I shrug listlessly, and I recall that very moment with perfect clarity. My innocent, childlike perception of marriage at ten years old that caused me to make that promise to her. That, and the one that caused me to believe I would always have the ability to protect her, and provide for her, and love her, no matter what. “Me neither.”
Her chin is fully trembling now. “Also, you were wrong.”
I incline my head to one side questioningly, and I’ve been wrong about a lot, so I need her to clarify. “About which part?”
Isla nods at the palace. “In your office just now.” She shakes her head. “The best thing you’ve ever done for me isn’t ending this marriage and letting me go. It was everything you did and were before. Everything before is still the best part of my life. You’re still the best thing I ever had. You’re still the thing I loved the most. Everything we were will always be the best, happiest, most wonderful gift I’ve ever been given, and I still miss it. I always will.”
My vision goes blurry for a second before I blink it back to clarity. “I will, too.” Another tear slides down her cheek, and I indulge myself by reaching to wipe it with my thumb. “Take care of yourself, Isla.”
Her lips part as they silently form the words, You, too.
Reaching for her hand, I lift it to my lips to kiss the back of it, and then I let go. I step backward away from her, and she steps into the car. We hold each other’s gazes until the driver closes the door, and I can no longer see her through the limo-tinted window, so I back up farther until I reach the stone steps.
I can’t see her through the windows, so I don’t know if she’s watching me as the car pulls away, but I watch the blackened window until the car arrives at the iron gates at the far end of the long drive and then disappears around the tall, thick, elaborate bushes.
I am alone.
Foolishly—and truthfully, because nobody’s here to watch my display of utterly pathetic behavior—I wait for several minutes, just in case.
But nothing happens, so I pivot on the ball of my foot and go back inside.
I pace the entryway five or six times, alternating wringing my hands, and raking my hair, and adjusting my collar, before I give up and return to my office.
Isla’s manuscript is still sitting on my desk, and I pick it up, meandering to the sofa in front of the fireplace, where I recline and start reading.
After only one page in, I lift my eyebrows in surprise. Isla’s a really good writer, which shouldn’t surprise me. The education she received was the best anyone could get. But beyond the quality of her words, they pack a serious emotional punch. The story is about a young woman and a young man who become friends after he encountered her while she was moving into an apartment next to his in Brooklyn. The young woman has recently lost her family and needs a friend, and the young man decides he’ll be that for her. It follows them and their blossoming relationship for a number of years.
The story flows so effortlessly that before I even realize it, I’m three-quarters of the way through it, and the pair has both fallen in love and been ripped apart by tragedy and a grave misunderstanding. I’m not ignorant, and all of it practically screams as a metaphor for the relationship Isla and I had before. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been lying here reading, but I don’t have anything better to do, and I’m fully invested in the fictional lives of these characters—characters who are so obviously Isla and me—so I keep reading almost all the way to the end.
It’s at about one quarter from the end when I have to stop. I would venture to guess this is the part that Isla warned me that I might find offensive, but it’s not offensive. It’s utterly heartbreaking, and perfectly sums up how I’m feeling right now. The two main characters shared a reconciliatory night together, and the now-fully-grown man is full of hope, but then the woman leaves him in the middle of the night.
When he woke up to an empty bed and a note, he was okay.
He didn't instantly reach for his phone to call her, even though he thought about it.
He didn't beg their mutual friends for her address, but he almost did.
He didn't weep, rage, or reach for a drink, although he wanted to.
He gave himself five whole minutes to feel the full weight of his sadness and then simply ran his fingertips over her words in acceptance, closed the notebook, and put it back in the drawer.
To thine own self be true.
He was okay.
He wasn't great, or good, or fine. He was just okay. And okay was perfectly acceptable to him.
So, he got out of bed and went to the gym, took a shower, and went to lunch by himself. On his way home, he picked up some coffee and a new book, and arrived back at his empty apartment, where he attempted to enjoy his time off from work.
As the days and weeks and months passed, he stayed busy.
And he thought about her. And he missed her. And he wondered what she was up to.
He'd see snippets about her increasingly successful career on TV or in magazines. The photographs of her that accompanied her work made him feel happy for the first time in a while, because he caught a glimpse of the other half of his heart. That was the thought that sprang to his mind, even though he knew she was no longer his.
His parents and his friends tried to set him up with more than a few women, but he never dated. Because, after all, how can you be in love with someone and then go hook up with someone else?
How can you find the perfect other half of your heart, only to lose it, and then attempt to replace it with something oddly shaped and the wrong size and that just didn't belong there at all?
You just can't, and you just don't.
And the hands on his watch continued to tick along, and the earth continued to spin as it made its way around the sun, and the months turned into years, and, slowly but surely, he had learned to live without her again.
And before he realized it, three years had come and gone since she'd left for the last time, and ten years separated him from when he first lost her.
He was now thirty-six years old, and when her birthday arrived in late April, he gave himself a gift that was admittedly a bit of a guilty pleasure, since he couldn't give her one.
When he had bumped into her eleven years before on a sidewalk in Brooklyn, he had no way of knowing that day was her birthday. He actually didn't know it until the following year when she sleepily mentioned it as they lay in bed together for the first time.
Her birthday had inadvertently become a marker for two very important firsts in his life, and on this, her thirtieth, he noticed he felt less than okay, and he missed her quite a bit more than usual. So, he jumped into a cab and made his way over the bridge to Brooklyn.
He found a bench right across the way from the apartment building that now housed a bunch of strangers, in addition to the sweetest memories he'd ever made, and let himself sit as he relived each and every one in vivid detail.
He gave himself one hour. One hour to let his thoughts and emotions run away with him. One hour to miss her like crazy. One hour to wish and lament for what could have been.
When the hour was up, back to reality, and back over the bridge he went.
And he was okay.
He wasn't okay because this was what he wanted. It wasn't.
He wasn't okay because he'd grown indifferent. He hadn't.
He wasn't okay because he'd gotten over her somehow. He never would.