my hands away and passes me the scissors. “If I want to get it sold, you know?”
“Right, right. The last bit of money from These Four Friends was for the paperback, and that was published… about six months— Oh!” She places a hand on her chest.
I jump up. “Is something happening? Should I boil the kettle? Get some towels?”
Despite her obvious discomfort, Melissa laughs. “Remy, I’m only five months along. It’s just indigestion.”
Flooded with relief, I say, “Oh, good. So, yeah, six months since I—”
“But maybe I should write it down just in case?” Melissa says. “I have all my notes for our next doctor’s visit somewhere around here…” I help her search the dining table for a notebook and reveal a water stain Nova once made when she forgot to use a coaster.
“Are you taking the table?” I ask suddenly.
“Huh? Oh, no. We’ll leave that for the next tenants and buy a new one,” Melissa says. “Here it is!”
I think about reminding her that while sitting at this table one bright afternoon, I received an email from my agent telling me that TFF was going to be published. I decide against it when Mel begins jotting down notes and rubbing her belly in soothing circles. I return to putting boxes together.
But as I fold, tape, and fill, I can’t help the knowledge seeping under my skin, sinking into my bones. The realization is sudden: I’ve lost her. I look at Melissa and think of glossy teen magazines and Reddit chat rooms filled with questions like: How do I know if my relationship is over?
You just know , chat room dwellers would say. You have to trust your gut .
Is this the feeling? Did that thought come from my gut?
I warn my gut to leave us alone.
I lose Nova last.
A week before Melissa’s move, Nova’s cousin Jackie died in a car accident: her cousin who taught her how to braid hair and inspired her to start her own business.
When Nova was failing school, it was Jackie who told her that the education system was flawed; that some kids were better suited for school than others and those who weren’t were unfairly disregarded as stupid, difficult, or lazy.
She told Nova to find something she was good at early, then build on it.
We’d all known and loved Jackie, so we all attended the funeral.
Days after, it was just me and Nova. I’d bring her food because she hated to cook; I’d clean her flat and wash her face because she was exhausted.
I unraveled each one of her three-month-long braids, watching the dried flakes of her unattended scalp collect on my knees.
I deep conditioned her hair and plaited it into sections like she’d taught me, playing Fantasia’s album on repeat.
I did all of this because I love Nova and, selfishly, I was glad to be needed by her.
But grief can have two specific effects: It slows life down to the point of lethargy and depression—or it speeds life up, causing avoidance energy, recklessness, and a sudden devotion to the mantra “You only live once.” After existing within the former, Nova quickly adopted the latter, and was back with David before any of us knew what had happened.
Six days later, Lin signed her New York contract.
I now know my mistake was attempting to crack the art of being alone instead of addressing my loneliness.
Melissa and Felix moved out of London on a brown leaf-strewn day in November and we all reunited to drop Lin off at the airport a fortnight after.
Instead of processing my sense of loss, I spent the cold and rainy depths of the following months fighting against the drowning feeling and trying to enjoy being someone with more time on their hands.
I didn’t think it’d be hard. As soon as I started writing full time, I curated the perfect routine and could go days and even weeks without physical company.
But what I hadn’t considered was that my ability to be alone hinged on never feeling lonely.
With Nova, Mel, and Lin, I knew I could FaceTime any of them at any time of day and their voice would instantly fill the silence of my flat.
I could send a text in the afternoon and have plans for the evening.
I could leave my house and be on someone’s doorstep without switching trains.
It was this knowledge—this faithful, ready-and-waiting connection—that made being alone easy.
After Mel and Lin left, and Nova began prioritizing her relationship with David, my routine started to fall apart.
Turns out, it wasn’t my discipline that had made it work in the first place, but the mechanical assembly line it consisted of: wake up, exercise, shower, write, lunch, walk, write, phone, emails, Nova/Lin/Mel time.
Now that one step didn’t function correctly, the entire system was rendered useless.
The clock would creep to 5 PM and I’d text Lin, but she’d be in the thick of her workday in New York; I’d call Nova and it would go straight to voicemail.
I’d message Melissa and she’d respond quickly, but with news of the new house, ultrasounds, moving her interior design business predominately online, and maternity leave.
Soon, there was nothing in my life but the sound of the TV.
My brain started to process the evening as “numbing time,” making it impossible to do anything but stare blankly at whatever show was playing.
This goes on for weeks, until one evening, I decide to upload my profile onto a dating app.
The one I join is relatively new and questionnaire-based, allegedly designed for those looking to make a connection without the meandering small talk.
A person’s profile features fifteen yes , sometimes , no questions, and if at least twelve of their answers match yours, your profile is shown to them as compatible.
Questions are wide-ranging and selected from a list by the person behind the profile.
I match thirteen out of fifteen for a guy called Ishir whose profile questions range from: Are you environmentally conscious?
Do you go to therapy? Are you happy with our current Prime Minister?
to lighter questions like: Eating out is better than eating in?
Clubs over museum dates? Eight one-hour episodes over an eight-hour movie marathon?
He then has to answer my fifteen questions and he scores a twelve.
It’s one of the most time-consuming apps but that works for me. Really, I just want someone to talk to, and as desperate as it sounds, almost anyone will do.
Out of the four of us, I have the least consistent interaction with partners.
Melissa thinks this is because I haven’t found the right person yet, and it’s just that the second piece to my puzzle is too unique a shape to fit with just anyone.
I personally don’t feel as if a part of me is waiting for completion, but I don’t say so out loud.
Although it feels perfectly normal to me, I know I am the anomaly.
Thirty years old, with no history of long-term partners and, most shockingly, no intention of finding one.
I’ve felt this way for as long as I can remember and only started dating in college because everyone else around me was.
I convinced myself that no one truly enjoyed the act of dating, and that dating was like paying your taxes: You don’t want to, but you have to, and you should.
Approaching adulthood, I could no longer block out the constant noise around making the most of your younger, irresponsible years.
In order to properly live, you had to spend your nights in clubs, even if it triggered your claustrophobia and you already had the ear sensitivity of an eighty-year-old woman.
You had to hop from job to job before you found the one that would comfortably carry you to retirement.
You had to travel around the world before you had children, and before that you had to date, sow oats, kiss frogs, until you found your person and settled down.
So I did. Well, I tried. After emerging from the worst of a depressive episode that had kept me fairly housebound for months, I threw myself into dating to the point where my late teens and early twenties were filled with short-term dalliances.
I dated Matt: tall, dark, handsome (think Denzel Washington in the eighties, not Ben Affleck in the nineties) and enjoyed collecting stamps; Karina: blond, cheekbones strikingly visible under her eyes and an unconfirmed allergy to gluten; Phillip: old money, an alarming (or charming, if you were his mother) collection of bow ties, with cousins who were married to each other (“but they’re second cousins, so it’s all aboveboard!
”); Njeri: rarely without winged eyeliner, fluent in Spanish, Swahili, and English, ethically nonmonogamous; and Steffen: sweaty palms, mop of curly hair, loved black-and-white films, attended synagogue every Shabbat.
At twenty-six I’d ended my last relationship having realized something mind-blowing: I didn’t need one. I had people to talk and listen to, and people to laugh and cry with. I had all the companionship I needed.