Elliot and Julia have a complicated relationship. Since they met in the seventh grade, the only heart-to-heart conversations they've had have been strictly over text. But they don't mind this lack of intimacy. If anything, they enjoy it.
Don't thi...
The party wasn't the last time I saw Julie. And standing outside her door crying wasn't the last time I talked to her. It would have been fitting though, to have our story end with her disappearing into the streets of New York in a fancy dress when I came out of the coat closet. Or to have it end with me begging for her open the door in the middle of the night and her moving away the next day without telling anyone where she was going and if she was coming back. Everything was set for that kind of ending. We had the beautiful dress, the girl, the guy, the city that never slept, everything was pointing in that direction. But, no, that wasn't how it ended. Not by long shot.
It was a few weeks before I saw her again, not long before I went home for Christmas, and I was in the mall to get some last minute gifts. The place was a madhouse, it was my fault for waiting so long, but I was able to spot her anyway. By this point I could pick out the back of her head or the sound of her laugh from a mile away. If we had still been in high school or college I would have hid but now that things had gotten so bad I had to go talk to her. She had too many chances to disappear into thin air. There was nothing keeping her from running away anymore.
The conversation, shockingly, didn't go very well. It was obvious she wasn't ready to talk but I pushed her and she finally gave in. She said nothing I wanted to hear and by the end we were both to the point of tears. It's painful to think of how we looked, like one of us was dying. And yes, neither of us had cancer or anything as ghastly as that, but something was dying. Everything we had been through together seemed to be gone and washed away. All we had was the night before when we could have been something but I had screwed it up. It was all we had left and she was trying to erase that too. She spouted off shit like "we needed to be able to breathe" and acted all philosophical. It wasn't until much later that I realized she was right.
There was no way Julie and I could have survived long together the way things were going. If it hadn't been what happened at the party it would have been something else. We had been around each other too long and had created this bubble that was safe but too safe. There was no way we could go out into the world and meet new people. Why do that when we had each other?
Everything good (and bad, for that matter) that happened after that I owe to her. At the time it hurt like a bitch but now I appreciate it. I would never be where I am today without her pushing me away that day. It's only because we took a break then that we're friends at all. Without her I wouldn't be a father or have met Nora. She wouldn't have done the amazing things she did and, in the end, we would have been worse off. She and I would have imploded within a year if we hadn't parted ways and that would have ruined us for the world for a few extra years. When she pushed me away she gave me those years.
And I know what you're thinking. No, that day in the mall wasn't the last time I saw Julie either. But it was the last time I saw her for a while. We would eventually find each other again but it wouldn't be for another five years.
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