The taxi moves too fast through the empty streets, and my stomach lurches much in the same way it did that first morning here, but for an entirely different reason this time. There’s a part of me that would almost welcome throwing up right now, would find it preferable to the constant, pressing ache I’ve had since last night. At least I know vomiting would pass and I could close my eyes, pretend the world isn’t spinning, that there isn’t really a hole in my chest, the edges raw and jagged.
The city whips by in a blur of stone and concrete, industrial silhouettes dotting the same horizon as buildings that have stood for hundreds of years. I press my forehead to the glass and try to block out every moment of that first morning with Ansel. How sweet and attentive he was, and how I worried I was ruining it all and it would be over before it ever really began.
The sun isn’t up yet but I can make out trees and grassy fields, muddied blurs of green that border the freeway and bridge the distance between stretches of urban sprawl. I have the eeriest sensation of moving backward through time, and erasing everything.
I pull out my phone and bring up the airline app, log in, and search through the available flights. My decision to leave looks even more glaring in the too-bright light of the screen as it cuts through the darkness, reflecting back to me in the windows at my side.
I hover over the arrival city and nearly laugh at my imagined dilemma over choices, because I know I’ve already decided what I’m going to do.
The first flight of the day leaves in just over an hour, and it seems too easy to make the necessary selections and book my return trip with barely a hiccup.
Finished, I shut off my phone and tuck it away, watching out at the bleary city as it begins to wake on the other side of the glass.
There were no messages so I can assume Ansel is still asleep, and if I close my eyes I can still see him, body stretched over the mattress, jeans barely clinging to his hips. I can remember the way his skin looked in the low light while I gathered my things, the way the shadows drew him like canvas covered in charcoal. I can’t bring myself to imagine him waking up and realizing I’m gone.
The taxi stops at the curb and I see the price on the meter. My fingers tremble as I find my wallet and count out the fare. The broad, colorful bills still look so foreign in my hand that on impulse I fold the entire stack, pressing them into the driver’s waiting palm.
On the plane there are no phones, no emails. I haven’t bothered to pay for internet and so there’s nothing to distract me from the loop of images and words echoed back to me in dramatic—and maddening—slow motion: Perry’s expression slowly morphing from amiable to calculating, then from calculating to irate. Her voice as she asked how I was enjoying her bed, her fiancé. The sound of footsteps, of Ansel, of our shouted words and the sensation of rushing blood filling my head, my pulse hijacking every sound.
Aside from the few hours of sleep I manage to snag, this is the soundtrack throughout my entire flight and if possible, I feel even worse when we finally touch down.
I move in a fog from the plane to customs to baggage claim, where my single enormous suitcase waits for me on the spinning carousel. It no longer looks as new, marred in a few places as if it’s been thrown around and dropped, caught against the moving conveyer belt; it looks pretty close to how I feel.
At a coffee shop nearby, I open my laptop and find the file I’ve neglected all summer, labeled only “Boston.”
Inside is all the information I need for school, the emails about schedules and orientation that have arrived in the last few weeks, ignored but tucked safely away where I promised myself I’d deal with them later.
Apparently, later is today.
With the energy provided by a pot of coffee and the growing buzz over finally making the right decision, I log in to the Boston University MBA student portal.
I decline my financial aid.
I decline my spot in the program.
I finally make the decision I should have made ages ago.
And then I call my former academic advisor, and prepare to grovel.
I STARE AT the FOR RENT section in the local newspaper. Part of the deal in my agreeing to attend graduate school was that my dad would pay for my apartment. But after what I’ve just done, I don’t think he’ll support me, even if from where I stand it feels like the best compromise. I know he’ll be more likely to break something with his bare hands than give me a penny. I can’t bring myself to live under his thumb anymore anyway. Living in Paris has pretty much shot my budget to hell, but after a quick glance at the paper, there are a few places I can afford . . . especially if I can find a job relatively soon.