by H. L. Logan
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.”
“No,” I corrected her. “You were hoping I’d become someone different. Someone with goals, a plan, someone who would be compatible with your high octane lifestyle.”
She looked down guiltily, because she knew that I was right. She wanted the best of both worlds. She wanted to keep me, and at the same time, she wanted me to be totally different from who I actually was.
“I never asked you to change,” I reminded her.
She nodded. “I know that.”
“Don’t ask this of me, not again. I’m fine breaking up if that needs to be done, but I don’t want to do that. This isn’t what I wanted. So please stop pushing me to try and change, because I’m scared I won’t say no to you. And if I don’t say no to you, I’m going to give up on my dreams for you. I’m going to become someone I’m not.”
And, really, it wasn’t as if my dreams were that unrealistic. I wasn’t one of those naïve twenty-three-year-olds who believed I was going to make it somehow. I didn’t expect to rise to celebrity status or be discovered. I didn’t want fame. I didn’t want to be rich.
I only wanted to make a living with my music. With street performances, making beats for other aspiring musicians, doing live performances, just my guitar and me. I was even open to doing lessons for children in the future, to both teach them what I knew and have a steady stream of income.
So it wasn’t as though I wanted everything to fall into my lap. I just wanted music to be a part of my career. Really, I wanted music to be a part of my entire existence. I wanted to live and breathe music.
No, that would never make me a rich woman, which I fully acknowledged. But I didn’t need to be rich to be happy. I just needed to be a person who could pay her bills. A person who was free to live her life without the constraints of a job that she hated. My end goal was not to make a ton of money, and I was really, truly fine with that.
But Julia never would be. She liked high-end, especially now that she was making a ton of money. She wouldn’t ever be happy with a partner who made a meager living giving guitar lessons to kids.
“I just don’t know what comes next, Kaitlyn,” she said to me softly.
“Next comes both of us moving on with our lives. You finding a person who fits your lifestyle, me finding someone who fits mine. Before that will likely be a lot of heartache, but eventually we’ll both find redemption in someone new.”
She nodded but didn’t say a word. Like me, she knew it to be true, but she didn’t want to allow herself to believe it. She didn’t want to truly believe it was over, because that meant the pain would begin. I felt similarly.
“Why Rosebridge?” she asked, seemingly only because she wasn’t ready for me to leave.
Although I was being offered a temporary free room in Rosebridge, that didn’t make my reason for choosing the location immediately obvious. Julia knew that I had plenty of friends from all around the country who I’d met while traveling. And, not to toot my own horn, but I’d always been quite charismatic. I would have no problem finding a room with plenty of other people.
But I had chosen Rosebridge for a reason.
“I really liked it when I visited her. It had a nice vibe, as most college towns do. It seemed very liberal, and my friend said that there were quite a few popular street performance groups. And that’s where I need to go, somewhere people might be willing to throw a couple bucks at me to hear me play some amazing music. I need to go where I could potentially make a living.”
Although where we currently lived was a college town as well, it didn’t have much of an arts community. It was where you went for a business degree or law school. I couldn’t even think of a place where street performance might be appreciated. It just wasn’t that kind of city.
“Right, of course, because you couldn’t make money doing anything else…” she said bitterly.
Now I was starting to get annoyed. “What did I just say? Don’t do this, don’t guilt me for being me. I’m not the one who changed, you are. I’ve been the same person as I was the day you met me. I’m the same girl you fell in love with. So don’t push me to be another person.”
“And am I not the woman you fell in love with?” she asked.
I didn’t know how she could ask it. I didn’t know how she couldn’t already know my answer. And I probably should have refrained from the answering the question, but I couldn’t.
“No,” I said softly.
Her jaw dropped. “But you said…”
“That I still love you,” I finished for her, “and I do. Because I continued to love you after you changed, but… you really did change. You’re the one who messed this relationship up, not me.”
It was quite the accusation, but it was true. I had refrained f
rom saying it, because I hadn’t been looking to hurt her, but she didn’t seem to care about my pain. And, maybe, as I was walking out the door was the best time to express how I really felt.
“It’s really over, then?” she asked. “You truly don’t want what I do at all? Not even a little bit?”
I looked at her skeptically. “Did you really think there was a chance that wasn’t true? You really think I’d be moving out and on with my life if there was any way I could see myself fitting into your vision of the future?”
“I just don’t see what doesn’t appeal about it to you! What’s wrong with steady jobs? What’s wrong with steady income?”
“Uh, I don’t know, how about working your life away for a corporation who doesn’t give a shit about you? What about wasting hours of your life doing work you hate?”
“And then, because you do the work you hate, you can provide for your loved ones! You can take long, extravagant vacations and buy whatever you want!”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing I need to buy. There’s no material item I could get that would make me feel good about my life. All I really ever wanted was you, and… and I know I’m not going to have that anymore, so… no.”
“You still could,” she pushed. “I really think you’d adjust and see how perfect it all could be…”
This was it; this was when I needed to excuse myself. Because I’d meant what I’d said. I wanted her, and I was scared of being alone, so I feared what I might give in to. And I didn’t want to be a different version of myself. I liked who I was.
“I’ve got a train to catch,” I told her as I stood up and started to collect my vastly different suitcases.
I could see tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m not ready for what comes next,” she muttered.
“And neither am I. But we’ll both get through it, eventually.”
I was not tearing up. I refused. I refused to cry in front of her. I was going to stuff these feelings down and not revisit them. Not on the train, not when I reached my friend’s apartment, not any time in the future.
I’d done enough crying. Now, I needed to move forward.
I gave one last glance around her apartment, taking it all in. It was perfection; it truly was. From the actual hardwood floors to the granite slab countertops, it was luxury as I’d always imagined. And I couldn’t help but think about how this luxury was all she needed. This was what she wanted; this was what would make her happy.
But not me. I would never be happy this way.
I looked at her one last time before heading toward the door. “Goodbye, Julia.”
She didn’t say a word as I walked through the door.
CHAPTER 2 - EMILY
I threw my textbook onto my bed, deciding that I absolutely had to be done for the night. As tempting as it may have been to continue to force myself to work, I couldn’t do it. Not again.
There were only so many all-nighters you could pull before sleep deprivation hit you. And it was definitely hitting me.
It was my last year at Beasley, though, and I supposed this was just how the last year was supposed to go. After this year, I’d have my degree in civil engineering, and it’d all be worth it.
I collapsed onto my bed, feeling the soft blue blanket that sat atop my comforter against my cheek. I could fall asleep right here and now, if I didn’t still need to get up and brush my teeth.
Knowing me, after I brushed my teeth, I’d come back to bed and stay awake while having a minor existential crisis. At least, that was how every other night of my week had gone.
I’d always been a person who was prone to overthinking. I’d analyze every aspect of my life until I started to feel either very calm or very panicked, depending on the current state of my life. You’d think right now, I’d be feeling very calm, considering I was theoretically exactly where I’d always wanted to be in life.
I was about to get my degree. I had a pretty good job in Beasley’s cafeteria in the meantime. I loved my living situation. There wasn’t anything really going wrong in my life, nothing that should have been causing me real stress.
And yet, real stress had found me, as it always did.
It was like the closer I got to graduation, the more stressed I became. Graduation should’ve been a good thing, but the thought of transitioning from college life to real life was more than a little daunting.
It prompted me to ask some hard questions of myself. The biggest and worst question being, had I made a mistake? Was any of this really what I’d even wanted?
I used to think I’d enjoy civil engineering. And of course, civil engineers made good money, which had factored into my decision to become one.
But lately, I wasn’t sure. I definitely didn’t enjoy my classes; the subject matter didn’t interest me whatsoever. My last year of college was probably the worst time to figure that out, but the closer I got to graduation, the less I was able to lie to myself. I didn’t like my major.
It wasn’t the end of the world; plenty of people ended up discovering they didn’t like their majors. Even more, plenty of people worked jobs they didn’t enjoy. In fact, I’d argue that most people ended up working jobs they didn’t enjoy. So after college, I’d likely fit right in. And at least if I wasn’t enjoying it, I’d be making good money doing it.
It didn’t change the fact that it was frustrating, though. It wasn’t really what I’d pictured when I’d graduated high school. I’d always imagined I’d fall into a job I loved, a field I loved. Though I should’ve known better, because the things I loved didn’t really make good money.
I’d always been naturally creative at heart. While I’d always been able to make myself more organized and focused for school, it wasn’t my natural tendency. I’d always liked to do things like draw and, even more so, sing. Music had always been a passion of mine, though I hadn’t learned any instruments, since it hadn’t been something I had time to truly explore.
Music among many other things. Because of the push of my parents, I’d always been very driven in school and had done anything I could to find educational success. That was the only reason I’d even been able to end up at an Ivy League school like Beasley. If it hadn’t been for my impeccable grades in high school, I likely would never have gotten in.
Because of this, I hadn’t had many friendships either. And forget about relationships, I wouldn’t even have known where to begin. My only real friend in college was my roommate, Abby.
She was my complete opposite, but she was an absolute doll to me. She didn’t have the same focus for school that I had. She enjoyed going out, partying, living life to the fullest, while I stayed in and studied. But she had never made me feel weird about it. Unlike with other people, I’d never felt insecure about who I was around her.
I heard the front door bang shut, and I knew what that meant. Abby must have gotten home. Very likely by the sound of the door, she was drunk again, too.
I decided this was the perfect time to force myself to brush my teeth and go to bed. That way, I could check on Abby at the same time and kill two birds with one stone.
As I opened up my bedroom door, I glanced down our narrow apartment hallway and called her name. “Abby?”
“I’m home!” she said excitedly, as if I hadn’t figured that out on my own.
“You don’t say,” I said. “How was your night?”
She came stumbling down the hallway, kicking off her high heels and grinning at me.
“Oh my god, it was so fun! I wish you’d come out. We monopolized the karaoke machine all night!”
She knew I didn’t like to go out, but she always pressured me to go with her whenever King’s Tooth, our campus pub, had karaoke. I had gone with her and her friends once, and she had never let up since then.
I rolled my eyes. “You know singing in front of people really isn’t my thing.”
“Unless you’re wasted,” she reminded me, “and it should be your thing! You’re so damn good. Like, you’re literally the only
one of us that can sing, and you’re the most embarrassed. I sound like a dying cat, but I still go up there.”
“No, you don’t…” I said unconvincingly. And we both started laughing, because, yeah, she really was a very bad singer.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up every once in awhile,” she told me. “And, hey, maybe if you went out with us, you’d find a cute girl and—”
“Stop,” I cut her off. “You know I can’t date right now.” And even though I’d never dated, I had told Abby that I had no interest in men. Unlike some people, she didn’t come back at me with some stupid shit, asking ‘how I knew I liked women if I’d never dated one.’ Uh, it could have something to do with the fact that I felt it in my bones. That no guy had ever caught so much as a two second glance from me, yet I had to force myself to stop staring at the cute girl in my calculus class.
“At some point, you’re going to have to actually live life, you know!” she reminded me. “School is going to end, life is going to begin, and you’re going to have little to no real world experiences.”
I wished she hadn’t said that, because she was compounding my worst fears right now. I was so good at school, but I was terrified I was going to be so bad at real life.
“Come on, let’s brush our teeth,” I said, changing the subject. I knew when she was drunk she often forgot about basic things like brushing her teeth before bed.
“Good idea!” she said. “I’m probably about to crash at any moment.”
Which I knew. She rarely lasted fifteen minutes before falling asleep when she came home from a night of drinking.
I stared in our white-framed bathroom mirror, looking at my tired eyes from over-studying once again, and I tried to avoid thinking about what Abby had just said. I couldn’t obsess over it tonight. I couldn’t have another late night when I spent too much time thinking about my future.
For now, I had to put it out of my mind and focus on the important things: getting through this last year with a good enough GPA to land me a decent job.
