We say goodbye at the bus depot and I promise to call them, e-mail them, visit them more. I promise to reach out and reach in. I’m going to miss them to pieces.
But after I get on the coach bus for the journey back home, I notice that the ache I thought would multiply in their absence feels like it’s getting smaller. It’s healing.
There is of course, the pain I feel for Josh. The pain I caused myself. That hasn’t gone away. It hasn’t left me. It’s weird going back to a city that I know he’s still in. I wonder if I’ll run into him somewhere. I wonder what I’d say.
I know what I’d say. I’d tell him I’m sorry. I’d tell him I didn’t mean to hurt him. I’d tell him what he means to me in the big, bad world, how his arms are the ones that kept me safe, that his eyes are what still coax me out of my shell. He gave me the courage to try again, to create, to lay myself bare, and that won’t stop, even after he’s gone.
I want to tell him that I love him. So deeply that I’m afraid I’ll never be able to remove it, that I’ll have to carry it with me forever, like a badge. And I want to tell him that’s not a bad thing. It’s an honor to love him.
When I get back to my apartment, it’s just after dinner. Of course it’s empty except for the cat. I busy myself, cleaning even though Nyla is a neat freak. It’s weird to be back home after all this time. It doesn’t feel like home anymore. It feels cold and impersonal. Then I think, maybe it’s always been this way.
Maybe now I’m finally realizing that I need more than that.
I pour myself a glass of wine, sit down at the kitchen table, and watch Pink Floyd YouTube videos on my phone. The music stirs my sensitive heart, making me feel unbelievably restless inside.
I don’t know how long I sit there for, with Chairman Meow snaking around my legs, but I’m almost done with the whole bottle of wine when Nyla comes home.
“Gemma?” she asks in surprise as she places her messenger bag on the kitchen counter. I barely look at her. She smells like the hospital, her pale, freckled face looking tired from her shift, her red bun a mess. “I didn’t know you were coming home today.”
I nod. “Plans changed.”
She chews on her lip and says, “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re home.”
She turns around, ready to head to her room, but I speak up.
“Hey, um, do you want to have a glass of wine with me?”
I rarely drink wine and never ask her to drink with me so she looks a bit stunned. But maybe she reads something on my face because she says, “That sounds great. Let me just change out of my scrubs and freshen up.”
Moments later, she’s back and I pour her a glass, and with it my soul. I tell her everything that happened, from beginning to end, with painful emphasis on everything that went wrong with Josh. She’s speechless the whole entire time.
Eventually she says, “Well, I suppose I should tell you that Nick came by yesterday.”
I raise my brows. “What?”
“Yeah.” She gets up and grabs another bottle off the rack. Naturally, they’re mostly all Henare wines. She pours us both another glass and sits back down. “He told me about the breakup. He dropped off a box of your stuff. It’s in the closet.”
“Oh.”
“He said don’t worry about the stuff he left behind, you can keep it. And he said if you still want a job at the gym, you’ve got it.”
Now I’m really surprised. “Seriously?”
She shrugs. “It’s what he said. Now that I’ve heard your side, maybe he realized he had been an overreacting asshole.”
“Did he say he was sorry?”
She smiles. “No. But he looked sorry. Like a mutt looking for scraps. I was tempted to slam the door in his face since you know how I feel about him, but I was very cordial. You would have been proud.” She sips her wine while I absently twirl a piece of my hair. “So, are you going to take the job?”
Now I shrug. “I don’t know.” I had come to peace with the idea that the world had better things for me. If I didn’t take the job, it would mean I’d have to move back in with my mother. If I did take the job, it meant I’d stay here. And my life would stay the same.
But I don’t want it to stay the same.
I know what I want.
Realization slams into me like a heated fist. I nearly knock over my glass of wine before I quickly fish out my phone and Google the number of the hostel that I knew Josh was staying at before. Sky Tower Backpackers.
“What are you doing?” Nyla asks, but I ignore her.
I get a woman on the third ring. “Good evening, Sky Tower Backpackers.”
“Hi,” I say, feeling flustered. “I have a friend staying with you. Josh Miles. He’s Canadian. Can you tell me if he’s there right now or . . .”
“Oh, Josh,” the woman says brightly. “He was here. He left this morning.”
The words get caught in my throat but I choke them out. “To go to another backpackers?”
“No, he went to the airport. I called the shuttle for him.”
I shake my head violently. “No, no, no. His flight to Vancouver is on the tenth. It’s the eighth.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I guess he caught an earlier flight. He had to work in the kitchen the last night just to pay for his room. Maybe he ran out of money.”
Maybe he ran away.