Chloe
Easter, my nineteenth birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Alex’s forty-third birthday, Easter once more, and finally, my twentieth birthday. That was how many holidays we spent together. We opened presents together in bed for Christmas, we celebrated New Year’s in Iceland with sparklers at a rooftop party, he brought us to Paris for Valentine’s Day, his birthday was spent in Greece, sailing in the Ionian islands, we made an Easter dinner together at his rental in San Francisco, and my birthday was spent in his hotel room. Every one of those holidays was memorable, but my birthday was more so because I knew it was the last.
The decision to go to Greece and stay with my family hadn’t been an easy one, but it felt like my only choice. Jazmin and I had slowly stopped talking, not from a fight or a disagreement, but just because our lives were going in different directions and we didn’t have time for each other anymore. My life revolved around Alex, she had just graduated and now wanted to move for grad school. We just didn’t have a lot in common any longer and that was a hard pill to swallow. What was harder was knowing that Alex was content as we were – faking it.
I woke up one morning and realized I couldn’t keep my life on hold for a man so unwilling to be with me openly. So I called Iva and I booked the flight and now I was watching as Alex’s beach house faded into the distance while we made our way to the city and back to the airport. I was silent as I sat beside him, on the brink of tears and praying the driver wouldn’t have to see me sob.
The salt from the water, the sand from the beach, I could still feel it, taste it, my eyes still itched from the burn. I would never forget the feeling of standing on the beach, waiting for the car, and saying goodbye to the version of myself I was a year ago. That girl would have written a dozen stanzas about how warm the water was and how nice the sand felt between her toes. That girl wouldn’t have begged Alex to fuck her on the beach because she needed to feel something again. She wouldn’t have spent the entire night lying awake, thinking of all the things she never said and how she had spent a year of her life silently begging someone to love her because it felt like no one else did. She wouldn’t have felt like running away was her only chance to find any sort of happiness.
Maybe Alex knew all these things and he didn’t care. Maybe he was just watching me self-destruct from the sidelines, and he wouldn’t even think twice when it was over.
A single tear rolled down my cheek and I turned towards the breeze to let it dry. Alex’s knee rested against mine, a reminder that he could see me, and I didn’t want him to see this part of me. The drive continued on, my luggage rattled in the back and I fixed my gaze out on the ocean determinedly.
I love you. That seemed so much easier to say than goodbye, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it first and be left open and vulnerable when I didn’t think he would ever return the sentiment. I turned away from him further, pulling my knee away from his and spent the rest of the drive huddled in the corner until we finally reached the airport.
“I wish you would let me fly with you,” he said as he got my bags from the trunk. “It might make the flight easier.”
It would not. “No,” I said flatly, taking my carry-on.
He didn’t say anything else, just pushed the cart with my luggage quietly. We were already running late and I needed to get my things checked but I came to a stop in the lobby and felt my lip tremble.
“I don’t want to go,” I said, my voice cracking. I turned to Alex and pulled the sleeves of my sweater over my fingers, twisting and pulling the fabric. “Please don’t make me go.”
“I’m not,” he protested. Suddenly he grabbed me and pulled me into his arms, cradling me against his chest. “You’re going to love Greece, you’ll love being around your family and getting to know the culture. You wanted this, glykia mou.I’m not pushing you to go.”
Tell me you want me here. “Please,” I sobbed. “Just tell me that you want me to stay.”
“I wish you would,” he whispered soothingly. “But this is good for you.”
“I love you, I don’t want to leave you behind.” My words came out as a strangled sob and my tears were soaking into his shirt now. “Please, Alex, just tell me you love me too.”
He was quiet and it felt as if someone had gored me. I was wrong, I’m so stupid.
“Chloe, I…”
He trailed off and I pulled away, frantically wiping my face. He reached for me again and I pushed him away.
“You never cared at all, did you?” I demanded. “Not even a little bit.”
“That’s not true—”
“Then say it!” I cried. “Tell me you love me already.”
His face twisted into a mask of pain but his mouth didn’t open. He didn’t love me. He never would and he’d told me that from the beginning. I just didn’t listen.
I turned on my heel and took my stuff with me as I wiped my face and pulled up my hood. There had to be something in Greece for me, something that would take this pain away.
Alex
The ride to the airport was torture. I felt the sadness radiating off Chloe, I felt her distress and longing and I sent the ride trying to tell myself that it would be okay in the end. It had to be. I needed her to move on and be okay without me. Our time together was perfect, but it couldn’t last.
As the months ticked by it became clear to me that we were truly in two different walks of life. As our birthdays passed and we got older, I began to see her maturity more clearly and it scared me in a way I couldn’t quite explain. I felt like I would always be the lost and confused teenager, newly married with a baby and never able to make all the right decisions, but Chloe didn’t. She weighed the consequences; she was mindful of the things she did and the impact they would have. Sometimes she would say something without thinking it through, but her actions were more deliberate, and it felt like, at times, she was as old as me, if not older. It was terrifying to watch her grow up and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this relationship couldn’t continue.
I loved her more than anything in this world, and that was why I needed to let her go. She needed to have this time to grow, to meet someone her age and have all those experiences I had already gone through, she didn’t need someone with years of baggage holding her behind, going to bed early and avoiding socializing like the plague. She needed a boyfriend that wanted to go to Mardi Gras, someone she could move into a tiny apartment with and party until the early hours of the morning before work. She needed to be allowed to act like a twenty-year-old instead of desperately trying to make herself act forty just so that we could stay together.
I didn’t want to say goodbye, I wasn’t ready, but it was time and we both knew it.
I was slow getting her bags out of the trunk, I lingered with my hand on the leather strap, thinking about how I had picked this out for her with Jazmin. She hadn’t spoken about her friend in weeks now. I wasn’t even sure if they had said goodbye. With a sigh, I lifted her luggage onto the metal trolley and followed her into the building.
I should be getting on the plane with her. She didn’t need to fly alone, but she wanted to and that was a hard pill to swallow.
She stopped suddenly and I jerked the cart to a halt behind her. “I don’t want to go,” she said softly. She turned to me with watery eyes and fidgeted with her sleeves. “Please don’t make me go.”
Oh, sweet girl. I hugged her tightly and pressed my face into her hair. “I’m not,” I promised. “You’re going to love Greece, you’ll love being around your family and getting to know the culture. You wanted this, glykia mou. I’m not pushing you to go.”
I knew it was what she needed, someone to push her to do something good for herself, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it – it had to be her choice.
She was sobbing now, I felt her shoulders shaking and heard her sniffle. “Please, just tell me that you want me to stay,” she begged.
“I wish you would, but this is good for you.” Maybe she would go back to school, maybe she would expand the family business. But couldn’t do that without spreading her wings and letting go.
“I love you; I don’t want to leave you behind. Please, Alex, just tell me you love me too.”
I love you. The words were caught in my throat, lingering there just out of reach. I did love her, I knew I probably always would. And if I told her that now, she would never leave, she would attach herself to me for the rest of her life. I couldn’t let her do that to herself. She would love someone else eventually, I had to believe that.
“Chloe, I…” Don’t feel that way. I couldn’t hurt her like that, I couldn’t even bring myself to say it.
She pulled away from me and I had to look her in the eye and watch as the tears streamed down her face. “You never cared at all, did you? Not even a little bit.”
I would always remember the way her voice sounded when she said that. The devastation, the accusatory tone mixed with disbelief. The way it almost sounded like a plea for it not to be true. “That’s not true—”
“Then say it!” she interrupted shrilly. “Tell me you love me already.”
I love you. I stayed silent as my throat tightened and watched as it registered on her face that I wasn’t going to say it. She turned sharply and pulled her hood up as she walked away without so much as a goodbye. I wanted to call her name, to chase after her and apologize, but she was soon swallowed up into the crowd and I was left standing there.
It didn’t take long for the grief to set in. The tears burned behind my eyes and I stared resolutely at the floor, feeling the weight of her absence crush me into the bleached linoleum.
There was no way I could ever apologize for this.
There was nothing I could do to make her understand.
I just had to hope that she would be happy.
It was all I wanted for her.