Page 56 of Mostly My Girlfriend
Yes, I thought.In so many ways that’s Jules.
“Do you think she’s reading my letters, at least?”
“Would you read them?”
Yes. I would read them. But I also wouldn’t answer her, if only to punish her for hurting me. Just like she was punishing me now.
“You were there, Mom,” I whispered quietly. “When I was a kid and you would tell me I had to eat my vegetables and I smashed my plate against the table and threw my glass against the wall. All of that…it’s still in me.”
“Ethan, are you worried you would be violent with Julia?”
I shook my head. No. Physically hurting Jules wasn’t possible and I’d never lost my shit to the point where that had been a concern. “It’s the lack of control I would have. If I let myself love her…”
“Ethan, you already do love her. There is no changing that. There hasn’t been for these past twelve years. I saw it. Your father saw it. We just didn’t understand why you were fighting it so much…but now it makes sense. I thought it was because you felt you didn’t deserve to be loved, but that’s not it at all, is it? It’s because you’re afraid you’re going to love her too much.”
I dropped my head and she wrapped her arm around me to pull me close.
“My poor baby boy, I know you’re scared. What I don’t know is if you’re brave.”
I shot my mother a look and she smiled. “I’m going to walk around the park while you sit here with your thoughts. It really is a lovely place to think. Or not. Maybe you need to let yourself feel.”
Pulling out my phone, I thought about actually emailing Jules. That hadn’t been our thing while she was still in college. We’d liked the letters. The letters were a tangible thing that we could hold on to. Now, however, I wanted the expediency of the internet.
To let her know…I loved her.
Three months of thinking about it, considering it, dismissing it. Weighing it, worrying about it, and wondering if it was even possible for me.
Writing about it. I thought of my last letter to her. The one I didn’t know if she was even going to read. Would she understand what I said? Would she see the words plainly written out and know how true they were?
Maybe my mother was right. Maybe I needed to tell her what I was feeling myself. I put the phone in my back pocket and went to catch up with Mom. It was time to make arrangements to head home.
First to New York. Then to Seattle.
* * *
Therapy
Ethan
“Did you read the letters, Julia?”
She looked up at Carol, who had asked the question. Then I watched as she reached for the purse she’d set next to her chair. She pulled out the letters I’d written to her over the past three months. All tied together with a string.
All unopened.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “All this time and you didn’t even read them? These last two days you kept denying what I said was the truth, but maybe if you’d read my fucking letters, you would see that wasn’t the case. That I spent those three months apart from you so I could figure out how to let myself love you.”
“I was trying to quit you,” she whispered. “I thought I was being strong by not opening them. Then you showed up at my apartment last night and I had no strength all.”
“Trying to quit me? Like I’m some kind of bad habit?” I hated how much that hurt. That, somehow, I was poison to Jules.
“You are,” she cried. “You’ve spent the past twelve years hurting me without even realizing it, but this last time… This last time you knew what you were doing. You knew what leaving me, after that night we shared, would do to me and you did it anyway!”
“I’ve also spent the past twelve years loving you, Julia! And you’ve loved me, too. And yes, I get that I’m the worst possible asshole you could have picked to fall in love with, but I’m the one you did!”
“I never said I loved you,” she whispered.
“Oh come on! You’re kidding me right now. Of course you love me. Why the fuck else would have you gotten on your knees for me? I’m tired of this, Julia. And yes, it took me a few months, but I’ve finally figured it out. We’ve been lying to each other since we’ve met! Each for our own reasons. It’s got to end.”
