Bridget
Running on three hours of sleep is not good for the soul, and neither is the headache I’ve got that I’m convinced was sent straight from the deep, dark depths of hell.
Oh, and not talking to Elias is also making me feel pretty fucking sad.
It’s been a week and a half since the fight. Eleven days, if I’m counting.
Which I’m not. Obviously.
He’s texted and called, but I can’t find it in me to answer.
Was I too quick to jump the gun and assume the worst? Probably…but all I know is that I needed to get out of there before it got any worse. Hearing how he felt brought back memories of my last fight with Tom, and I couldn’t do that again—not with him.
Not with someone who has spent the last few months showing me what it truly feels like to be loved. The time I’ve spent with Elias has been filled with so much happiness and joy, and I don’t know if I’m ready to let go of that yet.
The handle on my front door twists and Natalie walks in with two coffees. Her dark eyes roam over my sweatpants that have some dried ketchup on them just above the knee and the striped shirt I wore the last time I had my heart broken.
I call it my break-up shirt.
“Oh, good lord,” she breathes out as she kicks the door shut behind her. “What are you listening to? Songs you slowly want to die to?”
I hold out my phone and show her the playlist I created: Songs I slowly want to die to.
“I knew it.” Natalie smirks as she sets the coffees down and “Roslyn” by Bon Iver begins to play. “Oh, absolutely not. C’mon, Bella Swan, let’s get you out of your sad girl era.”
I grumble as she pauses the song and push myself up onto my elbows. “Leave me alone.”
She scoffs and pushes my feet off the couch so she can sit down. “No.” Natalie reaches forward and picks up her drink. “We’re going to talk about whatever it is that’s turning you into this sad little gremlin, and then we’re going to put together an action plan.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I whine as I sit upright and take the cup she holds in my direction. “Talking about it means reliving it, and I don’t want to do that.”
She turns to look at me with a frown on her face.
Her usual bright blonde hair sits messy on the top of her head and her dark roots are beginning to show.
Hazel eyes lock in on my face and it’s then that I notice the bags underneath them and how tired she looks.
Her normal brightness has been dimmed, and all I want to do is wrap her in my arms and hold her against me, but I know Natalie and if I tried to do that she’d probably karate chop me in the throat.
“Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Like a sadder and smaller gremlin.”
Natalie rolls her eyes. “We’re not talking about me right now.” I pout. “I’ll make you a deal—you tell me what happened with lover boy, and I’ll tell you all of my woes.”
I sigh. As much as I don’t want to talk about Elias, I want to know what’s wrong with her, so I’ll just have to suffer through my discomfort for her.
“I think we’re over.”
“You think?” I nod. “Well, what happened?”
“The engagement party,” I deadpan, and she nods slowly. “Why didn’t you warn me about it?”
She shrugs. “Out of all the shit that’s happened, I didn’t think an engagement party would tip you over the edge.”
“It didn’t tip me over the edge.”
Natalie raises her brows. “Interesting.”
“I had a tiny moment—if you can even call it that—in the bathroom, and he walked in and it was fine. Then we get to his place later, and he’s like ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and we get into this fight and it spirals, and things got said…and I left.” I’m word-vomiting it all out.
Natalie holds her hands up. “You need to slow down, because I need more details than whatever that was. What did he say that made you leave?”
“That he doesn’t know if this is what love should be like and that it doesn’t feel like ours but someone else’s. I had said a few weeks ago that this wasn’t how I pictured this happening for me, and then last week he said he wasn’t sure if this is what he wanted for himself either.”
She looks at me, waiting for me to continue.
“It felt like we were in this little bubble and now it’s burst and we’re floating around with no idea what to do, you know?
He was always the soundboard for this whole thing, but now he’s taken a step back and just thrown me off my axis.
And I get it, because this is how I felt in the beginning, but I came to terms with it…
I fell in love with him and our story and now it feels like we don’t have one anymore. ”
Natalie frowns. “You still have a story, it’s just different.
” She takes a sip of her coffee, “Plus, I think it’s good that it’s all out in the open.
Otherwise, you would’ve gone along with this whole thing, with your heart half in it, and he would never have known and then at some point down the line, it would’ve come out and been way harder to fix. ”
I sigh.
“I’m not saying that what happened is ideal because it sounds sad and I don’t want that for you. But can you, hand on heart, say that you would’ve been completely happy with how things would’ve panned out?”
“I think so.”
“No, you don’t,” Natalie replies. “Bridget, I know you better than anyone, and I know you would’ve end up resenting him, like you did with Tom. The only difference there is that Elias isn’t the type of guy you want to resent.”
I sigh. “God, I hate it when you’re right.”
“I know.” She turns to look at me. “Listen, I’m only telling you this because it’s going to make what I’m about to say make more sense, but Kat and I broke up.”
I open my mouth to speak, but she holds up her hand.
“I don’t want talk about that right now, but what I was going to say is that I had what I thought was the best relationship.
We were so in sync, we never fought and everything was always perfect, and I thought, this is it—this is my forever, but it wasn’t.
She kept this part of herself hidden from me our whole entire relationship, and when it started to come out, I was confused because I had no idea she had been feeling the way she was, because she hadn’t been honest.” Natalie sighs.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you were never completely honest about your feelings, it wouldn’t have triggered his own and he wouldn’t have said the things he did and you both would’ve been living this lie, too scared to hurt each others feelings and that would’ve broken you. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m not really ready to talk about it yet…and the only reason I am now is because you need me, and if that means telling you how I’m feeling and what I’m going through, then I will.”
“I don’t want you to talk about something you’re not ready to. You’re allowed to have your feelings and talk about them when you want.”
Natalie’s looking at me so intensely, it feels like she can see right through me. “If you’re so willing to accommodate my feelings, why aren’t you willing to accommodate his?”
I freeze. “What do you mean?”
“You want me to only talk about my feelings when I’m ready, but what if he was ready to talk about his and you just left? How do you think that made him feel?”
I frown.
“Listen, I’m not trying to make you feel like an asshole but you’ve got a chance to rebuild the foundations with a man who loves you, and you’re here, sitting on your couch, crying into your coffee.
Bridget, he looks at you like you hung the fucking moon, and while it’s slightly nauseating, it’s amazing to have found someone like that.
Don’t let this moment, or this man, pass you by, because trust me, you’ll regret it.
Be the girl who gets the guy, Bids. Be that fucking girl. ”
Imani calls and asks to meet me at our favourite bar, but I’m feeling hesitant.
The last time we saw each other, we fixed things but it’s still not the best, and after the past week or so, I don’t want any more arguments. I want to get back to where we were—being best friends—and the only way that will happen is if I get off my ass and go, so that’s what I do.
It’s pretty busy when I get there, but I spot her right away. As I near, my steps falter when I see who’s seated beside her. Malik looks nervous as he looks down at his glass, and I’m about to turn around when she looks up and spots me.
“Bridget,” she breathes out, and Malik looks up at me. “I’m so glad you made it.”
My gaze flicks between the two of them and I sigh as I close the distance between us. “Hey.”
I take a seat at the table, look over at Imani and smile—she looks a lot better than the last time I saw her, and I let my eyes drop down to the swell of her belly.
“Your belly has grown,” I tell her. “You look great.”
“I know…I’m nearing the end of my second trimester now,” she says, cupping her bump.
I grin, then clear my throat and brave looking at Malik. He’s eyes are already on me and he looks uncomfortable.
“Talk about an ambush…” I muse, and he grimaces.
“Yeah, I thought it might be the only way you’d see me.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s not true, and I think you know that. I’d have come to see you if you’d have asked.”
He nods. “Yeah, I know.”
“So, what’s new with you?” Malik asks, breaking the tension.
I tilt my head to the side. “I don’t know if I want to get into that with you, given how it turned out last time.” He looks away sheepishly. “But I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that it’s not going great right now.”
Malik frowns. “That doesn’t make me happy, Bids.” He clears his throat. “Listen, I fucked up, and that’s on me—I always want you to be happy.”
“What’s going on?” Imani asks.
Being here in our place makes all the happy memories come flooding back like a tidal wave, and I find myself telling them everything. It’s hard opening up to them, but there’s something healing about this moment—about the three of us reconnecting again.
“What do you want to happen?” Imani asks, “What would make you happy?”
I sigh. “Being with him.”
“You can still be with him, right?” Malik says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it’s so easy.
I nod. “I guess I just wish that I could meet him for the first time all over again—do it right this time.”
“Well, maybe that idea isn’t so farfetched,” Imani pipes up. “Maybe you can have a do-over.”
“I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“Oh…” she hums. “I wouldn’t cross it off completely. You never know what’s around the corner.”