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It happened so gradually that Eve did not notice until it hit her all at once. A sudden wave of emotion that slammed into her, one sunny morning over coffee and toast, and sent her flat on her ass. The sediment of their relationship piling up around her, as Jimmy chattered on about comic books at his usual seat across the breakfast nook.
Though she chose to say it was a “wave of emotion,” it was more accurate to describe it as a total lack thereof. She looked at him and realised that she could simply not be bothered about anything he had to say. Not only did she no longer love Jimmy, she could barely even stand him. She had rolled her eyes at something he said, an involuntary action that took her aback, and corrected herself – she could not stand him at all, not anymore, and possibly not for a long time.
She could not stand the way he shrilled when he laughed at those stupid memes on his phone.
She could not stand the way he would eat through an entire box of super sugary kids’ cereal in one sitting, in nothing but socks and boxers.
She could not stand the way he wore his hair, or took his coffee, or talked in his sleep. She used to adore the way he talked in his sleep. There had been nights where his nonsense mumbling woke her and she smiled to herself. “My Jimmy,” she would sigh, thick with sleep, as she cuddled up closer to him and fell back into dreams of the two of them frolicking through fields, or painting each other naked, or whatever else, as if the waking hours were just not enough.
But, in a café not far from the Daily Planet, loud enough to turn heads, Eve exclaimed, “I could have smothered him!”
She groaned, preoccupied with her own thoughts as she poured a third sachet of sugar into her cup.
Lois laughed. “You want some coffee with that sugar?” she teased, raising a questioning brow.
Eve shot the other woman a cold glare, and did not break eye-contact as she emptied in a fourth sachet. “’Don’t forget the Namekian,’ that’s what he said. Grown man – talking about cartoons in his sleep.” She slammed her hand flat on the tabletop. “Ugh. I have a shoot in a few hours. Do I look ugly or just hideous?”
At least the bags under her eyes could be hidden. Thank the good lord for the magic of modern makeup – and modern editing software.
Lois took a sip of her own coffee. A long, slow, sip as she surveyed Eve; looking her, just as slowly, up and down.
“You look fine. The eyebags are chic.”
“Don’t use that word with me, Lane.” Eve rolled her eyes.
She swallowed down a quarter of her coffee. Too-sweet, just the way she liked it, though she worried too much about the calories to have it any way besides black for most days of the year. Letting out a big, open-mouthed sigh, she said, around an exhale, “That hits the spot.”
Her phone buzzed through her jeans pocket, and, as soon as she saw Jimmy’s name on the screen – that little red heart next to his name, taunting her – her gentle exhale turned into an exhausted groan.
Lois peeked over Eve’s shoulder and read the text: a mundane ‘Miss you’ followed by three kissy-face emojis. So simple. So common. And yet it sent Eve’s eyes rolling so far back into her head that no one would have been surprised if they just stuck there.
“Gross.” Lois laughed. Obviously not taking any of this seriously.
“Shut up,” Eve muttered.
Eve thumbed in a quick red heart emoji and slammed her phone face down on the table, so hard that it rattled the cups in their saucers and shook the small table on its solid wooden legs.
Lois had settled into a quiet one could describe as contemplative.
Eve knew Lois well – well enough to know that the other woman was gathering her thoughts and gearing herself up to say something. There. She set her hands flat on the table and, with clarity, said, “You know relationships are optional, right?”
Eve had a habit that came and went with the tides; of picking at the skin of her bottom lip until her bottom lip was picked raw. It had gotten her into trouble as a child, trying to establish herself as a model in front of people who had no qualms against picking apart the little girls in front of them until they were a sobbing mess. She realised, in that moment, that she was doing it again; a perfectly manicured nail pulling and pulling and pulling at a stray patch of dry skin at the furthest left corner of her mouth.
At Lois’ words, however, she stopped, and her back straightened.
“Oh…” she murmured, as if she had just had a great awakening – one of those that they write about when they write about the great prophets and gurus of old. “But, what then?” she asked, a tinge of incredulous unbelief colouring the edges of the words.
Eve had chased after Jimmy for so long. She wanted him. She would have chased him to the very ends of the earth just to have him. When she wore him down and got him, she had felt an elation like never before. A sense of accomplishment. A finally! That wanted to break free through a hole in her chest in a burst of excitement. How much, she wondered, had that excitement been what moved her from one moment to the next of this relationship? Ninety percent? No, she shook the thought away. Sixty? No. Fingers worrying at her bottom lip. Thirty-five? It had to be thirty-five.
There was love there. There had to be love there, or what else could it have been? Not just the last three months, but all of it?
“What then?” Lois echoed.
She had leaned forward, all the way into Eve’s space, and stared into Eve’s eyes with eyes blown wide, bug-eyed. “What then?” she repeated. “I can’t believe this, Eve. Are you serious?”
Eve dropped her head on the table with a heavy thud.
Silly girl, she thought.
She pulled her phone across the table towards her, still open on Jimmy’s chat. Let’s break up 😊 she typed out and sent.
Nothing more to say than that.
And, there. A scream of finally! – an exhale for a breath she did not even realise she had been holding, nor knew for how long.