Never Really Over (Bremmy 3)

Chapterish 19

I'LL HOLD ON TIGHT, BUT LET YOU GO

Lauren left earlier this morning. We had a quickie video call with Brody before she zoomed off to the airport, apparently rejuvenated by our mini sesh.

She left her Chanel bag on the countertop and told me the perfume was a gift for letting her crash. I'm usually not a classic perfume kinda gal, but the pink circle does smell quite nice on my skin.

I dedicate the day to visiting both Go Zen studios. I even teach an afternoon class with Zoë, who pretends to be stunned that I do, in fact, remember how to teach yoga.

Raz reviews the final checklist for GZ2's opening this weekend. I assure them I have the utmost confidence that everything will run smoothly.

Josh video calls me as I'm walking back from afternoon class.

"Hi Emmy babe," Josh says when I answer.

I can tell he's at that hipster bar he likes with the taco food truck out front. It's got lime-green lights on the ceiling and I can see them now.

"Happy hour?" I ask. His suit-jacket is flung over the chair behind him. And he's got his post-office hair swag going on.

"That's right!" Ian, Josh's work bestie, inches his face onto the screen. "Joshy came out to play."

"Geez. Someone's drunk," I say, shaking my head at Ian. His gray button-down is stained with something wet.

"We are celebrating," Josh says, turning the camera back to himself.

"SHOTS O'CLOCK!" Someone shouts in the background.

Ian's hand clutches Josh's shoulder, dragging him back to the party.

"Don't let me stop ya." I blow him a kiss.

"I'll call you before bed," he promises.

His screen goes black, and I pull out my lanyard and apartment keys.

It's nice to have the entire loft to myself, no spontaneous guests, no pungent take-out, just me. I discard my sky-blue sports bra and legging set, trading up for black shorts and a white beater.

I crash on my bed and munch on my crispy chickpeas. The flamingo string lights around my headboard click on via the timer. I sigh heavily, abso wiped after these past couple days. And still...

It's been biting at the back of my mind all day –the letter. Or the non-existent letter. Or the soon-to-beletter.

"Ugh," I grumble to myself. Rubbing my eyes.

I roll off the bed and pour myself a glass of red, walking it over to the coffee table in front of the TV. I wedge a pillow between my back and the couch arm and swing my legs up.

I open my phone and sort through the Bali album to favorite my selections for the Go Zen calendar Zoë wants to make. Beach market. Pool selfie. Artsy banana peel aesthetic.

Somehow, unable to help myself, I end up on social media. I click onto Josh's profile and see his newest string of pics –a group shot on the manicured lawn at Harding House, a selfie we took with Troy and Beck, and a panoramic taken on the bow of The Pearl.

I scroll along the homepage and see another post of bebe Isla. Then I end up on Whit's page. I slide down her page to one of my all-time favorite pictures. It's of the girls on Mobile Star last year. We're all tan and bronzed and glowing on the inside too.

My pointer finger can't resist clicking on the tag. I end up on Brooks's page, which is basically now just a PR/marketing/advertising profile for Edge. I watch the latest video, taken from some type of rooftop, and she's unmistakably in the background. Glamorous like the way Fergie says it.

I smile into my wine.

This time last year, you could have asked me if I ever thought this would be achievable, this being peace, and I'd have said STFU.

But now, everything seems sort of in place. Maybe I've actually let it all go. I lock my phone and drop it into the folds of the blanket. I open the old lined notebook and flip to an empty page. It smells like middle school hallways. Sounds like 2000s angst.

I laugh to myself.

Here we go.

Brooks, hi. It's me. Lauren made me write this –well, suggested I write this. I guess the truth is I left a lot unsaid after Florida. Maybe this will help, not that you'll ever read it. It's a letter for you for me.

I fashioned this idea, this sort of crazy pipe dream where we live a whole other life together. We still argue and we still fight. You still break my heart every goddamn day. But we're together. Physically. Emotionally. Cosmically.

We spend the next fifty years being dumb and silly and in love. We raise some kids with our last name and travel the world until we are hot 80-year-olds, like weirdly hot old people.

There is a whole future that exists for us somewhere, just not this time around.

So I guess this is it. I'll hold on tight, but let you go.

Promise.

I don't sign it. I don't need to.

I reread it 50 times over until it's basically memorized. I fold it up and tuck it in an old Cosmopolitan mag and shove it in the back of my nightstand drawer where it will remain to die.

Part of me feels guilty about writing it –about meaning the words. But it's not bad, not really. I'm not pining for Jay Brooks. I'm not even wishing we were still together. I'm merely stating the obvious: In another world, it is possible we still exist.

No Cece.

No Joshi.

We.