Let’s be Adults About This
By: Christina Marable
Tags: Chick Lit, Chicago, Relationships, Short Story, African American Lit

Courtesy of Calvin Lupiya

Look. this isn’t going to be one of those breakup stories that embody Chantay Savage’s dreary rendition of “I Will Survive,” because that’s not who I am. Let’s start with you, Stephanie, the only friend I had throughout my unstable upbringing in and out of foster homes. At school, I was Tatiana, more beautiful than my name, the roundaway girl, always chased for my phat ass and smooth dark skin, the Naomi Campbell of the North Side of Chicago. Like Naomi Campbell, I had a bad attitude, and fought a lot, but you were my ride or die, a pretty yet plain brown skinned girl who was loyal and trustworthy, two qualities not found in the hood. We promised to grow old together, to support each other in escaping our neighborhood; that it was money over dick. As cliche as this is, we broke up over Patrick’s dick.

I knew you liked him when we first saw him at that bookstore in Evanston reading An Autobiography of Malcolm X. That’s why I cracked the joke about a white boy reading such a righteous book, and he corrected us that he had an Irish mother, black father. It was senior year of high school. We were a happy threesome, flopping in Patrick’s house as he rolled up joints on album covers and did homework. You desired him for his green eyes and olive skin although I laughed about wanting someone as awkward and lanky as him. Looking back on it now, perhaps I told myself that as a lie, because I didn’t want to betray you. Then again, I told myself I wouldn’t betray you because I believed that it’d be easier for me to replace you than for you to replace me. I figured, you’d have more to lose.

But things changed, or in my case, clarified. During the autumn, you were called in for a last -minute shift at your grandmother’s chicken shack when Patrick and I were left alone at his house, with dime bags and munchies from the corner store. I ignored the homework and boys calling to go out because I told myself that Patrick had the best chronic, and I liked Omar, his white fluffball of a cat. While we laid on our backs in the middle of the living room floor, Patrick shared his recipe for black bean brownies. At first, I laughed as he cracked the eggs and made the batter. He offered me a spoon, but I dipped my finger into the mixture. I licked it off and taunted him with a come hither motion, a gesture so over the top I expected Patrick to laugh. He didn’t. He kissed me. Like most boys, Patrick was enamored with me, but when his fingers caressed that space behind my ear, it unlocked my passion. It told me that he wasn’t a booty call. When his hand slipped underneath my sweater, I stopped him. We snapped out of it. He put the brownies in the oven and sat on opposite ends of the couch. Our fingers still interlaced, we sat in silence until I smelled the brownies.

“This is difficult,” I began. “Stephanie likes you. Do you like her?”

“I like you both,” he replied.

“Who does your heart belong with?”

“You.”

“Are you sure it’s not just a fuck? Steph and I promised each other that we’d never lose our friendship over dick.”

“Am I just dick to you?” he asked, and I laughed a bit. He turned towards me, stared at me with those green eyes that I now adored, despite never being into light skinned guys. “Running up in girls has never been my style. I have to honor my white side. Can’t get random girls pregnant.”

“I’d risk our friendship for you. She’s sensitive, she may not recover from this. We promised each other loyalty.”

He pulled me to his side of the couch. I laid my head on his chest, inhaled his scent of olive oil and lavender despite the ganja in the air. “You won’t marry and have kids with her,” he said. “Be loyal to your feelings.”

“I want you,” I said, “but I have to tell her. Can we wait until I do that?”

He responded with a kiss.

***

Patrick and I didn’t want to be messy with our beginning. I would’ve told you that if you hadn’t friend dumped me. Instead, I’m reading articles in Essence on the cure for heartbreak: do a non-romantic activity, rearrange furniture, and change your appearance. I took an African dance class after work but dropped out when the instructor said I had no rhythm. I rearranged the furniture, but I got tired of bumping into it and then remembered Patrick and I had sex on it when we’d first moved in. I dumped the old brown couch for a mossy green one. I relaxed my hair again and wore a side part, hoping to see a non-lonely woman who hadn’t been left, but I didn’t see it. I can’t who I see in the mirror now, and the only living thing with me is Baby Princess. That Essence article was wrong. The only cure for heartbreak is Sauvignon Blanc, and what we would’ve talked about now.

I imagine you’d ask, why tell me the news then? And I’d tell you that it wasn’t all my choice. Patrick and I thought the best time to break the news was at Asia’s Christmas party, because the winter break would give you time to cool off, and the holiday might put you in a good spirit. It’s like an old fashioned mouse trap versus the glue ones, less suffering.

I was stupid enough to think this way as a teen.

You and I entered the party at eight. We pointed and laughed at the couples bumping and grinding to R. Kelly’s self titled album. Perhaps you noticed that I stopped letting dudes grab my ass or hold onto me too tightly, but I whisked you away to the kitchen where Asia and her homegirl Tammy were smoking a blunt as she offered you a dime bag. You lit up. Smiled. For a moment, I saw the joyful seventh grader who I’d met at the skating rink.

“I’m high as a kite! My grandma’s going to kill you,” You said to me.

I took a long drag on a joint. “She doesn’t need to know all that.”

“Drugs are a part of growing up,” Asia said laughing. “So’s fucking!”

“We can return to childhood for a minute,” Tammy said. She reached over and grabbed an empty coke bottle.

She walked into the living room, cut off the CD player and turned on the lights. “Before we all start hittin the skins, let’s take it back to sixth grade. Let’s play spin the bottle.”

“Shut up!” someone shouted.

“No!” she shouted back and laughed, dipping her shoulder to one side. “You might find a better lay this way.”

With that logic, we all gathered around, nervous like the times when we played this same game at day camp, grumpy that we couldn’t afford to go to sleepaway camp. I didn’t think you’d kiss anyone until I saw Patrick walk through the door. Tammy waved him over and he sat down when it was your turn. You know this part. Your spin landed on Patrick. Instigating ass Tammy sang about kissing him, because if you liked him, and y’all were both single, what’s the problem? Years later, I’d tell myself that you must’ve known, because you looked to me with anxiety in your eyes. Perhaps your stare was saying that you didn’t want to do it. Or it could’ve been saying embarrassment. But now, I realize those were my thoughts. I wanted you to be embarrassed because I was falling in love with him, and I didn’t want to share him with you.

So, you partially made it easy by leaving, and walking around outside in the snowy alley. This didn’t go as smoothly as I thought it would’ve in my head. I played it cool until you declared you loved him, and I blurted it out. I waxed poetic about it, said that Patrick and I loved you, but we also loved each other, that I needed to be loyal to my feelings. Then, you said it didn’t matter, because you were moving to Atlanta.

I couldn’t let you leave, walk out of my life for good. So I braved the bus trip to the Southside and your grandmother’s disapproving stare and went to the chicken shack. The joint was only popular because it was in the sea of liquor stores and no one could get to a Jewel’s without the bus trips. Ugly-ass neon lights, teen moms with their crying infants and toddlers in diapers with bottles full of pop stood in front of me. When you asked me what I wanted, I dropped a single red rose from Walgreens onto the counter.

“Your friendship,” I said.

“That’s not on the menu,” you responded.

“Please hear me out,” I pleaded.

I bought you a bucket of drumsticks so we could sit down to talk. I rambled as you ate.

“I know your grandmother thinks I’m a fast ass bitch who’s fixing to pop out a bunch of kids any day, but it’s not like that with Patrick. I wouldn’t risk us unless it was big. Patrick and I fell in love.”

“When did this happen?”

I looked down. I didn’t want to tell you it was in the moments you were gone, because I was ashamed. “It doesn’t matter when. It was kismet. You know what I mean?”

I reached out for your greasy hand, but you jerked away.

“I don’t know what you mean. You know that,” you said. You looked away and out the window at the busses passing by, dropping off more teens with kids. “I’ve never been the chosen one, and to lose the first person I’ve loved to you? I tutored you. I held your coat when you got into fights. I let you stay with me when you got kicked out of foster homes.” You looked down. “You can’t even be fucking loyal to your ride or die. And, you know that Patrick was the closest I might ever get to kismet. All them dudes asking you to go out, and you couldn’t pick one of them?”

“It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”

You shook your head. “Doesn’t matter. You stole my future from me,” you said. Your voice cracked. You paused, and looked at the half eaten bucket of drumsticks. “But I don’t want to throw our friendship away. I’m going to Atlanta on Tuesday. We can say goodbye at the bus station, and we’ll keep in touch. My aunt set up an AOL account.”

The greyhound station smelled of poor life choices, of piss, vinegar, and dirty needle. Each bus was a parade of broken down people shifting from nowhere to nowhere safe. As the buses unloaded more forgotten people, I found solace in the radio, with Xscape’s “Who Can I Run To?” playing softly in the background. I smiled, remembering that we’d sung to it in the mirror during a sleepover. At that time, we reminded each other that we’d always have each other to run to when things got tough. I shifted in the seat as I watched several busses pull up and drive off.

I pulled out the change from my bomber jacket, and called your house from a payphone. “When’s she coming?” I asked your grandmother.

“She left last night,” your grandmother replied, and hung up.

I felt tricked and betrayed. That night, I ranted to Patrick that you embarrassed me. You should’ve been honest with me, like I was with you. The nice part of senior year is that everyone is heading in different directions — community college and the military to get the hell out of Chicago, a retail job if you could find it, or pregnancy or the streets if you weren’t so lucky. I tried to revise my version of the story. I told myself that I’d freed myself from a friendship to meet the love of my life. I wanted to believe that your heartbreak was temporary and you’d blossom at Spellman, meet a boy at Moorehouse, and forget all about Patrick. At the time I wasn’t sorry. I lavished in the attention of attending our proms and graduations. I loved kissing him on the cheek when Asia took our picture for the after dinner commencement at Soul by the Pound, because I’d made it. I was that fine ass dark skinned girl who nabbed a light skinned guy. But sometimes I caught his green eyes as they scanned across rooms at parties or when we went to the beach. Those lovely green eyes that I’d loved for over a decade, but I’d never forget that you loved them first.

***

Patrick and I wanted to be adults about our breakup. We weren’t going to set books on fire, bleach clothes, slash tires, or make false domestic violence charges, like some hoodrats from the South Side or Terry McMillan characters. We were mature, urban professionals with a cute one bedroom in Roger’s Park, the enclave now gentrified with hipsters and college students, instead of the criminals and Latinos who used to live here. Let’s be adults about this, Patrick texted me. No arguing or yelling, just talking like two friends. It was a rainy Friday evening, and I was on my third glass of wine, with a romance book in my hand and Baby Princess in my lap. I wasn’t desperate, but I agreed. We should be mature. I replied back, Come on over. We can still be friends. I believed that we should salvage a relationship despite the breakup, and I wanted to see him. We weren’t going to sleep together.

I heard the keys jingle, then stop. I’d changed the locks, so I let him in. He surveyed the different layout of the living room, his eyes stopping at the moss green sofa.

“You’ve moved on,” he said.

I wanted to tell him the truth, that I was trying. Instead, I smirked at the small victory. “Want a screwdriver?” I asked.

We settled into the kitchen where I served him. He talked about his recent culinary conference in Atlanta, how sprawling and annoying the city was. He reached out for my hand like we were still together, enjoying a spot of takeaway after a long day at the hotel for him, at the law office for me. He reached out like we were still together, but I pulled away. I smirked again.

“How’s your life been without me?” he asked.

“I learned to cook,” I replied. “You hungry?”

“I’ll pass.”

“I’ll ask you the same.”

I thought Patrick would’ve smirked, bragged about the hits he’s been getting online dating, about girls who could carry his children. I wasn’t prepared for his response.

He rubbed his forehead and then his face. “I miss who I was with you. We should’ve grown old together.”

I let it slip out. “We still could.”

He came to my side of the island. We embraced. I inhaled his scent of lemons and olive oil, which I hated admitting that I missed so much. “We shouldn’t be separated in this universe.” I stroked his face. He kissed me. I touched him, and led him to the bedroom we’d once shared.

Before Patrick I’d been fucked, in bathrooms at house parties, in back alleys, and motel rooms, where the focus was on the thrill, for money and gossip, but Patrick was the only man I was intimate with for pleasure. I felt his lean hips rub against mine and caressed his smooth skin. His body was my body’s home. He knew that from the kiss on the side of his neck, his body was saying, you’re mine, you’re mine, you’re all mine.

In the still silence of the moment, I laid my head on his smooth chest and listened to his strong and slow heartbeat, reassuring like Lake Michigan’s waves. He ran his fingers through my now straight hair. “You’re my herbal tea,” I whispered to him. I expected him to say it back, but there was a pause, a dangerous quiet which loomed something bigger.

“We need to talk about handoffs,” he said. “I found a couple with a male Sokokae.”

I sat up. “Is that why you came over? To talk about that damned cat?”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he pulled on his clothes and headed to the bathroom. I followed him, covering wearing the bedsheet as a toga. “Answer me,” I said.

He turned around. “No, that wasn’t the only reason. I came here wanting to work it out, but something changed.” He stuttered. “Why can’t I have her anyway? You don’t even like cats.”

“She’s mine now. And what changed? After all that shit you just talked, you just care about that cat. That’s why we broke up.”

“No, it’s not. We broke up because you lied about a bunch of shit, and what’s stupid is that I should’ve known that from how we got together. Even from the first kiss, I knew you’d betray me.”

“We just fucked! That didn’t mean anything, you can’t get past something that happened when we were teens. We’ve grown up since then.”

He shook his head. “I made the wrong choice, and I didn’t see it then. Steph was a cat person. She was honest, never betrayed us, and I chose wrong. That’s why we can’t get back together. That’s why I saw her.”

I threw my wine glass at him, the glass shattering close to his head. He picked up the rest of his things and left.

***

Patrick was right. You two had more in common than me and him. You were into reading comic books, and you loved his cat Omar, a fluffy Persian his mother bought after her divorce, a female cat they realized later wasn’t a boy. You were a cat person, and in our pre-Patrick days, when we snuck out to Tower Records or Navy Pier, you said you’d hope to own a cat when you grew up. I laughed, saying it was a white people thing to invest in an animal that wasn’t a meat, and you replied I was a savage. Perhaps you were right. My mother gave me up at four to an aunt, too strung out to care for me, so it was various homes, and squandering. I was savage for survival. I did what I needed to get what I wanted.

Yes, I lived that ho quote before we heard it in Playas Club. I witnessed your innocence as you attempted to flirt with Patrick outside the theater. It was that survival which propelled me to smile and wrap my arm around his after you left. It led me to building a friendship with Asia after you left, becoming a godmother to her four children. But it was your innocence I hoped to see in my own daughter. An innocence my mother robbed from me, and made me ruthless.

So Patrick and I waited for children. In the circle you left behind, we were the hip, childless couple others envied. No kids meant freedom to work on our careers. I became a paralegal and supported Patrick through culinary school. No kids meant that we were the favorite aunt and uncle who spoiled our friends’ kids with gifts their parents couldn’t afford to buy from their dead end jobs. No kids meant we could focus on our living situation. After graduation, we moved into a dump basement apartment where white, fluffy Omar chased waterbugs and flying roaches, and gunshots lullabye us to sleep. But it was worth it when we moved into our swanky Roger’s Park one-bedroom walking distance from the lake, and he landed an executive chef gig at a hotel in the Loop. Then, I stopped taking my pills, convinced that my fast ass would get pregnant in a season.

That didn’t happen. Instead the heavy periods, the dizzy spells, and the anemia happened. The late nights and holidays alone started. Patrick only took a day off when Omar died of kidney disease, and we got Baby Princess, an African Sokoke from a Danish seller. The arguments happened. He worked late, wine kept me company. He hung up on me, I went to happy hours. I asked him where he was, he stopped coming home. So when I met Asia’s cousin’s friend at Happy Hour, I fucked him as a one night stand, but we exchanged numbers.

I justified my cheating, even joked around with my side piece that God protects me from the dirt I’m doing, because I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. I held that secret when Patrick and I cuddled and he ran a single index finger down my nose, saying that he hoped our daughter would be as beautiful as me, with skin darker than midnight waters, coarse hair good for cornrowing, and those full, soft, kissable lips. That secret started to spill when I finally had a doctor’s appointment.

“It’s fibroids,” she said, looking at the ultrasound. “They’re huge. I recommend surgery, but one is very close to your fallopian tube. You may not be able to have children. Do you want children?”

I touched my midsection. “I’m not sure. I don’t want to die.”

“Then let’s schedule it. Who’s going to pick you up and drop you off?”

The night before the surgery, Patrick and I argued again. He wouldn’t drop me off at the hospital. He was quitting me when I needed him. The next morning I called the sidepiece, who offered to drop me off and stayed the whole surgery for me. I was in a vulnerable state; starving, sleepy and weepy from the fear of anesthesia. My mind drifted to the white ceilings as the doctor put me under, and I thought for a moment. Was this why I couldn’t get pregnant? Was I lucky in my teens or had I been cursed? How could a man I’d loved for over a decade leave me like this?

When I came to, the side piece sat by my side with blue Irises in hand. I started to relax until I saw Patrick, also with Stargazers in hand entered my hospital room. His green eyes told me that he was alarmed, but he just apologized. Said he had the wrong room, and walked out.

Being at home was awkward afterwards. He helped me use the bathroom and heated up soup before he left for work. He massaged me when I asked, and we watched television in silence. For once, I lost the words to explain what happened, and how sorry I felt. But I didn’t know where to start.

Patrick stared at the television. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We haven’t gotten along for ages. I needed affection.”

“I needed you when Omar died. Then, I had to prove myself at work. I needed your emotional support, but you only cared about yourself. And it’s embarrassing no less, to see some scrub in that room. It should’ve been me.”

“You didn’t want it to be you, remember? I can kick him to the curb.”

“I thought if we had a child it would solidify us, because we’d done the right thing. We waited until we were stable in our careers and our desires. But the operation, and seeing him with you, it changed me.”

“I love you. It’s kismet for us to have each other. The universe wants us together.”

“When I saw you all bruised up from the surgery, I thought I’d stand by you forever. I didn’t care if we adopted, if we needed IVF, I would’ve stuck by you. We were supposed to be loyal to each other. But I was in the wrong room.” He looked down, then he looked at me. “Tatiana, I think it’s best if we split up.”

That night, Baby Princess slept with Patrick on the couch.

***

It took over a year for Patrick and I to be adults about the breakup. We bred Baby Princess with other Sokokes, and sold two litters to rich Afrikkan cat enthusiasts who missed the colonized homeland. I thought it’d get easier when I started dated a righteous brother from the National of Islam. He wore dark suits, called me his queen, and took me to poetry readings, but it wasn’t the same. I stopped calling him.

I’d convinced myself that Patrick and I were friends now, and Baby Princess’s custody was for money, but that wasn’t the whole story. I wanted to salvage a friend from our partnership because I felt alone, because you were distant from me. You were smoke, a haze that hung in the air from his smiles to fidgeting with his phone — he was nervous and excited to hear from you. You called when we were in a cafe, dividing up the money from our most recent sale.

“Just in time, babe,” he said as he answered. “Guess who I’m with?”

“The devil,” you said, then laughed. “Your dad?”

“No, Stephanie.”

“Hey girl!” I said.

“So many memories,” you replied. “Perfect timing! Patrick and I have great news.”

“I’m moving to Atlanta,” he said.

I stopped mid action from putting the money in my purse. “Really?”

He shook his head, excited. “We’re moving in together.”

“It’d also be cheaper to open up a restaurant here than Chicago,” you chimed in.

“We’re having a going away party at Piece. Stephanie’s coming into town,” you said.

I took a twenty and paid for our coffees at the register. When I returned Patrick handed me my share of the money. I wanted to scream and throw the coffee in your face, although it wasn’t rational. We’d split up, Patrick had moved onto someone else. I didn’t have the right to be upset and possessive, because we’d been mature about it, except who he moved on to. I wanted to ask why you, but that wasn’t a fair question. It was teenaged Tatiana surfacing.

Instead I sat down. “Congrats,” I said. “What about Baby Princess?”

“I’ll give you five hundred for her.”

We shook hands. “Deal.”

***

Piece was a microbrewery, one of those gentrified, white-people places we never went to. I didn’t want to go. It was a Friday night, fit for comfortable pajamas, wine, and a romance novel, but I wanted to see you. I wanted to see how you grew, how you’d changed. I wanted you back. I wanted that time in our heyday back, and wore the outfit which sparked that Tati. I wore a red bodycon dress and herringbone printed pumps. My thick, natural hair wavy from a braid out, natural makeup and pearl earrings. My look was on point. Seeing you again was almost like high school.You floated to me, a big smile on your heart*shaped face. Except now, you’d shed the tomboy, ugly duckling image of a baggy t-shirt and jeans which hid your splendid figure. Tonight, you showed that figure off in a snug tea dress and teal heels.

“Tati!” you screamed. “You look amazing!”

“Stephanie!”

We embraced like the long lost relatives we were. We balanced the drinks we were holding. Me a glass of Cabernet, while I guessed yours was a screwdriver.

“No, you look wonderful,” I said. “How’s Hotlanta?”

“Everything smells like ass. How have you been?”

“The law office is crazy, so normal. The real tea is, how have you been since you friend dumped me?”

“I believe it was you who friend dumped me,” you replied. “I got into Mary Jane to cope with losing you both, but my aunt got me help and I’ve been clean for seven years. I’m an executive assistant, so a glorified secretary. I was really sad when I found out about your breakup.”

“There’s other puppies in the pound, right?”

“For serious. I couldn’t forgive myself for leaving you at the bus station. You deserved it, but it shouldn’t have happened.”

“We were kids then. We’re grown now. Do you forgive me?”

“I already have. I came to town to be with Patrick and help him move, and to visit my grandmother. We’ve got some great news.” She put my hand on her midsection. “I’m pregnant.”

My heart dropped, my hands clammy. I felt hot despite the cool air conditioning. I was having another moment where I wanted to scream, to break glass, because she’d given Patrick the one thing I’d be uncertain about ever giving him. Instead I downed the glass in one swallow. “Are you sure?” I stammered.

“Doctor’s visits don’t lie, hence the orange juice. When I found out, you were the first person I wanted to tell, even before Patrick. I wish we could’ve shared this moment, but life happened.”

“We could,” I said. But I know we won’t.

You shrugged. “Yeah, life happened. When you came to my job the morning after you told me, I was so pissed. But it turns out, our connection was deeper than the Great Lakes. It was kismet, you know what I mean?”

You hugged me tighter than the first time, and I knew it would be my last. It would be the last time I’d see you, and whatever friends you had in Atlanta would be there for your new season. I felt stuck, confused, and lost. Who could I run to now? I knew you’d chosen kismet over me when you walked back to Patrick and your fingertips danced before he turned toward you for a kiss. I didn’t say goodbye. I ghosted.

I took a cab home and called a rich divorcee in San Diego who’d wanted Baby Princess. I left a voicemail that she could have her, papers and all for free, as long as she covered my travel expenses. She called back an hour later with a flight itinerary for the weekend.

***

In the eighth grade we had our first school dance. Several boys asked me to be their date while no one asked you. A few even laughed when you asked them. We talked about it at your grandmother’s house during a slumber party. You’d cried about how no one liked you, no one wanted you. And I laughed that our mothers hadn’t wanted us, we had that in common. But I held you as you cried, unsure of what you were feeling. At first, I thought it was embarrassing that you were the plain girl while I was the concrete runway beauty, but as an adult, it was deeper than that. It was guilt for wanting something that you felt was your birthright, but still prevented from getting. It was a shame for not meeting that need. Back then, I didn’t understand how you felt, and secretly hoped I never would. But now, I did, and I wished I could unfeel it.

I didn’t mention Baby Princess until I was with Asia. It was the middle school graduation of her oldest child. Perhaps that’s why I thought of you. I thought about us and the child you’d have. How, if she looked like you and Patrick, she would be the popular girl. How lucky she’d be for the parents she’d have. How behind I felt because I wasn’t sure if I’d have children or anything of my own.

Asia poked me about it at Olive Garden. “Why do you look like somebody just died?”

“I sold the cat,” I confessed.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Asia asked.

“I wanted to get him back,” I said. “I thought he’d care. I’m just in my feelings about Stephanie,” I replied. “I want my youth back, when we were happy.”

She forked through the house salad. “You stole her man, Tati. She just took what was rightfully hers.”

“What kind of friend are you? I’ve always thought I could repair anything I do.”

“Is that why you do whatever you want? Because you know others will forgive you.”

“I’m not a bad person. All of them loved me, and I thought love would liberate me.”

“Maybe love isn’t liberation, but an obligation. I love my kids, and even though I’m not with their fathers, I’m still tied to them. Kids are an irreversible decision. Maybe love is that way too.”

I twirled my fettuccine alfredo with my fork and spoon as I watched Asia’s kids laugh and play video games with their phones. Perhaps being an adult was love, and Asia was right. Love wasn’t liberation, but an irreversible decision. I had treated you and Patrick like love was liberation, and lost you both. I thought selling Baby Princess would’ve settled the score, but Patrick didn’t care. He’d kissed me on my forehead and wished me luck, said his own pending fatherhood made him feel like an adult. He had to go, because life wouldn’t wait.

And that’s what I’d tell you, Stephanie. Despite my actions, despite the waiter’s stares, my body house regrets upon regrets. All this time, I thought I wanted to catch up. But now, I’d tell you good luck to you, because life couldn’t wait anymore.