Victoria
Why was it sometimes we made mistakes knowing full well that they were mistakes, that we could turn away and course-correct at any point?
I spent miserable, lonely days drifting around the apartment only in the morning hours if I could help it and then locking myself away in my room the rest of the time. It felt like a fever dream—it wasn’t like Bridget and I had actually had a fight, but I almost wished we had, because the quiet apathy that we’d killed it off with—thatI’dkilled it off with—wormed deeper into my soul.
Maybe if we’d argued, then I could have justified it, vilified her in my mind, and we could have shouting matches in the common rooms when we crossed paths. Instead, it was painful silence where she gave me a thin ghost of a smile at most, and we’d slip past each other, and I’d be left standing there wondering why I didn’t chase after her and tell her I missed her.
Not that I had any reason she’d want to take me back, not after how I ruined things between us.
Of all people, it was her friend Erica who kept in touch with me after it all went down, and the conversations with her were equal parts grounding and risky. She was always in love with another person whenever we talked, and I got to focus on coaching her on whether these latest feelings were reciprocated or not. It was good to see somebody else who couldn’t figure out love to save her life. But every now and then, it got dangerous, because I’d be sitting under the twinkling lights in the kitchen window looking out over the snow-draped patio behind the apartment, the solitary dinner plate on the table reduced to just a few smears of food left, and Erica, on the phone helping distract me from my own thoughts, would go quiet for a minute before she’d say,
“You know, you can still make things right with Bridget.”
I closed my eyes. “Thanks,” I said.
“No, you can’t keep doing this every time. She really cares about you.Youreally care abouther.She told me all about how you said like you don’t know what you really want—”
“That’s really enough,” I said thinly.
“But I know what you want.”
“Uh-huh, true love. I think you may be mixing it up with what you want, Erica.” I kept my voice hushed. Bridget couldn’t hear me if I’d shouted, not with how soundproofed her room was, but it felt viscerally uncomfortable to be talking about this out loud in the same apartment as her.
“Notthat,” Erica pleaded. “It’s a sense of home, isn’t it? A place you’re always welcome where you’re always enough and people see you and know you and love you. It’s family and friends and… okay, maybe a true love or two in there too. And you’ve been connecting with your family, making friends, finding your safe place…”
I swallowed hard, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I… I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do! You’re just afraid of what happens if you have it. I like you alot.I mean, not like that. I mean, if you weren’t already soulmates with Bridget, I’d consider it, because you are really pretty and really intelligent and everything, but like, that’s not relevant, because you’re already soulmates with Bridget.”
“Uh… uh-huh. You all have terrible taste.”
“Oh my god, stop. Can’t you just trust people to want what they want?”
I sighed, looking up at the Christmas lights strung up overhead. They probably had to come down soon… I’d never cared so much for Christmas, but this year, I was desperately sad at the thought of seeing them go. “Don’t you think it’s a little… too… late?”
“Never,” she said, without a hint of exaggeration. “Bridget’ssohappy with you.”
I swallowed. “I already told the Seattle office I’ll be going back there. Told the office here I wouldn’t be…”
“It’s still never too late.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’d hate to be the… the rock that weighs her down…”
“Victoria…” Her little voice was so soft and heartbroken, it hurt me too to hear it. “Bridget doesn’t see you that way. Nobody sees you that way.”
I couldn’t manage a word—tried, but everything died in my throat, thin and weak. I squeezed my hand tighter on the phone.
“I mean, you can look at her feed too. Like, did youseehow prolific she was when she was with you? She just about, like, doubled her following.”
“Well, I mean, I guess I did… see that…”
“The audio of her while you went down on her? That wassosexy and so beautiful. I’ve come to it like thirty times.”
“Oh, er, flattered… to, er… have helped.”
“Bridget’s more of who she wants to be with you. I just wish you could see that.”
I wished I could see it, too.
