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And because he is Neil, his response doesn’t disappoint.
Neil: I’m so sorry—that sounds miserable.
Neil: I wish I were there. I’d keep you company and bring you soup.
Rowan: haha I don’t think it’s soup-level serious, but thank you for the virtual minestrone
Neil: That’s your soup of choice? You have every soup available in your imagination, and you go with minestrone?
Rowan: I’m a simple minestrone-loving gal!!!
I can’t deny that it sounds so nice, imagining being taken care of like that. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Neil would drop everything to bring me soup.
The vision comes with a terrible ache, one that weighs down my limbs and makes me drop my phone to the nightstand. I miss, the phone smacking the sliver of linoleum floor not covered by a rug, and I don’t have the energy to pick it up. Because no one’s bringing anyone soup, not anytime soon, unless one of us gets sick during a break from school. And who wants soup in July, anyway?
Then I’m spiraling about soup, and because my brain is a hellhole right now, suddenly I’m thinking of all the couples that broke up over winter break. The romantic in me had been sad, but now I wonder if they rationalized that the temporary heartbreak would hurt less than the distance. Tonight, the finish line feels so far away.
Three and a half more years of this, I realize when I finally trudge downstairs for dinner, devastated to learn they’ve just run out of chickenless chicken noodle, the soup of the day.
Of him not being here when I wish he would.
* * *
January turns out to be the fucking worst.
An intense bout of homesickness has me googling things like “Seattle in the summer” and “Space Needle at night.”
My writing continues to stagnate.
And despite having hugged him goodbye at the airport at the beginning of the month, I miss Neil with an urgent new ferocity. We try to hook up over video, but his roommate barges in (thankfully) before either of us has removed too much clothing. When we slept together over the break, I still couldn’t get there. I was home, in my own bed, the place where I should feel the most comfortable—and yet I couldn’t turn off my mind. We should be tearing each other’s clothes off every time we see each other, given that time is so limited. I don’t know why it doesn’t feel that way.
I’ll scroll through his Instagram when I’m supposed to be studying, liking the photos he’s posted with his NYU friends. I want to be evolved and mature, and yet there’s a twinge of jealousy when other girls are in them, even though I trust him completely. It’s more the sense of being left out, of him having this whole other life there that I can’t be part of.
Maybe it’s all the recent breakups or my own ever-present anxiety, but I can’t help reading into the spaces in between our texts and phone calls, wondering if he’s having doubts about us. Ever since winter break, I’ve sensed a strange new distance from him. The biggest change I can think of is that his mom got engaged over the holidays, but he’s never seemed anything but thrilled when he’s talked about it. The wedding will be this summer because they don’t want to wait.
The worst part of long distance, along with all the other worst parts, is that I can’t simply call him up to get that reassurance. Even if he’s not in class, talking on the phone or even on video just isn’t the same as talking face-to-face. When he’s next to me, I can read his expressions. With two screens and hundreds of miles between us, he might as well be on another planet.
He was in love with me for years, and now he has me. Is there a chance the excitement is just… gone?
No. I won’t allow myself to think that way.
But instead of going back to my creative writing assignment, I open a new browser window and type in transferring to NYU.
My stomach squeezes even as I hit enter, every feminist urge in me expressing deep and thorough disapproval. You don’t understand, I tell those urges. I really fucking miss him.
Maybe it’s not just my writing that’s stalled right now. Maybe what’s wrong with me is that I’m in the wrong city. I skim the page, official transcripts and letters of recommendation and highly competitive. Essentially a lighter version of a regular college application, a process I’m not exactly eager to repeat.
My document blinks back at me. Taunting me.
There has to be an easier solution.
The door bursts open. Only then do I glance at the clock on my laptop—it’s past one a.m. and I’m still at my desk.
Paulina Radowski is flushed and out of breath, holding a hand to her heart to steady herself. She yanks her AirPods out of her ears, tosses them on her bed.
It isn’t as though we don’t speak. It’s just that the time we spend together is usually limited to when we’re both semiconscious.
“Did you just run up the stairs to get here?” I ask.
