Tightrope

1

NOW

BECCA

I didn't want to leave him. He didn't deserve to live at home with a man like his father as his only company. He didn't deserve to be alone. 

I could hear my parents talking from the other room of our small apartment. Mom and I had lived there for years without Dad when they had often a divorce, but now that they were married again they wanted me to leave Will. 

I couldn't do it. I wouldn't move to the other side of the country just to live at my father's house.  Not even back to California where I'd been born. Not even for the chance of living closer to my Mom's family in Mexico City. Not even for the chance of living with both of my parents for the first time in my thirteen years of life. All of it was not worth abandoning Will. 

"I won't do it, you can't force me," I said, joining them at the dining table even though I was supposed to be sleeping, not eavesdropping. 

"Honey, it will be good for everyone..." my mother started.

"You will get to go to a new school and make new friends!" my father insisted. 

"But I don't want new friends!" I counterattacked. "I have Will, and he needs me. I need to be here!" I tried explaining. 

My parents shared a look, something between worry and annoyance. 

"Will is going to be fine without you, Rebecca. You will make new friends and won't even remember him in a while." My dad spoke again. 

I faced my mother. She had lived here with me my whole life. I knew she heard the same things I did, I knew she was aware of how bad it was. 

"Ma?" I bedded, looking at her. "Please, Mom. Don't you understand? He needs me here, you know he does. I need him, Mom. Please don't make me go." I pleaded as tears welled up in my eyes and my stomach tightened unbearably. 

My mother looked away. "Lo siento, Rebecca. I'm sorry, we're going. You have until tomorrow to say goodbye to Will if you want, we're leaving tomorrow afternoon." 

"Mom, please!" I cried, letting the tears run down my cheeks. 

"We're moving, Rebecca, and that's final. We will be a family, and you will be grateful for that." My father intervened. 

It was a lost cause. They were going to take me away. Away from this, away from him. They were going to make me leave Will. 

Will... Will.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking. We shall be landing shortly, so make sure you fasten your seatbelts." 

The pilot's announcement startled me awake from the memory-turned-nightmare I was revisiting for the third time this month. Thinking about my childhood best friend and the first person I had ever let down was somehow a symptom of moving again, except this time, it was for a new job. 

The dreams started once I had accepted the job across the country and started making preparations for moving, mostly leaving all of my old stuff behind. And even though it had been a while since then, they had not stopped. 

"It's a beautiful city, isn't it?" The lady sitting next to me said, peeking out the window as Chicago's skyline came into view. 

"It really is." 

❈

My car was already in the parking garage of my new apartment building when I got there hours after landing. The airport was absolutely packed, and so it had been a while before I could make it out of there and into a cab. It didn't help that my new apartment was in the middle of the most tourist-filled part of the city, but luckily I wasn't in a rush. 

I had picked this apartment instead of something less expensive and crowded since it was only a ten-minute car ride and about a forty-minute walk to my new job. It was the first time in more than ten years that I had been back to Chicago, and looking out the cab's window brought a bittersweet nostalgic feeling to my chest. This had been the city I'd spent the first thirteen years of my life in; it was the city that had shaped me into the person I was, even if I'd lived for almost as long in California afterward. 

Chicago was an expensive city. I remembered how my Mom and I struggled at times with money when I was a child, and looking into apartments in the city had only been a reminder of it. Nevertheless, I refused to accept it when my Dad had offered to pay for my new place. At twenty-four, paying my own rent was simply part of moving across the country from my parents to chase after my dream job. Still, I hadn't objected when he told me he hired someone to drive my car from San Diego to Chicago so I could have access to it after I landed. 

It was the type of building with a doorman and a front desk, which my landlord had instructed me to visit if I wanted to get the key to my apartment. 

I smiled at the doorman, a sweet-looking woman maybe in her sixties whose name tag read "Anne," as I walked inside the building and towards the man sitting on the opposite side of the front desk. 

"Good afternoon, I'm Rebecca Contreras-Cole." I introduced myself, "Ms. Stacy told me I should ask for the key to apartment 403 here?" 

The man, who appeared to be in his early thirties, looked up at me and smiled widely. "Miss Rebecca, yes, Miss Stacy told me that you were going to be renting her apartment here." He said, handing me a set of keys. 

"The gold one is for the parking garage, and the two silver ones are the keys to the apartment. The passcode for the gym and every other installation within the building is 4398. I'm James, the concierge. Please feel free to let me know if there's anything I can do for you." He continued explaining, and I felt as if I needed to be writing everything down. 

"Alright thank you, James," I said, taking my keys and offering him a last smile before turning to walk away and realizing I had no idea where I was going. 

I turned back around to face James, slightly mortified, but before I could even open my mouth to speak, he laughed and said, "Elevator's down the hall to the right." 

❈

The apartment was just as beautiful as it had appeared in the pictures. Modern art covered every free space in the walls, and it was perfectly furnished with elegant, timeless colors, as well as strategically-placed pops of bold color. Ms. Stacy had excellent taste in interior design. The beautiful apartment that I was now about to call my home only made me more excited for this new stage of my life. Although the nerves and uncertainty of moving to a new city on your own far from everyone you know were still there, it was comforting that the new city happened to be Chicago and that I had such a lovely place to live in. 

I texted my parents to let them know I had made it to the apartment and sent them a picture of one of the paintings hanging from the walls that I particularly liked. And after receiving a text back wishing me luck, I figured I could go to the gym and try to work out any remaining nervousness and anxiety before I started my new job tomorrow morning. 

But as tempting as that plan sounded, the flight had been absolutely exhausting, and I still had to go grocery today if I wanted to have food for breakfast tomorrow morning. 

I didn't bother unpacking yet, I simply changed into a pair of jeans and a sweater before I left for the grocery store.