I smiled. “Thanks. I guess they just had a position open up and they’ve been following the work I’ve been doing here, and for SPIN, and then there was some other national stuff that I did back in February. So, yeah, they thought that I’d be a good fit. I didn’t even have to interview or anything. Just boom,” I snapped my fingers, “new job.”
“That’s amazing,” Luke said.
“I know. They want me to start on the first of June so –”
He raised his eyebrows. “They’re going to let you work from the road?” he interrupted. “That’s good.”
I stared at him blankly. Work from the road? “What? No. It’s the New York Magazine blog. The job’s in New York.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You were so excited that it sounded like you were thinking of taking the job,” he said. “I didn’t realize that you turned them down.”
I was so confused. “I didn’t turn them down,” I said.
“I don’t…how are you going to start a job in New York at the beginning of June when we’re leaving to go on tour for six months at the end of May?”
I could feel my face scrunch up as I looked at him standing in front of me. WTF is he talking about? “I don’t see what either one has to do with the other,” I said.
“Well, you’re not going to be in New York then, are you? You’re going to be on a bus traveling across the country,” Luke said.
On a bus…? Then realization hit me. “Wait a second, you think that I’m going on tour with you?”
Now his face scrunched up. “Of course I think that. Don’t you?” he asked.
“No. Or, I mean, yeah,” I sputtered, not sure which was the proper negative response to that question. “We’ve never discussed me going on tour with you.”
“I…are you serious right now?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve made it abundantly clear that you’re coming with me.”
“No I haven’t.” How could I possibly have done that when I never for a second thought that I was going? Have I been talking in my sleep? Do I have multiple personality disorder?
“Well, let’s see,” Luke said. “You’ve traveled to every gig that we’ve had so far. You’ve been at every tour planning meeting. We got a bus with a private bedroom in it for you and me.” He ticked the points off on his fingers.
I held up my hand in a “hang on” gesture. “Okay, I went to those shows because, with the exception of L.A., they were all were nearby and I could. And I went to those meetings because you asked me to. I was trying to support you and the album. But I didn’t realize that you were making private bedroom requests and stuff.”
“You were literally sitting right next to me in the meetings when I asked for it.”
“Yeah, I was physically there,” I said. “But I was working during the meetings when you asked for it. I wasn’t paying attention to every little detail that was being discussed.”
“Lyssa –”
“Luke,” I interrupted. “Just admit that you never sat down and said, ‘Lyssa, will you come on tour with me?’ Honestly, it’s pretty ridiculous for you to think that you could make such an important decision on my behalf without at least, I don’t know, running it by me first.” I mean, was this guy out of his mind?
“Okay first of all, I thought that we had already decided you were coming,” he said. “And second of all, I didn’t think that there was any other option. I will be in a different city every night for half a year. Sometimes on a different continent. How did you think we were going to make that work?”
“I don’t know,” I said. Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about it. I mean, I obviously had, but not in depth or anything. It was more like a dark cloud looming in the distance on the highway. I knew that I was heading into a storm, but I didn’t have to put my windshield wipers on yet. Still, there was no reason Luke and I couldn’t figure out a solution…right? “I don’t see why I can’t just meet you in a city or two every month,” I offered. “Maybe use my vacation to spend a week on the road with you at some point. I can fly out of New York just as easily as I can fly out of Chicago.”
“So I guess that means you’re thinking of taking the New York job?”
“I’m not thinking about it. I already accepted it,” I said. “This is a huge step up for me. Do you know how many people read Vulture every month? Millions. It’s the big leagues. I’m never going to get another offer like this. I can’t turn it down.”
Luke pursed his lips. “You already accepted it?” he asked stonily.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t tell them that you needed time to think or that you’d get back to them?”
“No.”
He breathed out a laugh that had no mirth in it and he flexed his hand like he wanted to hit something. Then he exploded. “This is fucking unbelievable!” he shouted. He threw his arms in the air and started pacing angrily around the living room. After a minute, he turned back to me, pointed his finger at me, and said, “You are fucking unbelievable.”
I almost gasped at his livid outburst. And I certainly did not appreciate the finger-pointing. “What the fuck, Luke? Why are you so pissed?”
“Because Lyssa, are you even listening to yourself right now?” he asked as he resumed his intermittent pacing. “Do you even hear how hypocritical you’re being? Ten seconds ago you said that I was being ridiculous for trying to uproot you for six months without discussing it with you first, but now you’re trying to uproot me for, oh I don’t know, the rest of my life without breathing a word of it to me first. Yet you think that you’re the one being reasonable here,” he spat. He paused for a second before he said, “Or was it not your plan for me to go to New York with you? Is this your way of telling me that you want to break up with me?”
“No!” Where did that come from? “Or, I mean, I didn’t think about that. I just got the opportunity and I took it.”
“Well, what if I can’t go with you?” Luke demanded. “I have a residency clause in my recording contract that requires me to live here. What if I can’t get out of it? What if my label won’t let me go? Or what if there’s some other reason that I can’t move to New York?”
“I just said I don’t know Luke! I literally just got the call offering me the job! I haven’t thought it all through yet!” I was starting to sound shrill and I knew it, but this was so not the way that I’d imagined this conversation going.
“But you already accepted the job!” he yelled. “You didn’t even ask them for a day to consider it. You haven’t even thought about the fact that you haven’t thought it through! I mean, what the fuck Lyssa? Three months ago you broke up with me for not making you a big enough part of my life. And now I’m standing here telling you that I’ve put a ton of work into planning this tour so that we can be together for the next six months and your response is to tell me that you’ve decided to move across the country and that I didn’t even factor in to your decision? If I pulled some shit like this, if I decided that I was going to move without even discussing it with you, you’d murder me in my sleep. That’s a fact and you know it.”
He probably had a point, but I’d be damned if I was going to admit it right now when he was yelling at me like this. Instead I crossed my arms in front of my chest and said, “I already told you that I would visit you while you were on the road.”
He finally stopped pacing and came to stand right in front of me. “Lyssa, how is that a solution that you’re even close to okay with?” he asked. “I want to be with you every minute of every day. I’m talking confined spaces, late nights, miles and miles of highway. Not just ‘once or twice a month, maybe a week at some point.’ I don’t understand how we can spend every waking moment together and you know that I’m leaving and yet you’re fine with only seeing me that often. I don’t understand how you never once thought that six months apart would be way too hard. That we’d miss each other too much. And I don’t understand how you can be so set on taking this job even though you have no idea if it means that we’d have to
live apart from each other indefinitely. I mean, Jesus Christ, all my plans for the future involve you. Strike that. They don’t just involve you, they revolve around you. Music and you. That’s it.”
My heart reacted to how sweet and sincere he was being, but my head didn’t. Couldn’t. “This isn’t fair Luke,” I said. “You’re projecting all of these plans and expectations on me and we’ve never talked about any of this. You never asked me how I felt about any of this. The tour, my career, nothing. You never asked me what I wanted to do.”
“I didn’t think that I needed to ask you to make a place for me in your life. Because I’ve sure as hell made a place for you in mine,” he said. “I didn’t think that we needed to talk about the fact that this isn’t just something we’re doing until a better opportunity comes along.”
“Luke –” I started, but he cut me off.
“No,” he said indignantly. “I am all in to this relationship, Lyssa. I’ve been all in since the day we got back together. But it’s suddenly becoming very clear to me that I’m the only one of us who is.”
I looked away from him. I could feel a lump forming in my throat and tears pricking at my eyes. It was more from shock at how quickly this whole thing had deteriorated than from anything else. I thought that Luke and I would be popping champagne by now, celebrating my new opportunity. I didn’t think that I’d be getting attacked for something that was so great for me. I couldn’t quite meet his eyes when I said, “I feel like you’re not taking my life and my ambitions into account at all. You know what I do for a living. You know that I can’t just pack up and leave to go on tour with you like that. Regardless of where I’m working.”
“You work from home all the time. I figured you were planning to work remotely from the bus,” he explained.
“Luke, I’m a reporter. I need material to write about. I only work from home when I already have material.”
“So, then write about me. Write about the tour.”
I knew that he was trying to help, but his suggestions weren’t productive. “This isn’t Almost Famous, Luke. It doesn’t work like that. No matter which publication I’m working for, I need to be where my editor tells me to be and I need to write about what he tells me to write about. I can’t just make up an assignment for myself and I can’t go MIA for six months without getting fired.”
“Is that what this is about?” he asked. “You getting fired? Because you can just quit, if it’ll make this easier. You don’t need the money. I’ll take care of you. You don’t have to work.”
My eyes got wide and my nostrils flared in anger. Just like that, I didn’t feel like crying anymore. Now I felt like slapping him. “That is literally the most sexist and insulting thing I have ever heard you say. Would you give up your music career if it conflicted with my job?” I demanded. “Or is it maybe about more than just earning a paycheck? Is it maybe about feeling a sense of pride and accomplishment at doing something you love? Not to mention being really fucking good at it. I’m not giving it up just so I can travel around on a tour bus with you like some goddamned groupie.”
He scoffed. “Wow. Now who’s being insulting? Have I ever once treated you like a fucking groupie? Or have I gone out of my way to make sure that you are catered to at all times?” He paused before he said, “You know, you fucking stand there acting like I’m insane for asking you to do anything that might jeopardize this career that you say you love so much, but guess what? You also said that you loved me.”
“I do! Why do they have to be mutually exclusive?”
“Because you’re making them mutually exclusive! You’re only willing to be with me as long as it doesn’t interfere with your job.”
“I don’t think it’s out of line for me to not want to give up everything that I’ve worked for to get to this point,” I said.
“This isn’t about that and you know it. This is about you not being fully committed to this,” he gestured between us. “You are totally unwilling to change anything in your life for this relationship. You won’t give up your apartment even though you already live here, you won’t come on tour even though it means that we’ll have to be apart for six months, and you won’t take a fucking minute to consider passing up this new job even though it could mean that we’d have to be apart forever. All of these things would be real, concrete steps forward for us, but you won’t take them. It’s like you want to make sure that you can still get out of this if you need to. Like you’re sitting around waiting for us to break up again.”
Something about the way he leveled that accusation told me that this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about it, which really pissed me off. “Whoa. Well, you certainly had that all locked and loaded. I am so sorry that I’m not living up to your standards of how I need to act in order to demonstrate that I’m committed to you,” I said facetiously. “It’s like you’re not even hearing how one-sided everything you’re suggesting is. ‘Quit your job, give up your apartment, pass up your offer.’ Well, I’ve got news for you. I’ve been taking care of myself and making my own decisions about my life for a long time without needing anybody else’s help or approval. I’m not about to give that up just because you reserved a seat for me on a bus!”
“I’m not asking you to give up control of your life,” Luke said. “But you need to realize that you’re in a relationship now. It’s not just about you anymore and you can’t make decisions based only on what’s best for you. If you want this to work, then you have to do what’s best for us. We both do. And we both know that living apart from each other for any period of time isn’t what’s best for us. But for the next six months, I have no choice. I have to go on tour. So in this instance, yes, it’s you who has to make accommodations for me. And I’m sorry about that, but that’s just the way it is.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’m not willing to accept ‘the way it is,’” I said. “Especially when it sounds like it’s always going to be me who’s making sacrifices for you. Your career is always going to trump mine and you know it and that’s bullshit!”
“Lyssa –”
I started to feel really hot and panicked, like the walls were closing in around me. I put my hand up to make him stop. “No, just, whatever. I don’t want to talk about this anymore right now. I need to leave. I need to go to my apartment or to anywhere else that’s not here,” I said shakily before I walked over to the door and grabbed my bag from the front hall table.
“No, Lyssa. Fuck! Don’t go, alright?” Luke came over and stood in front of me in the foyer. “We said we weren’t going to do this again. We said we weren’t going to break up. No matter what. We were always going to work things out. And if you walk out that door, we both know that you’re never coming back. You’re going to freak yourself out and you’re going to run away. And I’m telling you that I don’t want you to do that. I’m telling you that I want you to stay here so we can deal with this and build a fucking life together.”
“I’m not saying that I necessarily want to break up. I’m saying that I need some time to think and I can’t do that here with you fucking standing there dictating to me what my next move should be!”
“Jesus, Lyssa, I’m not dictating! I’m asking you to be with me!”
“And I’m asking you for some time!” I turned and reached for the door handle.
“Lyssa,” Luke said from behind me. “I don’t want to do this, but if you leave, that’s it for us.”
I turned back around and raised my eyebrows at him. “You’re giving me an ultimatum?” I asked. “Gee,” I said sarcastically. “How silly of me to think that it would always be you who was calling the shots in this relationship. ‘Do this or we’re done?’ Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“I’m not giving you an ultimatum, I’m just stating a fact,” he said. “If you leave, it means that you don’t feel the same way about me as I feel about you. I would never walk out on you. Not ever. And especially not if you asked me to stay. I would find a way to work it out. Here. With
you.” He held his hands open in front of him, like he was inviting me to come back inside. To come back to him.
But it was an invitation that I couldn’t accept. “I…,” I paused, unsure of how to respond to what he’d just said. Better go with the truth. “I don’t know what to say to that. All I know is that I need to leave now. Read into that what you will.”
“Goddamnit!” he roared. “And goddamn you! I feel so fucking blindsided by all of this. An hour ago I thought you were coming on tour with me. I thought we were in this together. I thought we were unbreakable.”
I’d thought we were unbreakable too. Well, as they say, pride goeth before a fall. “Yeah, well, I guess we weren’t. I’m sorry you feel blindsided, but I feel blindsided too. I didn’t think that being in this relationship meant that I had to give up my life in order to be a part of yours. And I didn’t think that it was going to come down to you asking me to do that. I’ll talk to you later.” I turned again to leave.
“Lyssa wait!”
I twisted the handle.
“Lyss! Lyssa! I love you. Don’t go!”
But I didn’t turn around. I just wrenched open the door and walked through it. I resisted the juvenile urge to slam it and instead closed it firmly behind me. From inside I could hear Luke call out my name one last time. When it became clear that I wasn’t coming back, I heard him let out a rage-fueled yell. Then a giant crash rang out in the hall. The unmistakable sound of something being hurled against a wall. Whatever Luke had thrown, I hoped he didn’t need it, because there was no doubt in my mind that he’d smashed it into a million pieces.
Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands
My head was spinning. I felt sick. Within the span of one hour, Luke and I had gone from being completely fine to on the verge of total relationship meltdown. Well, at least our times are improving, I thought sardonically. Last time it took us days to break up. If we keep going like this, we’ll be ready for the Olympics in no time.
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