Work Text:
People tend to lie. Love to lie. I lie. You lie. We’re great at lying. It’s a talent, perhaps. Actors by trade. Liars by nature. You said you’d come to visit on your filming break. Fly over the day after you finished and leave the day before you were to start again. You didn’t. Things came up. Our schedules clashed. Filming ran over. Excuses. Excuses. Excuses. Then we made plans for my birthday. No visits but a Skype call, at least. The very least. Your phone died. I had no service. Things came up. Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.
Your winking ellipses haunt me. Mine you too, I’d expect. Unfinished text messages hanging in the air halfway between us. I wait, and I wait, and I wait but the message never comes through. I never hit send. Unanswered calls and ignored voicemails.
We’re slipping through one another’s fingers. I can feel it. Falling from your grasp, tumbling into the unknown. It might be cathartic if it wasn’t so terrifying. Because you’re the only thing I’ve ever known. The only thing I’ve ever had to call my own. The only thing I could have and could hold and never had to share. I am yours and you are mine, and yet we’re allowing it to wisp away. Wane like it isn’t important. Like we’re not important. Am I important to you? Really. The same way as when we were in high school?
I don’t like my answer to my own question. I don’t think the answer is no. You are important to me. Really. But not like the way you were in high school. You’re important but not the most important. I prioritise deadlines and friends and my mom’s stupid cooking blog, and I’ll call you if I have time. I know I’d get mad if you had the same answer, the same new priorities. But I could never blame you. Honestly. Because your job and your family and your friends come above me. I’m fourth on the list – if that. You’re fourth on mine too.
I’m not angry at you. Anger isn’t an emotion I can summon towards you anymore. If anything, it’s detachment. Defeat. Maybe even resentment. But only a little, tiny speck of it. Practically infinitesimal. I’m madder at myself more than anything. For leaving. New York wasn’t worth losing you, I don’t think. Not worth losing us. Not the roles or the food or the people. Not the school or staying up until three in the morning or the experience. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Was turning down NYU worth losing me? The role in the soap opera and the staying at home and the being in the best place in the country for an actor.
Sometimes, and only sometimes, I forget you’re not around. Not just a phone call away anymore. That you can’t come visit me in your beat-up truck any time I want you to. And that I won’t answer your calls. Or think about you as much as I’m meant to. Or talk about you to my mom anymore. I forget. About us.
I don’t remember losing you. I don’t remember you losing me. There wasn’t a specific moment, I’m almost sure there wasn’t. We faded. Like lesser cherished memories and lights losing power. Slowly losing relevance in our own lives until I don’t recognise us anymore. Where did we go, Beck? Where did we go?
Who said I stopped? You said it twice. The first time we broke up, then the second. You told me that you never stopped loving me, and promised you never would. I promised the same. Without words. A kiss to your jaw and then to your knuckles. It meant the same. We love to make promises we can’t keep. Over and over and over until we can speak no more.
“We need to talk,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve answered your calls for a month. Maybe two. I’ve lost count. I say it with such force you shudder. I can’t see you, but I can feel you recoil away from your phone, your face distorted in some kind of disgust. At me. You’re some kind of disgusted with me.
You clear your throat, brush a hand over the lower half of your face. You haven’t shaved in a few days; I can hear the friction. Your brow is furrowed and you’re not ready for the conversation we’re about to have. Don’t worry, my love, we’ll keep it short.
“Yeah, we do.” You hesitate. As if every word causes you physical pain. Like I’m causing you physical pain. I hear you swallow and decide you’re not going to continue. You’ve never been good at this; the confrontation. As much as you don’t care what people think, you’re such a people pleaser. Will suffer in silence before you confront the situation. Except with me. Usually. But it feels like you don’t know me anymore, and I’m hanging onto my knowing you by the skin of my teeth.
“Are we going to talk around ourselves in circles or are can we get it over with?” I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. But we need it. I can’t do this anymore.
“Rip off the band-aid,” you tell me. Instruct me. Demand. With more power than you’ve ever possessed. You don’t like this either but if I don’t, you’ll crumble. It’s us or you and neither of us are willing to admit that.
There are usually fights. Long ones that last for days and make everyone around us uncomfortable. Today, there will be no fights. No arguments. No Beck and Jade that hang onto each other like they provide each other air. Because they don’t. I don’t provide you with air, and you don’t provide mine. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
“I think we need some time apart.”
I say it wrong. We’ve had all the time in the world apart, and look where that’s got us. We’re on opposite sides of the country and can’t even bother to speak anymore. We don’t need time apart we need to be apart. And not just physically. I need you to not be a part of me anymore. I need to break away from you. Forever this time. Because the weight of us falling apart is becoming too heavy a burden to carry.
“We do,” you say with a nod. Your hand is in your hair. “I –” You almost tell me you love me but we both know that’s not true. “I’m sorry,” you say instead, and that I can believe. Of course, you’re sorry. Even I’m sorry. We were supposed to be in it for the long-haul and we didn’t even make it out of college.
“I know.” I don’t apologise in return. I don’t think I have the words to. “Bye, Beck.”
“Bye. Take care.”
Click, and the line’s dead. I wait a few moments for you to call me back and take it back. Because that’s what we did last time. We’ve never been good at staying apart. But I feel nothing but relief. It was anticlimactic but right. Necessary. And it should have happened months ago.
My apartment floor is cold, but it’s where I sit. And it’s where I stare at the unframed photo of us stuck to the fridge with a cheap magnet from the Central Park Zoo and some Blu Tac. And it’s where I realise I’ll never see you again.