How can he have so few reservations after I bawled my eyes out on his sofa?
“Tomorrow night. Come to The Red Kettle.”
I hesitate.
“Just come. Promise me you’ll come.”
“I’ll be there.”
That afternoon, I’m in my head and I know it.What have I done?I replay the morning in my head. Our kiss. And how much I wanted it. The especially fucked up thing about grief is that it mangles your perception of yourself so badly, you forget you’re a human too.
I feel like a fake and a fraud. How dare I want to love again?
I convinced myself I’m not funny and charming.I’m cringey and embarrassing.
I’m definitely not sweet and endearing. I’m clingy and overbearing.
My old self is on some far off pedestal, far beyond any reasonable reach, but still, I desperately reach and grab and clutch onto whatever pieces I can get. The statue of my old self is chipped away by every sunrise and sunset, and there is nothing I can do but watch it get whipped to pieces in the wind.
I’m a self-fulfilled prophecy. I am everything I don’t want to be.
But how could I not be? My life was turned upside down in a single phone call.
I make sure everyone knows, all the time, as evident when Jae found me crying in the hall.But it didn’t turn him away. In fact, it just made him chase me more.
Maybe he’s the one fucked in the head.
The thing I miss the most about Jae’s apartment was the balcony. This apartment doesn’t have one. If I want fresh air, the best I can do is stick my head out the window by the fire escape. Sitting on the fire escape feels a little risky—and technically illegal.
Is it too soon to call Jae? It was less than two hours since I saw him, but all I want to do was talk to him about this. Even so, it’s probably best to let it lie. Meaning…if I saw him again, I would certainly try to kiss him. Even I’m smart enough to see that.
Hours pass and I don’t know how I manage. I ask myself a thousand questions, not knowing the answer to a single one and too afraid to find out. A million thoughts plow their way through the wrinkles in my brain.
What will I tell my parents? What will I tell Grant’s parents? The support group?
Does this mean I have to take down the photos of Grant?
Do I have to get rid of Grant’s things?
I laugh at the ridiculous thought of having to get rid of Lily simply because she also belonged to Grant. But it is a fine lineto walk, and I don’t know the answers. If I date someone new, what do I do with all the evidence I was in another relationship I didn’t willingly exit? Who decides?
Me, I think.
I will not scrub the evidence that Grant and I were together from the universe. I’ve worked so hard to keep it here. Why would I want to get rid of it?
I think back to what Melissa said to me. You move forward, not on.
When you move forward, it doesn’t mean you erase all the things that you leave behind. My grief, my sorrow and all my pain make up who I am today. The me who was grieving in the past is still somewhere within the me who is desperately trying so hard to be happy today.
She and I are not so different after all.
I don’t know why it took me so long to understand that, when it seemingly took Jae only a few minutes. Maybe it’s different when it’s your reality. I think it plainly. I am afraid that loving someone new means I won’t love Grant anymore. I love Grant through giving someone new my love.
Which begs the question: Is Jae the one I want to give my love to?
And when I am in bed later that night, itching to call him, I have my answer when my phone rings and his name pops up on the screen. My heart skips forty beats and the butterflies in my stomach climb to my throat.
“Hello?”
