Chronicle of a sentimental girl

Chapter 12 : Turtles all the way down

That summer everything happened very quickly. And I knew that I had to find an apartment in Aix as soon as possible, so I discussed the subject with Nathan. To my surprise, he changed his mind and didn't want to live with me anymore. I didn't understand this change of heart because he had told me solemnly the year before that he would follow me to Aix when I passed the exam. He had almost said it as a promise.

He first explained that it was a question of money and that he could not make his parents pay for an apartment when he could live in Marseille. Nevertheless, I had the feeling that there was something else. As the discussion went on, he told me that he was happy with his parents and that he didn't see himself moving, that it was a bit early for us to live together. This upset me enormously. We were already practically living together. I didn't see the problem.

Not only were we going to end up not living in the same city, but I was going to have to find an apartment on my own, probably tiny given the city's rent prices. I was still positive that we would find a solution, but it affected me a lot.

 The pace had indeed changed when I arrived at Sciences Po. I had a lot of free time but I spent it discovering societies and meeting new people. The school spirit was very particular and I quickly felt that Nathan did not understand my enthusiasm. I was indeed very happy to finally be able to get out of my studious everyday life and to enjoy the student parties. However, Nathan felt that I was too immersed in the school atmosphere and became unpleasant when I talked about it.

Eventually we found a comfortable routine where he would come to my house two nights a week and I would sleep at his house on the weekends. He was very bored with his daily life in college where every day was the same and I felt that there was an ounce of jealousy on his part when I told him about my adventures. He also dreamed of moving and meeting people.

Our daily life was perhaps a little too comfortable, I would even say rather boring. The winter was quite difficult for our couple, we often argued. I used to censor myself when I told him about my day to avoid upsetting him, while he didn't have much to say. We sometimes watched movies in the evening or worked separately. It was quite sad and repetitive.

 Of course, that's when I started thinking about Thomas again. I had time to think and my relationship wasn't doing well: the magic recipe to bring out that old affair. Thinking about him again actually only made the state of my relationship worse as I became more and more detached, less affectionate and less patient. 

In March, I went on a trip to Madrid with one of the Sciences Po societies. It was a great adventure that allowed me to get out of this gloomy routine a little bit. One evening, while I was on the phone with Nathan, he told me that he was in the process of applying for an Erasmus year in Greece. This fell on my head quite violently, although I could feel that he wanted to go abroad. He told me just like that and I fell down.

A year of distance was possible even if I knew it would be very difficult. The problem was that my third year of study was also a required year abroad. When Nathan returned from his Erasmus, I would be leaving for a year. So that was two years of long-distance relationship.

I didn't understand why Nathan didn't try to leave the same year I did. I was very upset that he had made this decision for himself without thinking about our relationship when it was so important to me. I felt like my world was falling apart. Two years. That was all we had experienced so far. What if he came back different, what if he met someone else. When I came back from Spain, I was in a terrible state. I cried all the time. Nathan tried to reassure me as best he could and felt guilty, but it didn't help.

 One evening at the beginning of the summer, while we were at his house, I started to cry, to burst into tears without being able to stop. Nathan didn't know what to do. He knelt down in front of me and said, "Listen to me, we are not going to do two years apart, okay? I will go with you the following year. You said you wanted to go back to China, I would go with you. And if we have to get married to get a visa, we'll get married all right." We hugged each other, holding each other tightly. We had figured out a solution.

That summer, Nathan and I had never been so close: fusional and complicit. Our love was overflowing everywhere. We were making the most of it before he left.

That year, many people were leaving Marseille. Manon was starting her year abroad and had decided to go to Shanghai. Nathan was going to Athens. Laura, who had stopped her art studies, had saved up to go to the country of her dreams: South Korea. And Marie had just been accepted into a school in Paris. In short, between the one and the other, there was only me and Thomas left in the area.