Too bad they’re bound to be disappointed.
It’s not that I’ve sworn off men or anything dramatic like that; I’ve just sworn off fairy tales.
Phone rolling against my palm, I lean back against the driver’s seat, letting the soft tunes from my “Crying in My Car” playlist fill the silence both in my car and inside my bones. It’s a mix I created, equal parts heartbreak ballads and moody songs that give my bruised heart validation, that I listen to religiously every morning on my way to work.
I’m a hairstylist for a luxury men’s salon I own with my sister Sarina, and my best friend, Piper. We openedHaircuts and Heartthrobsa few years ago when we all found ourselves in the same city after having endured our own forms of trauma and drama. But on the side, I also teach taekwondo at adojangowned by my friend, Micah. Actually, I’m not sure if we’refriends, but more on that later.
Even from a young age, I thrived on discipline and routine. So, after watching a taekwondo match on TV as a teen, I asked my parents to sign me up for classes. And now it’s become a part of my life, grounding me, especially when my life feels out of control.
I stare at the house across from mine. Yeah, I’m one of those people who likes to back into a parking spot so I can pretend I have my life together. It’s probably the same reason my bedsheets have hospital corners and my books are arranged by color.
There isn’t a stack of magazines at my salon that doesn’t get tidied up first thing in the morning or a throw-pillow that isn’t fluffed twice—just in case.
After all, isn’t it true that if you fake something long enough, it’ll eventually start to feel real?
Except, I’ve been waiting for that reality to kick in for almost seven years.
As if my eyes and brain finally connect, I realize there’s something different about the house today—it’s no longer on the market. The hideous yellow and purple realtor sign that offended my retinas for the past three months is finally gone, replaced by a simple red “sold” sign.
Thank the Lord. Hopefully now I’ll get some decent neighbors, instead of the circus show that lived there before. The Cockburns—yes, that was their actual last name, and no, I will never not snort-laugh like a juvenile when I’m reminded of it—had turned living in peaceful suburbia into a free WWE viewing. Between the couple’s nightly driveway spats and their adult son revving up his motorcycle like he was trying to launch himself to Mars, our entire block lived in a state of audio trauma.
And ever since my sister Sarina and her eight-year-old son Rome moved out of the house next door, and into a much grander one with her now-fiancé, former star pitcher for theBay Area Blazers, Troy Winters, I felt like I had no one to meet at the fence and whisper, “Jesus Christ. Not again,” when the Cockburns would hit their nightly sound pollution quota.
It’s been strangely quiet around here, not because I miss the chaos but because I miss Sarina and Rome.
Thankfully, I was able to buy the property from my sister and get a renter in it—a middle-aged traveling nurse named Nancy—but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I miss being able to pop over in my pajamas and collapse on her couch to say absolutely nothing or steal my nephew to watch Star Wars reruns at my place.
In any case, whoever is moving into the house across the street has to be an improvement over who was there before.
I glance down at the phone on my lap, still displaying the messages that took me down this internal spiral. The thing my friends don’t understand—the thing I’m not able to voice to them without seeming broken or bitter—is that I already had my shot at a happily-ever-after.
With my best friend no less.
And it left me faithless and hollow.
Patton and I dove headfirst into love at the age of sixteen and thought we would conquer the world together when we got married at twenty-one. Except, it all turned upside down. We didn’t conquer the world as much as it conquered us. That same love that made us unstoppable started to tear us apart.
It wasn’t for a lack of love—God knows we always had plenty of that—it was everything else. The distance that grew between us when life got hard. The dreams that pulled him so hard, I was often left standing alone, wondering if I’d ever be enough to make him stay.
In the end, the love that bound us together was the very thing that pulled us apart. In the end, that love wasn’t enough to bridge the gap between who we were and who we wanted to be.
So, at thirty-two, it’s not that I’m afraid of love; in fact, I relish watching it bloom all around me. All my best friends are in fulfilling, soul-stirring relationships. My father met the man of his dreams not too long ago and is once again happy after having lost my mom to an aneurysm years ago. Even my cynical twin, who used to run from athletes, found her forever match in Troy, a former baseball pitcher.
No, I’m not afraid of love.
I’m afraid of being an afterthought to someone who consumes all my thoughts.
I’m afraid of making space in my hopes and dreams, only to realize I never had a place in theirs.
Seven years ago, I walked away from my life in L.A. with Patton, leaving behind our shared home and aDear Johnletter pinned to the fridge. Since then, I’ve been slowly rebuilding a life I can call my own, from my array of potted plants to the home gym I assembled, piece by piece.
Seven years of coming to terms with the fact that it took two to create what we had, and two to allow it to break.
But coming to terms with the past is a far cry from wanting to relive it. Or revive it, no matter how much my well-intentioned friends insist I should.
They have it in their heads that getting back with Patton would be some huge romantic story, like we’re two characters from a chick flick he’s starred in. But real life isn’t a screenplay where love conquers all and the third act is saved by some poignant grand gesture.
Sometimes love just isn’t enough.
