by Lee, Sue
We stood awkwardly, staring at each other. The silence was deafening. “What’s going on with you, Ryan?” I asked quietly. I paused for a moment to let the question hang in the air.
Ryan didn’t speak immediately. Instead, he walked over to his sofa and sat on its edge, resting his elbows on his knees and leaning forward. His hands were folded together in front of him. “Catherine is sick,” he said, looking at his hands.
“I figured that out on my own. You’ve been avoiding me,” I said accusingly.
I hadn’t moved yet from the entryway, but I was looking at him now. He looked up at me, too, and for the first time since I arrived, we were making eye contact. “She has stage two breast cancer. For the next I don’t know how long, the unforeseeable future, she’ll get poked and prodded, have one test after another, have surgery to remove the tumor, go through multiple rounds of chemo, probably get a mastectomy, radiation, and God knows what else.”
I gasped and covered my mouth in shock. “Oh my God,” I whispered. “Ryan, I’m so sorry.” My heart had started pounding. An overwhelming feeling of sadness and heartache consumed me as I slowly grasped what Catherine was about to endure. I rushed over to Ryan’s side and sat next to him. I refrained from touching him, though. There was still a sense of restraint emulating from his body, putting me on alert.
Ryan turned to face me. When I met his eyes, a shiver ran through me. There was a deep sadness in them. His face looked completely tortured and his eyes were shining with moisture. I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck and my heard pounded even faster in my chest.
“Ryan, she’ll get through this,” I said, trying to reassure him. But what did I really know about Catherine’s condition? Stage two was beatable, wasn’t it? I didn’t know much about cancer, but I knew that stage four was the worst. He looked so upset. I struggled to find the words to comfort him.
“No, Julia, you don’t understand.” His voice cracked as he spoke. He lifted his hand to caress my face and gently brushed his thumb along my cheek, my jawline, and then to my lips. The look in his eyes was so sad.
“Ryan, you’re scaring me,” I whispered. “What don’t I understand?”
“Catherine needs me, Julia. She has no one else to help her through this. Her only immediate family is her dad and he’s in an adult care facility. He barely even knows who she is anymore.”
“Okay. Then you’re there for her. We talked about this. I’ll support you, and Catherine, through this. If it’s still too hard for her to see or be around me, I understand and I’ll respect her wishes to remain away. Some things are much too important to let a little bit of relationship possessiveness get in the way. We’ll be fine. She’ll be fine,” I appealed to him in earnest.
But Ryan was shaking his head. “Julia, she needs me.”
Okay, I get that already.
“She’s asked for … all of me.” He said it so quietly I had to strain to hear him.
“What exactly does that mean?” I asked softly, my face contorting with obvious confusion.
And then he spelled it out. “She’s asked me to be by her side through all of this. She wants me to break up with you and be with her. She says she can’t do this alone, that the idea of me going home to you every night breaks her heart, body, and soul. She says she can’t fight this thing without my support.”
“What?!” I stood up, not believing what I had just heard him say. The NERVE of her! I looked at him with my head slightly cocked to the side. Did I really just hear him right?
He wasn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes were focused on the ferry riding off into the sunset in the distance—how apropos. Then it slowly dawned on me. His tortured face, his physical restraint from touching me or holding me, his avoidance these last couple of days; it was all because Catherine asked him to let me go.
“Wow,” I said, blowing out a big breath. I felt like I had just gotten all the air knocked out of me. I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. “You’re actually entertaining her request, aren’t you?”
“Catherine is really ill, Julia. She could die from this,” he said with desperation in his voice.
“But you would break up with me?” I was struggling with the fact that Catherine would ask this of him.
He didn’t answer my question.
“She’s manipulating you!” I didn’t mean to, but it came out as an angry outburst.
“Maybe she is. But what am I supposed to say?” He raised his voice now, too. “If I accuse her of that, then I’m a bastard. Julia, she has no one else. Despite my feelings for you, I do love her.”
Ouch. That stung and my face contorted in pain like I had just been slapped.
He then quickly added, “Though not in the same way I love you.”
I saw the remorse in his face as he realized how his words had hurt me. Too late, pal. I could tell he was trying to control his emotions, but he still had fire in his eyes.
“The thought of being without you destroys me.” He grabbed both of my arms, not so gently, to force me to face him. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“So what are you saying, Ryan? Do you want to break up with me? I can’t tell, because you’re confusing as hell right now.” I could feel the tears beginning to well up behind my eyes. “This scene feels vaguely like déjà vu. Didn’t we already go through this?”
“That was a very different situation, Julia, and you know it,” he said huffily.
“You always have a choice, Ryan,” I spat the words out bitterly from behind gritted teeth.
“I love you,” he said fiercely. “The idea of losing you makes me feel like I can’t breathe.” His eyes welled up again.
“Then don’t do this,” I begged him. “We’ll figure something out. She’s not thinking straight right now.” I shook my head in denial. “Maybe you can give her some time to figure out what she needs. Can you explain to her that she’s being unreasonable or that what she’s asking from you is selfish and unfair?” As I spoke, I couldn’t help feeling like I was the one being selfish and unfair. I wasn’t the one with poisonous cells in my body, trying to kill me. I immediately felt ashamed for even thinking it. “No, don’t answer that,” I said quickly. “I can’t believe this is happening again. I feel sick. If I tell you to choose me, I’m a selfish, cold, heartless bitch. If I tell you to be with Catherine, then I lose you. I can’t win. You get to be the saint, and I get the broken heart.”
Ryan dropped his hands and his shoulders slumped. “She needs the will to live,” he whispered. “I can’t take that from her.” He appealed to me with desperation, hoping I would understand.
How do I argue with that conclusion? Ryan was too good. His whole life, he’d been the responsible one. He’d always taken care of everyone else. That’s why he led a team of two hundred people and growing. That’s why he’d been engaged to a woman he wasn’t in love with. That’s why he moved back to Seattle, despite a promising career in the middle of the dot com boom, to help his mom and sister adjust after his dad died. Ryan wasn’t selfish. Everyone else came before him—everyone except for me. He self-proclaimed the only time he was selfish was when he wanted to be with me. And he couldn’t be selfish about that now. Not when Catherine was dying and I was back to being “the other woman.”
“Wow. She’s not fighting fair, is she? So, instead, you decide to break up with the one that does get to live,” I said quietly.
He looked like I had just slapped him. With his teeth gritted, he said icily, “This is not an easy decision for me.”
“But you’ve already decided, haven’t you?” I asked accusingly.
“No, I haven’t.” He spoke forcefully with his voice but unconvincingly with his eyes.
“Yes, you have,” I said calmly. If he wasn’t going to say it, I was. My heart felt like it was shattering into a thousand pieces. A few unwilling tears escaped my eyes and my lips began to quiver. God, have some dignity, Julia, don’t cry in front of him.
“Julia,” he started.
“What do you want me to say, Ryan?” I asked coldly. “You’ve already decided. So why don’t you just have the balls to say it?”
There was prolonged silence; my question just floated through the air without an answer. And then it hit me. “Wait a minute! You want my … You want my blessing?! You want me to be the one to let you go, don’t you? It kills you to feel like you have a sense of responsibility to me, too. It’s all hunky dory if I make this easy for you.”
Ryan’s shoulders slumped and he exhaled through his nose. The relief I just observed through his body language angered me.
“This is what you wanted me to say, because you don’t have the courage to do it yourself, right?” I accused him. “You’re always the responsible Ryan McGraw, but you also just proved you’re a coward, too,” I said bitterly.
He stood quiet and still for a moment, his lips pressed tightly together. He didn’t defend himself. It killed me that he looked so beautiful and broken standing there without any words to argue against my spiteful accusation.
“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Julia.” He looked resigned now.
“Too late.”
I finally looked up into his painfully beautiful eyes. I recalled the first time I looked into them, right after the car accident. They were so calming then. Now, all they showed was sadness and regret.
“Jules,” he said gently and reached for my hand.
I reluctantly pulled away. “Then you have it. You’re relieved of your responsibility to me.” My voice sounded dead and emotionless. Tears streamed down my face as I opened his door and walked out.
I didn’t look back.
“Seattle to London, Flight 62, is now boarding all passengers,” announced the SeaTac British Airways intercom. I brought only my backpack and my one carry on suitcase with me. I displayed my plane ticket to the ticket agent, took a deep breath, and walked down the tunnel towards the plane.
After Ryan and I broke up, I spent a day licking my wounds. I cried through the night and most of the day, until Anna came over after work and, being the wonderful sister and best friend she was, brought wine so I could drown my sorrows and have a loving shoulder to cry on.
The next day, I called Dexter and told him I was coming to visit him and Jamie in London. Dexter, who had known me since I was thirteen, had a decent understanding of why. I hadn’t told him all the details, but he knew me well enough to know that I was going to London for therapy.
I was taking a break and sticking my head in the sand and I would deal with all of everything when I got home. I didn’t even bother letting anyone but Anna know I was leaving town. No one at work cared anyways. I didn’t want to upset my mother. And I didn’t give a shit about Ryan at the moment. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay still in Seattle mulling over how I got royally fucked over; I needed to escape to somewhere, if only temporarily. London sounded like a good option.
I found my window seat in first class. I just had my heart broken into a million pieces and if I was going to London for therapy, I thought I might as well go all out and upgrade to a more comfortable seat. It cost me $2400. I tried to ignore the fact that I really should be saving my money, given my soon-to-be-unknown income status, but thanks to my financial advisor, I had enough money saved up to last me comfortably for six months in case of an emergency. I considered this an emergency.
I tried to get comfortable in my seat, put on my headphones and turned on my iPod. I shuffled through the albums and settled on Coldplay because I rarely paid attention to their lyrics. I needed something neutral that wasn’t going to remind me of Ryan; Coldplay worked well for that. I closed my eyes and wondered how I let this happen. I was back to where I started. My life was like Groundhog Day. It had only been five short months since … well, since the last time I was here. In this emotional “here,” not on a plane. I couldn’t even make it six months without a relationship disaster.
I should never have gotten involved with Ryan. I wasn’t even looking to get involved with anyone, for God’s sake. I should’ve walked away after that awful morning when I ran into him and Catherine. Where I found myself today was really my own fault. I had only myself to blame by ignoring my own rules.
Obviously, something must be wrong with me. All in all, I was a healthy, well-adjusted person. I wasn’t mental, nor was I unattractive. I thought I was an intelligent woman with a good head on my shoulders. When I was with Ryan, I didn’t feel less than perfect. He made me feel so … so damn content.
Argh! Julia, you really do need therapy. Professional therapy. Not only was I talking in third person, now I was trying to convince myself that I was worthy. I felt like the poster child for those self-affirmation posters—”Like yourself, but don’t do what I did.”
I wanted to believe that Ryan really did fall in love with me. He broke off an engagement for me. He made some really difficult choices to be with me. I knew he had a responsibility to Catherine because of their history together and the guilt over her brother’s death, but Ryan overcame those obstacles to be with me. He said it himself once—I made him feel free. I guess the problem with that, though, is that free birds can easily fly away.
Regardless, he didn’t love me enough to stay with me or to fight for us. I couldn’t compete with his lifetime of responsibilities and his memories with Catherine. Ryan was just too good of a person. He wasn’t going to turn on Catherine, especially during a time when she needed him the most. Even if I were the most wonderful woman on the planet, I knew I could never compete with cancer.
God, I was a horrible person for even thinking that. No matter how shitty my life was, it was nothing compared to what Catherine was going through. I half-expected lightning to strike our plane down right now. I couldn’t even properly feel sorry for myself without a huge guilty conscience. I honestly didn’t know how to deal with all of my conflicting emotions. I didn’t know if my heart was ever going to recover from this.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked over to see the flight attendant asking me to remove my headphones.
“Can I get you anything to drink, ma’am?”
“Vodka.” I turned to look out the window and watched the rain fall onto the tarmac as our plane departed the gate.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Dexter moaned. “The universe is so unfair.”
Dexter and Jamie were both shaking their heads. We were in the middle of eating our dinner and I had just relayed the story of Ryan, Catherine, my job, Ryan, Catherine’s illness, and why I now found myself eating dinner at their flat in London.
“It’s the story of my life,” I said, rolling my eyes to the ceiling.
“You don’t deserve this, Julia. You’ve been dumped twice in one year. That totally sucks,” Dexter said sympathetically.
“Thanks,” I answered with a wry smile.
“Here, you need some more wine,” Jamie encouraged as he re-filled my glass.
Since I arrived mid-day, I knew the best way to fight jetlag was to just stay up all day—I went from the airport to the train station, where Dexter met me, to their flat to drop my luggage, and then we ran errands on foot. I was happy keeping Dexter company, and now, with the delightful combination of a lack of sleep, wine, and the rich seafood fettuccine in front me, I knew I was going to totally crash tonight. After Dexter and Jamie coaxed all the sordid details out of me, of course.
“I don’t think I’ve heard a more pathetic story,” Jamie lamented, drawing out the ‘or’ of his last word with his Scottish accent. “I mean, you can’t even hate him for what he did, can you? His decision was quite noble, actually. You just got the bloody hell end of the stick.”
“You know, I thought you guys were trying to cheer me up. So far, neither of you are doing a great job of it,” I teased, arching an eyebrow.
“We are going to cheer you up just as soon as we fully empathize with your current situation,” Dexter assured me. “I’m trying to digest how you’re even here and you haven’t thrown yourself off of
a bridge yet.”
“Yes, we just want to fully appreciate how shitty your love life is and how the universe has cosmically and royally screwed you over before we try to even attempt cheering you,” Jamie added.
“My pathetic story is less pathetic than both of your attempts at cheering me up,” I said. I couldn’t help laughing, though.
“See, its working!” Dexter exclaimed. He held up his glass of wine and motioned for Jamie to do the same. They clinked their glasses together, celebrating their little success. I laughed again and added my glass to the celebration.
“We’re so good at this, Dexter. We should start a therapy club,” Jamie suggested, wiggling his eyebrows up and down.
I couldn’t help laughing more. It felt good to smile again, even if it was only fleeting. “All right, guys, what are you two boys really going to do with your sad, pathetic friend this week, huh?”
“Sweet girl,” Dexter said endearingly, “you definitely came to the right place. Jamie and I are going to take great care of you. First of all, you should feel free to do whatever it is you feel the need to do. You can cry, get drunk, or have a shameless one night stand.”
“And we’ll support you.” Jamie winked in agreement.
“We can ride the Ferris wheel, sightsee, go to Buckingham Palace to see the Queen, go dancing, have lunch at the Ritz,” Dexter continued.
“I’d like to go to the National Gallery Museum again,” I said, adding my suggestion to our growing list.
“Then we’ll go to the National Gallery Museum,” Dexter confirmed.
I looked at Dexter and Jamie affectionately, tears welling up in my eyes. “Thank you. I love you both.”
“We love you too, Julia.” Dexter looked at me tenderly. “You’ll be just fine, sweet girl.”