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She fled before even finishing her apology, too afraid if she met Erin’s eyes once more, she’d change her mind. She wanted to look back, to see if she was still looking at her, to try to figure out if she felt the electricity too. She didn’t because she knew if she did she would melt into any possibility of feeling that alive again.
Chapter Three
The cab driver dropped Julia off at her doorstep. She paused before opening the door. Thoughts of stolen kisses and wandering hands flashed through her mind, even in that foggy state. Images of Erin’s hand on her skin, her fingertips begging to travel farther, made her insides flutter into that swarm of buzzing again.
As she reached for the doorknob, the house seemed to loom over her. The brick casted shadows off the mounted lights, and for a brief moment, she wished she went home with Erin. She wished she allowed herself that mindless spontaneity, allowed herself to get lost in another’s presence after depriving herself of it for so long.
Glancing down at her watch, only visible by the light on the porch, she noticed the time creeping slowly towards three in the morning. Shit. She had to be up in less than two hours to prepare for work the next day, and it wasn’t getting any earlier.
With a sigh, she turned the key in the lock, and the door swung open.
Her legs were wooden posts stuck in quicksand–the panic of impending doom slowly setting in muscle spasms over her entire body. The silence within the house grew even farther, stretching like the root system of a thousand-year-old Redwood.
She placed her keys down beside the table to her right and kicked off her shoes. To her left was their office–her office now, but it was Marin’s. It would forever belong to Marin. As an executive at Hendrickson Marketing, Marin would sit and work in that office every night. She always had a cup of tea to her left, the warmth swirling in ribbons through the air.
Julia could almost hear her laugh reverberate up into the cathedral ceiling as she read one of many ridiculous emails out loud. It was always from a big shot who tried to tell her what to do, from someone who had no marketing experience at all. Her laugh always made Julia smile. It wasn’t like others; it was a unique blend, somewhere between a regal chuckle and an unrestrained melody. Mesmerizing in every way, just like her raspy voice.
“Welcome to the land of education,” Julia would joke as she kissed her head, her hands lingering in her long red hair as she pulled away.
The memory slowly faded before her eyes as she dropped her jacket right there in the office. She found herself standing before Marin’s desk, her legs moving without conscious direction. Her finger traced the outline of a tea stain on the mahogany desk, marking the exact spot where Marin always placed her cup.
It was usually at that point she’d run through every moment she could’ve done something different, said something different. She’d replay every instance, every word, searching for the point at which everything changed. She tried to burn to memory every last moment that could have been it: the moment that the love of her life stopped loving her.
Their life became a band aid clinging to skin for long enough. It became ingrained, the adhesive merging with the surface until both were unrecognizable. When it came time to rip the bandage off, there were two options: carefully pull at the edges to prevent as much pain as possible, or rip it off quickly and feel it all at once. She wished they chose the last. She wished they faced it all head on instead of watching Marin’s eyes dim a little more each day.
Deep down, she knew that any choice would’ve left her in the same place: alone. Even though it wasn’t her decision to make, she had to sit in the mess she helped create. And it was that realization that would drop her to her knees, clutching her heaving chest as tears connected like sparkling pools on the floor below her.
It didn’t matter how long it’d been. It didn’t matter how many distorted ways she twisted reality, desperately trying to get it to make sense. The life she was left with was a shattered heart, pouring out before her as it filled any available space except within herself.
But tonight, it didn’t.
She wanted to. She had wanted to surrender to the hollowness within her, to let it consume her completely. It had been one year. One entire year since hearing her voice, sharing her space, breathing in her spicy scent. An entire year of emptiness in that house and deep within herself.
She couldn’t do it, though. It’d been the first day in such a longtime that a smile was drawn like effortless calligraphy across her face. It wasn’t just a smile confined to the corners of her mouth, the kind she displayed at work or to colleagues. This smile reached her eyes, a genuine glimmer of happiness. For a fleeting moment, she felt a distant tingle of joy seeping back into her bones, like an old friend returning–familiar yet still elusive.
She wasn’t a cynic or in a cliché depression. She didn’t sit and wallow in her feelings. She didn’t walk around with a scowl on her face and a meanness in her tone. She got out of bed each morning. She brushed her teeth.
She learned early on to bury it deep. Only in the confines of her own company did she ever allow herself to let go–only then. No one else knew. No one else could guess that behind those curled eyelashes and calculated smile, she was a different person than she was before. She was less of a person, even more cautious, if that was possible.
Julia moved down the hallway, her steps still unsteady. Her fingers trailed along the pictures lining the path to the bedroom, the glass ice to her fingertips. Those photographs captured fragments of a lifetime of love frozen in time.
She spent hours each week meticulously dusting the delicate frames, as if tending to them would somehow preserve the memories they held. There were countless times when she contemplated throwing them away, discarding them like relics of a past no longer needed. Yet, every time she grasped the cold edges of those frames, she’d look at the smiles on their faces and stop.
They captured tiny moments of what could have been a forever story. Pictures of the perfect couple, one that now only existed on that glossy paper. Maybe that was why she couldn’t bear to take them down; they were the only remnants of the past 15 years of her life that remained untainted in some way. They were the only things left without fissures of pressure cracking their very foundation.
Julia’s eyes moved from one photograph to another. In some, they were melting into each other’s arms–donned in flowing snow-white gowns–their smiles radiant with promises of a lifetime together. Their long hair glittering in the sunshine, not even compared to the light in their eyes. In others they were slicked with sweat, tanned shorts stained with dirt, outside Incan ruins that took fifteen hours to hike to, even though the map claimed it would take three. Some were on beaches, far away escapes where they were surrounded by nothing but each other’s sun-kissed bikini bodies and toes floating in turquoise waters.
They held an entire life fully lived, memories she wanted to hold on to, memories that should still be a possibility. They were reminders of what once was, reminders of the love and happiness they had shared. And so, they remained, testaments to a love that had withered but still possessed the power to stir something within her.
She pulled her eyes away from the photos and looked back at the front door. The sight of her briefcase dropped against the wall pushed that night right to the front–the night when the world stopped turning and the sun felt like it would never rise again.
***
Julia walked in after another late-night board meeting. She set her bag down beside the wall, except there was something already there. Her eyes were fixed on the gray suitcase perched purposefully beside the door with Marin’s gold purse secured on top. The handle was pulled up, ready to be taken at any moment.
Julia took in the sight of the packed suitcase. It felt like a mocking symbol of how easily their life together could be contained within its confines. The idea that everything could be neatly wrapped up and carried away was both tantalizing and terrifying. Could life truly be reduced to a few belongings and a journey to an unknown destination?
The house was quiet, still. Too still. Her heart sank.
