“Why are you getting so angry?” I ask.
"Because I don't understand what's going on with us," Henry snaps. “I love you and you don't seem to care at all.”
“Of course,” I say. “Of course I care. I love you, too. But they have reached out to me and told me that they're having a lot of problems and they have never said that to me before. And I can't just ignore it.”
“Whatever," Henry says, shaking his head.
He puts the phone down so that all that I can see is the ceiling.
“Henry! Henry? Please, come back to me.”
“What?” he asks after a little bit. "What do you want?"
“I want to talk to you.”
"No, you don’t," he says, picking up the phone and staring straight at me. “I want to spend time with you and I want you to be here with me. What do you want?”
I want to be there with you, too, I say silently to myself.
“I need you to give me some time,” I say out loud. “I just found out that they're having problems. Last night, in fact.”
"It's just their way of manipulating you, Aurora. Can't you see that? They don't want you to be with me and they gave me this job to drive us apart. I'm thankful for it, but I know exactly what they're doing. They're just pretending to be okay with us and hoping that the distance will break us.”
“Well, don't let it!"
“I'm trying not to, but you're not trying hard enough,” he says.
This makes me angry. My cheeks get flushed and my hands form into fists.
“You have no idea what you're talking about,” I say, furrowing my brows. “You don't know the first thing about what’s going on here.”
“So why don't you tell me?” he asks.
“I can't. I don't even know what's going on here. But if you want to know, I suggest that you come back here and stand by my side.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. "I'm done.”
My blood runs cold.
"What are you talking about?" I ask.
He looks dead into my eyes and doesn't blink.
“I'm done,” he says coldly.
“No…” I whisper.
“I can't handle this anymore,” he says. “I'm just so tired of fighting and arguing and everything else that we have been doing besides just enjoying one another. Relationships are not supposed to be this hard.”
“Sometimes,” I say with my voice breaking. “Sometimes, you have to fight for them. You have to go through the hard bits to get to the good parts.”
“Well, I've been doing that enough and I don't have the energy anymore, Aurora.”
27
Aurora
At first, I don't hear back from Henry for the whole day. It's as the longest day of my life and time feels like it's completely standing still. I keep waiting for him to call me, to apologize for what he said, but he doesn't. The following day, I give up on waiting and call him instead. He doesn't answer and again I wait. I wait until the third day, when I can't wait any longer and I pick up the phone again and text him. Once, twice, and a third time. It's stupid and pathetic and ridiculous and I feel dumb doing it, and yet I can't stop myself. I need to hear from him. I need to know where we stand. I need to know if this is a real breakup. But the more time that passes, the more I realize that of course it is. He broke up with me and now he doesn't wanna hear from me. And I am just a stupid little girl who doesn't understand when I don’t get my way.
By Friday, I give up. I know that he doesn't want me contacting him anymore so I don't. I promise myself that I will never contact him again. When Ellis calls and invites me to go out for a drink, I don't want to, but I force myself to do it. I need the distraction. I need to get out of my head and do something productive. Drinking is not productive, but at least it's cathartic.
“I can't believe that you did that,” Ellis says, shaking her head when I tell her how pathetic I have been. “You deserve so much more than him. You deserve someone who at least fucking answers the phone.”
“ I know,” I say nothing. “I'm so stupid.”
“Yes, you are,” she says. “You should not have ever gone out with him in the first place. You should have listened to me right from the beginning, but of course you haven't. Of course you had to go out and make your own mistakes.”
“Okay,” I say, waving my hand. “I've had enough with the lecture. Can we just move on to the parting portion of the evening?”
She laughs, tossing her head back as she takes another shot and follows it up with yet another one. I follow along with her, knowing that I'm going to regret drinking all of this tomorrow and not giving a shit one bit.
She congratulates me on my PhD and then asks me what I intend to do with such a useless degree.
“Aren't all PhDs useless?” I ask. “Well, no, not really. There are those who get them in chemistry or biology or math even.”
I was joking, of course. I was just referring to the fact that research doesn't pay much in comparison to industry and so by their nature all PhDs seem a little bit out of touch, let's put it that way.
“Well,” she says, “you'll have to admit that yours is particularly useless.”
I shrug and look down into my glass as the liquid rolls over the ice. “I like reading and I like reading popular fiction and I like studying, so it was a good combination of the three. A lot better than going out there and trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Tate Media.” I look up at her to gauge her reaction and see her bite her lower lip.
“Oh shit,” I say. “What do you know?”
“Well, I didn't wanna bring it up…”
“Come on, you have to tell me. God knows, my parents don't tell me much.”
“What are you talking about?” she asks.
“Well,” I sigh deeply. “They told me that the company is in trouble, but they are refusing to elaborate on it to any degree whatsoever. So I'm just left here worrying without the ability to find any solutions.”
“As you probably know,” Ellis says, “it's all over the news. All the analysts on CNBC and other places are predicting that the company isn't worth as much as your parents say it is.” I roll my eyes.
“The analysts are always full of shit,” I say.
“Be that as it may,” she says, “that doesn't change the fact that Tate Media is important as much as your parents say, is it?”
“I don't know,” I say. “That's the whole problem. They keep me in the dark and then just cherry-pick what they tell me.”
“Well, you don't officially work there,” Ellis points out. “Maybe they just don't want you to worry.”
“That's the whole problem,” I say, shrugging my shoulders. “That's the whole fucking problem! They don't want me to worry? I’m worried now.