1
Kaitlyn
“You don’t have to do this.” She looked up at me sadly. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
I took in a deep breath, glancing around at my packed bags. I had such a weird blend of suitcases, all hand-me-downs I’d collected from friends or thrift stores. One was mint green with a floral background, a pattern you’d expect to see in 1950. Another one was made of this shoddy, navy blue fabric, and it looked like it could burst at any moment.
But that wasn’t the odd part, the fact that they were all varying sizes and colors. No, the weird thing was, no matter how each of them looked, they all made me feel the same: lonely.
“We both know that I do.”
Julia shook her head in anguish, sinking down into the couch I was sitting on and resting a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“It’s going to hurt,” she whispered to me.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “It always does. But just because it hurts doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Sometimes the right thing and the painful thing are one and the same.”
I spoke so casually about it, as if it wasn’t tearing me apart inside. But this was hurting me just as much as it was hurting her. The break-up was mutual, which theoretically would make the whole process easier, but it hadn’t. If anything, it seemed to make it harder.
I still cared so much about Julia. We’d been together two years, and the first one had been amazing. Really, truly, brilliantly amazing. She was smart, funny, and very organized, which I’d admired. She was still in school to become an accountant when we’d met, though she’d since graduated and gotten a job at a local firm.
When she was in school, our relationship seemed to make sense. Though our personalities were drastically different, our lifestyles had meshed together well. I wasn’t a student, never had been, but I lived a similar lifestyle.
I was always up late, constantly with friends, frequently going out, and always stressed about being dirt poor. I used to eat ramen in Julia’s studio apartment at two in the morning and rub her back as she studied. Back then, we’d worked. Back then, neither of us had considered how much things would change in the future.
But they had drastically changed. And we went from that carefree, fun, college couple to a couple that was constantly in conflict. I loved her so much, but love wasn’t enough when you woke up one day and found you were completely incompatible with your partner.
She didn’t have late nights anymore. No, she went to bed early because she went to work early. Staying in, eating Top Ramen, and binge-watching television was no longer enough for her. She had money now, and she wanted to spend it eating at nice restaurants and going to culturally-enriching events I couldn’t afford.
Suddenly the fact that I was a wayward musician waiting for her big break was no longer appealing to her. She stopped seeing me as this fun, adventurous, creative soul and began to view me as unmotivated.
Which I wasn’t at all. I was quite motivated to succeed with my music; I just wasn’t motivated to find any other career paths. I knew my talent, I knew my calling, and it was music. I was going to make music work for me.
But now that Julia was this big corporate badass bringing in tons of money, poor musician was not enough. And while I would’ve liked to be angry at her for this, I really couldn’t be. She didn’t want my lifestyle, that was fine. I couldn’t fault her for growing into someone new. Nor could I fault myself for not being what she wanted.
I stroked the outside of one of my suitcases, one with a velvety edge. Fiddling brought me comfort, and I could use a lot of comfort.
“Do you know where you’re headed yet?” she asked me.
I nodded. “I’ve spoken to an old friend who has an extra room. She’ll let me stay in it while I get back up on my feet.”
“In town?” she asked.
I shook my head. “In Rosebridge.”
“Rosebridge?” she gasped. “But that’s, like, twelve hours away. That’s in a completely different state!”
I looked at her suspiciously. “So?”
“So… you’ll be so far from me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That’s the point, isn’t it? We aren’t together anymore, Julia. Of course I’m going to be far away from you. I mean, does it even matter? Even if I found a place in town, I might as well be twelve hours away. You’ll never see me anymore.”
She sighed. “I guess that’s true, but… I don’t know. In my head, I imagined you’d still be living in town. Maybe a small part of me was hoping that you’d…” She paused. “That you’d find your way back to me.”