No Relation Read Free Page A

my … um …”
    “Getaway? Great escape? Betrayal?” I offered. I always try to be helpful when people are searching for le mot juste.
    “…  departure,” she chose, bobbing her head and scrunching up her nose. From experience, I knew it as the precursor to tears. “Hem, don’t make this difficult.”
    “Believe it or not, you’re the second person to say that to me this morning.”
    “Hem, it’s time. You must have seen it coming. We’ve lived together for four years, but the last two we’ve really just been roommates. You know that. It all slipped away. You had to have felt it. How could you not?”
    “So you were just going to sneak away without saying anything and hope that I wouldn’t notice. Were you going to leave me a note?” I said, my voice rising. “Jenn, this isn’t public school. We’re adults. We talk things through.”
    “Yeah, right,” she countered with an eye roll. “When have
we
ever ‘talked things through’? Whenever I’ve wanted to talk about it, you’ve gone to ridiculous lengths to avoid a meaningful discussion. I know how you think, Hem. If we never talk about it, there’s no problem. It doesn’t exist. Well, I can’t do that any more. I’m done with that delusion. There is a problem, and I’m solving it on my own.”
    I realized we were still standing in the corridor where we could be overheard by curious neighbours with ears pressed to doors.
    “Jenn, at least come back in and let’s talk about it. I’ve now got plenty of time on my hands.”
    “I can’t. It’s too late for that. We haven’t been in a real relationship for a long time. If I don’t do something about it, you’ll just carry on, stuck in this rut, but unable to take any action to climb out of it. You’ll just deny, avoid, distract, and crack jokes. It’s what you do. It’s what you always do. Well, it’s time to be a grown-up, Hem.”
    She exhaled. It was a sigh of fatigue, not of sorrow, not of regret. I could tell. Again, I had nothing.
    “Paul has his van loaded. I’m staying with him for a few weeks until I find a place. I gotta go.”
    She leaned in and kissed my cheek before bolting for the elevator, dragging her suitcases behind her. Mercifully, the doors opened quickly and she leapt in.
    “Think of this as freedom,” she said as the doors closed.
    “Believe it or not, you’re the second person to say that to me this morning,” I muttered to myself.
    The apartment was pristine. She and Paul had worked hard and fast in the four hours since I’d left that morning. I felt as if I were in some kind of a time warp. The rooms all looked almost exactly as they had before Jenn moved in four years ago. No, they actually looked better. Beyond a couple of framed photos of the two of us, every other vestige of Jenn was gone, as if Orwell’s Ministry of Truth had expunged the last four years. It was almost surreal.
    I dropped into a chair in the living room. I loved our apartment. Hardwood floors. Big windows. Parking under the building. Blessed air conditioning. A fair chunk of real estate in the West Village for the money. And it seemed I was back to having the space all to myself. I loved my apartment. I may have been in shock right then, but I was thinking about my apartment and not about Jenn bailing out on me, on us.
    I took a moment to catalogue the woes I’d collected in the previous twenty-four hours. I had no wallet. I had no job. I had no girlfriend. Losing your wallet is really no big deal. It’s a royal pain in the ass, but it’s just inconvenient, not a threat to your mental stability. On the other hand, losing your job and your girlfriend in the same day is like getting beaten badly in both ends of a psychological doubleheader. I felt terrible. Miserable. Depressed. But to be completely honest, I probably should have felt worse than I did. Beneath the body blows to my ego that would ache for a long time, I was perched on the precipice of a brand-new start. A rare