Chapter 33
“ I like dogs and walks in the park.” The profile said in big black sans-serif letters on a yellow background.
Julie had no idea why she was still even trying these dating apps, but it was a way to get through her lunch break.
While she was working, she was fine - she could take her mind off of Zoe, for the most part, as long as she kept busy.
But the second her mind had a second to wander, it would automatically circle back to her.
She hadn’t heard from Zoe in a little over a week, since she’d told her to get out of her life.
At times, Julie regretted the decision and wondered what would’ve happened if she’d let Zoe explain everything to her.
Usually, though, she was happy she hadn’t put herself through that and actually stood her ground for once.
Her entire heart had burned out for Zoe twice and she couldn’t let it happen again.
Yesterday, though, she had lapsed. Who knew what had driven her to it, but she’d found herself searching for news articles about Zoe.
Before she even knew what she was doing, she’d been hit with a tabloid headline talking about “ Tom and Zoe’s dream countryside wedding” which had a “surprise date” which was “ kept secret by the two lovebirds” but really “will be later this month.” She’d spent a good few hours unable to get the image out of her head of Zoe rushing home to Tom, falling into his arms, and begging him to marry her as soon as possible.
Had she even told him what had happened at the wedding, or was she willingly going into this marriage built on lies?
Maybe Zoe was a much darker person than Julie had imagined.
And now Tom and Zoe were going to walk down the aisle and into their happily ever after, while Julie was still swiping on a stupid dating app to try to forget what Zoe’s touch felt like on her skin.
At least if they were getting married, it really meant that it was over this time.
“Swipe right if you like books and tea.” Julie groaned and put her phone in her pocket.
Clearly, she was just making it worse for herself.
She knew that she was aimlessly swiping through all of these profiles in the hopes that someone who was exactly like Zoe in every way would magically appear and they could live forever in bliss.
Julie stood up from the park bench and started pondering working through all her lunch breaks so she wouldn’t have any idle time.
As she reached her office’s door, she admitted she was too francophone to ever deny herself a break from work, and sighed again.
She’d had her heart broken before. She knew that it was always tough, but ultimately, it was only a matter of time.
She just had to ride it out for a few months, then the pain would dull and after a year it would start to become a distant memory, like a fading scar.
She’d managed to do it ten years ago because of the exact same girl; it wasn’t impossible to do it again.
She just needed Zoe to never reappear and rip this wound open again.
Around 5 pm, after Julie had done more work than any other day in her life, her phone buzzed with a message.
It was from Yasmine.
Julie did a double take and opened it. For over a week, the latest message from her best friend had been “I’m sorry.
I’ll explain everything soon, don’t worry.
” That message had not stopped Julie from worrying, nor from being vaguely annoyed that nobody important to her felt the need to tell her anything any more.
But her only feeling now as she read this new message was relief.
Yasmine was asking her if she could drop by Julie’s house this evening.
She owed her an explanation and a bottle of wine.
Julie answered: “Let me think about it.” Then texted immediately afterwards: “Of course you can drop by, I want to know everything!”
Yasmine texted back immediately. “I was just asking in case you had another friend who ran away at the altar who also had to explain it to you.”
“I do, but I just cancelled with her because I’m more involved in your story.” Julie had missed their banter.
“Your loss, I bet her story’s better. Around 8?”
“Works for me. Don’t run off again.”
As much as Julie’s love life was in shambles, at least she hadn’t run away from her own wedding. Yasmine was probably putting on a brave face but Julie knew her too well to know that joking around was Yasmine’s way to deflect her feelings.
* * *
Yasmine had arrived at 8 on the dot, two bottles of wine in hand.
Julie kissed her awkwardly on the cheek, trying to be polite and act like everything was normal as she welcomed her in.
She took the bottles of wine and set them on her coffee table, then both of them perched uncomfortably on the edge of her couch.
They were both so tense and awkward, like Julie had invited a stranger over instead of her best friend who had crashed on this very couch countless times.
“So, how are you?” She asked, smiling uncomfortably. Instead of answering, Yas just smiled back, equally uncomfortably.
“You know what? Let’s just go ahead and open one of these bottles.
I think we need it,” Julie suggested after a moment.
Yasmine chuckled, and a bit of the tension trickled out of the room.
While Yasmine started to work with the corkscrew, Julie jumped up and grabbed two glasses.
She returned and her friend filled the glasses immediately.
Her hands shook as she poured, splashing a few drops of red wine onto the table.
“Shit.” Yasmine grimaced. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries, I’ll clean it up.” Julie turned around to grab a box of tissues and mopped up the errant drops.
Yasmine was licking off wine from her fingers.
Was she trembling from the anxiety of telling Julie about what happened?
Julie would never judge Yasmine about anything like that.
She’d even help her hide a body if she needed to.
Julie could tell that Yasmine needed some support to broach the topic but she didn’t know where to start.
“So-”
“I-”
Right at the moment Julie opened her mouth, Yasmine interrupted.
“Oh sorry, go ahead.”
“No, no you go ahead!”
They looked at each other and Julie couldn’t help but grin. At least, the absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on them.
“OK.” Julie breathed. If she was ready to hide a body with Yasmine, she had to not be scared talking about her friends’ feelings. “Yas, what happened last week?”
Yasmine smiled and closed her eyes. “You’re gonna judge me.”
“I would never.”
“Yes you would.”
“You know me Yas, I’d never judge you.”
“You judge my taste in movies all the time.”
“OK, except for that. Your taste in movies is terrible.” Julie chuckled, before being serious again. “You can tell me whatever you want. I promise I won’t judge you.”
Yasmine sighed. “I just feel silly. I knew that you didn’t like Adam and I should’ve listened to you. And to the rest of my friends. And my cousins.”
“Wait, what?” Julie tried not to make a face. “I like Adam, he’s-”
“Julie, you’re very bad at lying and that includes lying by omission. I could see your face every time I mentioned Adam. But you were right.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Yasmine took another breath. She sat back, one arm resting on her leg, the other one fidgeting with the bottom of her wine glass. “The truth is: I haven’t been happy with Adam for a long time. It kills me to admit it and it was torture to realise it on my wedding day.”
Julie nodded, encouraging Yasmine to continue.
“When I first met Adam, it was like a dream come true. He was this talented, sensitive guy with an incredible career and I thought it was all that I wanted. When I talked about him to my friends and family, everybody was starstruck, and so was I. Everything with Adam felt like it was more. People were just living life. Being with Adam felt like experiencing it.” Yasmine took another sip from her glass.
“And then… Having to share him with his career became difficult. There was always a meeting, an interview, a collaboration,… you name it. Being the girl backstage and in the front row isn’t all that great when that’s all that his friends see you as.
And he never takes time to correct them.
Little by little, it’s like your life is being swallowed whole by his greater, more important life.
But Adam is still the nice wide-eyed boy that you first met, so you want to make it work. ”
Julie had never seen Yasmine so bare and vulnerable.
If only she’d known all of this. If only she’d asked Yasmine how her relationship was going when she’d had the chance.
The truth is, she could see that Yasmine wasn’t happy with Adam but she didn’t want to acknowledge it.
It would’ve meant that Yasmine wasn’t doing well and it was a terrifying thought for Julie.
“So I tried very hard to make it work,” Yasmine continued quietly.
“When he proposed to me, I thought he was ready to spend more time with me, but it wasn’t true.
At the same time, I didn’t want to admit that I was unhappy because I thought that it meant that I hadn’t tried hard enough.
I was scared of losing him, in part because I loved him but in part because I was just…
used to him. The weeks before the wedding, my brain was screaming at me to call it off but I didn’t want to listen to it. I thought it was wedding stress.”
“Then on the wedding day…”
Yasmine smiled. “On the wedding day, I couldn’t pretend it was okay any more. So I ran away.”
Julie nodded again. “I just want to point out that that’s a very Yasmine reaction. Saying ‘fuck it’ to everything and getting out of there.”
“I know, right?” Yasmine laughed.
“And… Who’s this other guy?”
“This is the part where you’re going to judge me. If you’re not judging me already.”