Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
“What am I going to do?” I bleated into the lapel of his wool trench coat. “She’s my best friend. She’s my only friend.”
At this point in the conversation, I would have expected anyone else to say something like, “I’m your friend,” or “you’re a nice person, you’ll make more friends,” words to insulate themselves from my discomfort. Any other romantic partner might have taken my grief as an indication that I would have rather chosen my friend’s side. All Neil said was, “I know,” and that was all I needed.
We went into the kitchen and I kicked off my shoes and dropped my coat on the table. I wasn’t usually messy while Sue was still on duty, but I was exhausted and beaten down. I headed to the bedroom, shedding my clothes on the way to the master bath, where I pulled my hair into a ponytail and scrubbed my face clean of makeup and tear tracks. When I emerged in my baby blue yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, I found Neil on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his sleeves. His jacket was tossed across the duvet His tie dangled around his neck. He looked up and offered me an encouraging grimace. “Why don’t you take a bath? That always makes you feel better.”
“No, I don’t feel like it.” I sat on the end of the bed and listened to the rustle of his shirt as he undressed. It was a calming counterpoint to the turmoil in my brain.
There is a small, fractured piece of me that is always waiting for me to fuck everything up. The only area of my life I never doubted, for one moment, was my friendship with Holli. Was that why it had all shattered around me?
“You know…” In times of crisis, I’m awesome at saying the most hurtful things possible to myself. I framed this one as an observation, so I could talk about myself behind my own back. “I don’t have any other friends. Isn’t that pathetic?”
“I wouldn’t say you don’t have any other friends,” Neil said quietly. “I know I don’t count, because I’m your partner, but I consider you my friend. And you have other friends.”
“Name one. Right now, I have alienated literally every other friend I had when I fucked off to London and stopped calling them.” My laugh was like acid reflux. “That’s how great I am about multitasking caring for people. How can you even stand to be around me?”
Neil stood and came to kneel on the carpet in front of me, shirtless, still in his suit trousers and shoes. He took my hands. “You know, and I know, that this is self-pity. But I want some part of your grief-addled brain to hear me: nothing you are saying about yourself is true.”
“I don’t know anyone who isn’t directly connected to you,” I argued. “And before that, I didn’t have that many friends, either. I mean, there’s the circle of friends you see at every party you’re invited to. But no friends I could call up in the middle of the night with a broken heart. Nobody I can make last minute plans with, or rely on to make me feel better when I’m feeling like…like this. Besides you,” I added quickly.
“You needn’t do that. I’m secure enough in our relationship that I don’t have to be all things to you at all times.”
That made me laugh, but only a little. Then, the tears started flowing again. “What if this is it? What if I don’t make any more friends? For the rest of my life, it’s just me and you and Emma and I become that weird lady from our building?”
“Mrs. Smoot-Hawley?”
“That’s not the point!” I dropped my head to my hands. “Neil, what if I’m incapable of maintaining a relationship with anybody?”
It hurt so much when I said it…it felt like a real fear, not something I’d constructed to feel sorry for myself about.
What if I really couldn’t maintain a relationship with anyone?
“Holli said…” My mouth felt dry. “Holli said that I’d dropped everyone to be with you. When I came to New York, I dropped Jessa.”
“And Jessa is a friend from home, I presume?”
I nodded miserably. “I haven’t spoken to her in years. I just went home and I didn’t even bother to introduce you to her. She was the most important person in my life for years, and now, she’s just someone whose updates I roll my eyes at on Facebook. I can’t stand the fact that this is how it’s going to turn out with Holli, too.”
“Darling, it’s far more common to lose touch with your friends from secondary school than it is to keep them—”
“But I can’t seem to keep anybody!” The giant, festering pimple that was my current emotional state had reached an ugly, sore head. I didn’t want to be talked out of hating myself. Fresh tears blurred my eyes, and my chest seemed to cave inward under the force of my pain. “What if the same thing happens with you? What if, in a couple of years, you realize how fucking awful I am? Or I just… I don’t know. I get bored and wander away?”