I take my tea and settle onto my new bed beside Stevie, determined to get some words down. Picking up my laptop again, I mull over Cat’s idea to blog about being single in the city. It could work, I suppose.
I’m about to open up my browser and sign into my blog when I notice that Emily is on Skype. We’ve been texting but I haven’t spoken to her properly since that first day in Starbucks. I click on the icon to call her and a second later her face lights up my screen.
“Hi!” Her cobalt-blue eyes are bright, her shiny blond hair pulled up in its usual ponytail. Just seeing her face makes me miss her.
I adjust my screen so the camera catches me properly. “Hey.”
“Are you having a blast over there? How’s it going?”
“Good,” I say, unable to contain the grin pulling at my mouth. I grab Stevie and hold her up to the camera. “Meet my new roommate. Cat asked me to move in.”
“Oh!” Emily’s smile widens. “That’s fantastic. She’s great, isn’t she? And Stevie is so cute.”
I nod happily, setting Stevie back down. She curls her tiny body into a warm ball against my leg.
“So tell me everything. What’s been happening?”
I fill her in on the past few weeks: the wedding dress ordeal, Geoff giving me the job at the bookstore, meeting Mel and getting inspired for my writing. But I pause at this point as Michael’s mocking face flashes into my mind again.
“What is it?” Emily asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Nothing. I just…” I let out a sigh as I reach for my cup of tea on the nightstand. “There’s this guy—”
“Ooh!”
“No.” I hold my hand up. “No ‘ooh.’ Because he’s a total dick.”
She scrunches her pretty button nose. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. I mean, he’s gorgeous.”
Emily raises her eyebrows, smiling playfully.
“But he’s rude and arrogant and cynical,” I add, before she gets any ideas. “And the worst part is, he lives upstairs from me, so I keep running into him.” My mind drifts to him showing up at the bookstore today, and how he claimed he’d forgotten I worked there. What was that about? Did he actually forget, or did he seek me out just to taunt me? I shake my head to clear the thought and focus my attention back on Emily. “Anyway. How are you?”
“Oh, you know, same old.” She laughs, but it sounds hollow.
“What’s going on?”
“I got passed over for a promotion that I was pretty sure I was going to get.”
Emily has been working in marketing for years. I’m not entirely sure what she does, but it’s something to do with sports or athletic gear… I think.
“Oh that sucks, I’m so sorry.” I make a face. “Did they say why?”
“Nah. But it might be time for me to move on from this company soon anyway. I’m over all the politics.” She’s quiet for a moment. “So… did you, um, hear about Travis?”
“No. What happened?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she says, glancing away from the screen.
I roll my eyes as I take a sip of tea. She’s hopeless. “Come on, Em. What is it?”
“Okay. He has a new girlfriend.”
I lower my tea, feeling a strange sting. I haven’t been thinking about him much since I’ve arrived in the city but this is kind of a surprise. A new girlfriend, already? It’s only been a month! Must be some exotic woman he’s met while on his travels.
“Oh,” I say eventually. “Well… good for him.” I take another sip of my tea, ignoring the tightness in my chest. Here I was thinking I’d mostly moved on from Travis, but the mention of him with someone else has me feeling a bit ruffled.
“Yeah,” Emily says. “She lives here, though.”
“How’s that going to work?”
Emily clears her throat, chewing her nail. “Well, he’s not going overseas anymore.”
“Wait. I thought he’d already gone?”
“Er, no. And now he’s not going at all.”
“What?” I rub my forehead. “How do you know all this?”
“Your mum told me. Apparently she was talking to his mum, and he said he fell in love with this chick really quickly and can’t leave her now, or some bullshit.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” She cringes. “Sorry, hon.”
“I can’t fucking believe this,” I say through gritted teeth. “He dumped me because he wanted to travel and live this amazing life, then a month later he falls in love with someone else and isn’t going?”
“I know,” Emily says, nodding vigorously. “What a dick.”
I nod too. And then, to my surprise, I hear myself laughing. This is kind of funny. Maybe not in an obvious way, but it is. I moved all the way over here because he told me I was living a small life. Well, I’ve certainly proved him wrong, haven’t I? And the irony of this whole thing is that he’s still there, living a small life. Just with someone else now.
The laughter dies in my throat as hurt settles over me. He said he was leaving me because he wanted a bigger life, but now he’s staying there. And that means it wasn’t our life that wasn’t enough for him—it was me.
I look down at my tea, feeling stupid. If I wasn’t enough for Travis, then there’s no way I could ever be like the chic women of New York. I come from a tiny town that no one has ever heard of, in a country that most people assume is part of Australia. I wear clothes from discount chain stores, or thrift stores when I find them in my size. I only own one pair of heels. I don’t get Brazilian waxes or manicures. I don’t go to spin classes or Bikram yoga or pilates. I only, just the other day, learned that Fendi is a designer and not a car manufacturer. I’d never thought much about these things before, but after being dumped and then thrust into the glamor of New York, I just feel like a dork with my funny accent and lack of sophistication.
And that
