How We Met Again

Life in New York

Sue's POV

I shivered as I walked down the road after my last day teaching in New York. I just got out of a two-and-a-half-year long relationship that ended up being incredibly abusive. At first it was great, but as time went on it felt like living in Hell. I had a partner who would control everything I did—who I'd talk to, where I would go, what number's I had in my phone, etc. He even made me delete all of my social media so I wasn't in contact with any family or friends. He ran my whole life and I was scared to leave. He threatened me every time I tried to leave but I finally was able to escape the living hell I was suffering in.

I'm leaving the state of New York and moving back to Massachusetts so I can keep a fair distance away from him as I fear him. I won't be going back to Amherst, but I will be moving to the heart of Boston—that way he doesn't know where to find me. I scored another teaching job in the city and I move there in two days. I was able to contact my aunt and uncle and let them know where I've been and why I have been essentially missing in the eyes of everyone back home. They were happy I was coming back and getting away from the situation and understood why I chose Boston over Amherst.

There was someone from back home in particular that I can't stop thinking about and haven't been able to stop thinking about since we stopped speaking. Emily Dickinson. Oh, Emily—how I missed our conversations, that beautiful smile, her laugh... everything about her. I lost her number and I haven't been able to contact her. When my ex made me delete everyone from my life—I didn't even have the time to write any numbers down. What I do plan on doing is reactivating all of my social media accounts—that way I can hopefully get into contact with her and explain myself.

I arrived back at my friend's apartment I had been staying at since leaving my old relationship nearly a month ago. She was still at work when I arrived back, so I made my way to my room that was filled with moving boxes and put my stuff down before grabbing my laptop on my desk. I went into the living room and set my laptop down on the coffee table in front of the couch and took a seat before opening and booting up my computer. While that loaded up, I re-downloaded the Instagram app on my phone in the meantime. I remember my username and password very vividly. The nice thing about social media is if you deactivate your account, you can just sign back in to reactivate it. My phone was pretty much under lock and key most times—I haven't had this much freedom in a while. Although I did leave the relationship a few weeks ago, I wanted to wait a bit until I start resurfacing on social media because he was probably expecting me to do it right away.

I typed in my login info and waited a moment while it loaded my account back up. I took a sharp breath as my newsfeed loaded and the people I had been following I still was. Before anything—I made sure I went to my exes account and blocked him and set my account to private. Easy said and done. I went back to my newsfeed and a new set of posts loaded up. The first photo I saw was from Emily's account and it was a picture of her and another girl posted a couple of hours ago. I contemplated for a moment as my thumb hovered over the photo but ultimately ended up double tapping it—leaving a like on the photo.

'Maybe a friend?' I thought.

The girl was tagged by Emily and I clicked her handle. Her name is Mary and her account is very public—multiple photos of her and Emily were plastered all over her account. The more I scrolled down, the quicker I realized that they are more than friends. I'm unsure why, but I felt a little pained seeing that... seeing Emily with another woman.

To say Emily and I didn't have an intimate relationship is a lie. We had a very personal relationship at times, but I had been in a complicated situation when I was younger growing up in my aunt and uncle's household. They simply didn't accept the fact that I wanted to be with Emily and not a man and they forbid me from pursuing anything with her. We had been a secret for the most part and it never was fair to Emily. Now that I'm older and out on my own and living my own life under my rules, who I end up with is really no one's business, whether it be a man or woman.