There was something perfect in this gradual ending. No question now of when the end would come. Edith said, Like Before Sunrise, only very slow.
They made plans: things to watch, places to go, more than could ever be done in the remaining months. They watched every David Lynch movie in a long weekend, dozed in the glow of Laura Dern’s face. They had sex on top of their building. A hundred lives going on in the dark below, and the nearly invisible stars above, and the two of them, pressed together between, hoping they wouldn’t cry.
Edith registered for classes. She found a place to live in Tuscaloosa. She called her parents about the move and her mother said, Not exactly closer to home, is it? It was all make-believe. No one could uproot their life like this. No one could abandon everything they knew. No decision had been made.
Sorry about all this, babe. The call of buzz saws in the back. Valerie was working in a theater scene shop in Oregon. You’re doing the right thing.
Says who?
Breaking up is never the wrong thing. And at least this way you can stay friends.
Could they? They’d had so many conversations about the future on their couch that Edith was beginning to have a Pavlovian response to it, tearing up every time she sat down.
We need a clean break, Tessa said. You’ve been such a big part of my life.
I still want to be.
But we can’t pretend like nothing’s happening. There’d be some period of not talking. Neither knew how long they might need.
I don’t understand why you guys can’t stay together, Charlie said. They were eating dumplings downtown.
It’s not that simple, Chuck.
Why not? He ate his dumpling like a corndog, speared on a chopstick. Because of the gay thing? That’s not a real issue.
Edith fumbled hers to her mouth. Charlie’s methods were effective but embarrassing. How can that possibly not be an issue.
It’s an excuse, dude. You’re both so scared about what’ll happen between you that it’s easier to call it quits. If it were a straightforward problem of sexuality, you’d never have gotten together in the first place.
Only one of us is an expert in dating lesbians.
Hands up in defense. Only saying. If it were me, I wouldn’t go.
Love always looks so good from the outside.
I wouldn’t, Charlie insisted. It wouldn’t be worth it, not to me.
Back home she found Tessa in bed, reading Rebecca Solnit. Edith pressed her face to Tessa’s hip through the sheets. Tessa’s hand on her shoulder. How was Charlie?
Good. Exhausting.
You always hang around people with such strong opinions.
It saves me the trouble of having my own.
Ridiculous, you’re full of opinions. She massaged a knot in Edith’s neck. Love you, Joni.
Love you, Joan.
What if she asked? What if she stayed? What then. What if they broke up in six months anyway, and she had to move out. Left with exactly one friend, and no writing community, and a job she didn’t care about.
You say something? Tessa’s free hand still massaging the neck of the boy she loved.
No. Only sounds of comfort. Keep doing that, please.
Edith was surprised to find she owned very little. She sold all the books she could bear to part with, studied pairs of khaki shorts and band T-shirts she never wore. There was a problem with her body she thought she might starve her way out of.
Tessa bought the minivan from Colleen for five hundred dollars. It had carried Colleen’s family to national parks and baseball games. The summer she turned sixteen, she and her girlfriend used it to follow My Chemical Romance. Tessa gave it to Edith as a parting gift. It’s rickety, but it’ll get you there. Edith waited for the hand of god to intervene. A breakdown before she left the city. The van ran smoothly, humming where it met the street.
Charlie helped move the desk out. Would’ve saved a bunch of time if we’d left it in storage, he said. Did you ever write at it?
Some! It had mostly been a place to stack books. The faint ring-shaped scar of a months-ago mug of tea.
Make strong friends down south. That’s my advice. If Edith wanted to bail on grad school a second time no one would come get her. No one believed she would, though. There was a sense of fate about it all. The click of sword drawn from stone. A lover freed from railroad tracks moments before a train plowed into them.
Come visit me sometime, Edith said.
I will. He wouldn’t. Something bigger was being left behind.
They hugged. I love you dude, Charlie said.
Love you too.
On her final night with Tessa they ate Chinese from paper containers. Tessa’s chopsticks nimbly coaxed noodles to her mouth. They didn’t watch anything. Didn’t play music. It didn’t seem like the end of anything. Something would intervene. A messenger would arrive, bearing a stay of execution. First one week, then two.
I’m done crying, Tessa said. It’s not really a sad thing, is it? You’re going off to do what you’ve always wanted.
Yeah. I mean it can be that and still be sad.
But we’ll stay close. I don’t want a life without you in it.
Me neither.
They traded cartons. The television’s dark returned the room in ghostly silhouettes.
Will you promise me something?
Meet at this spot in exactly a year?
You really do want this to be Before Sunrise. No, dear Joni, what I want is this: so long as we’re speaking, if either of us gets married, I want us to invite one another.
Sure. No hesitation. She couldn’t conceive of leaving tomorrow, let alone marriage. Why, you have someone in mind?
They finished eating, cuddled on the couch fully clothed. Their time left in each other’s arms was measured now in hours. Tessa, no one deserves to have a good life more than you.
We all deserve a good life.
I mean it. I hope—god, she could barely finish—I hope that when I’m gone you—you—
Quiet now. Only her head on Edith’s chest. Heartbeats bounding through them. You’ve been everything I needed you to be.
A lie—it had to be—but a kind one. Only, what if Tessa didn’t want things to end? What if she was waiting for Edith to sit up and say, No, actually, she wasn’t ready to move on. That if she wanted a good life, that would be a life with Tessa. Maybe—
It was too late for that. The next day would find them on the hill outside their apartment, saying We can’t stand here forever. For now, the sun was down. Might it never rise.