The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Fifty-Two
‘So … I mean, hi,’ Fia manages. She hasn’t massively thought this through.
‘Hey!’ George replies, a touch too brightly. ‘It’s been a while!’
Fia would call two years a while. George looks different now, she notes – not radically, but small changes have an impact: the thicker eyebrows, the new cut of her jeans, the flat shoes that have recently morphed, in popular opinion, from orthopaedic and elderly to simply Scandinavian. Fia wonders if she, too, looks different, if she’s changed in ways she cannot see herself.
‘Shall we …?’ Fia suggests then, gesturing with her hand.
Down the museum steps and past the fountain, there are some little tables and chairs shaded by linden trees. On the short walk over there, she and George cover the basics. Are they each still in the same jobs? Yes. The same apartments? Yes. So, George is dating Jonathan Chestnut now, huh? Indeed, she is. And Fia’s firm was representing Alyvia, before this whole mediation thing? Also true.
Once all that’s over with, though, they seem to run swiftly out of steam.
They’re sitting down by now, sunshine glinting through the trees, and Fia thinks of the time George’s tampon leaked in the New York Public Library. Fia rushed over there with a cardigan for George to tie round her waist and George was mortified to begin with. She was laughing like a drain by the time they left, though. Fia took one for the team, approaching the stern man at the borrowers’ desk to explain how that chair ended up the way it did.
She thinks of how George taught her how to calculate a tip and explained what the word copasetic meant and told her that she really needed to throw out that one jacket; yes, it was quite cool that she’d had it since she was 17 years old, but still, it had to go.
How bewildering, for all that to be undeniably true, and at the same time, for the two of them – undeniably – to have nothing to say to one another right now.
‘Well, I can’t believe how long it’s been,’ George says, once the pause in conversation has officially tipped into discomfort. ‘So fun to catch up a little bit. We should definitely grab a drink sometime.’
Fia looks George dead in the eye, letting the suggestion hover for a second. ‘Sure,’ she answers, and in a subtle way – she must still have some capacity to read the person in front of her – she knows that George can hear what she’s not saying, loud and clear: this is complete bullshit, and we both know it.
After that, silence.
Of course, they could leave it there. Ordinarily, Fia would. A big emotional scene is not her style.
But, for the first time, it strikes her that once a person gets past the initial horror of such a thing, there is bound to be something liberating about it, too.
She thinks about Alyvia and Jonathan, their willingness to let a stranger root around in their most private business this morning, merely in the hope that something better might be possible on the other side.
She thinks, by contrast, about Benjamin Lowry, who hasn’t even bothered to show up.
And, suddenly, Fia’s just not content to linger in the subtext any longer. If this is the one chance she ever gets, with George, she wants to take it.
‘… Did I hurt you?’ she asks, into the silence, the question almost unbearably simple when uttered aloud. ‘If I did, I’m sorry. And I’m listening. Now’s the time to tell me about it.’
For another second, there’s quiet. Fia feels like her heart stops inside her chest as she waits for what will come next.
Then, George lets out a self-conscious little chuckle. ‘What? No! Oh my God! What are you talking about?’
On the opposite side of the table, Fia lets her breath release. Maybe she should be pleased to hear that – and maybe she is, in a way. Maybe it would have been hard to hear about some huge transgression on the part of her past self.
Mostly, though, Fia finds that she is not pleased. Instead, she is struck by sadness, by a profound sense of finality. You can’t have a conversation with someone who is only going to act like you’re crazy. If there exists any explanation as to why things fell apart between the two of them, she can see clearly now that George is not going to provide it – not today, not ever. That theory Fia had borrowed from Benjamin, back in the hospital in Dublin, is probably the best one she’s ever going to get. Sometimes, a person just doesn’t love you as much as you love them.
‘You know, it’s interesting,’ she finds herself murmuring. ‘You were actually the second person in my life who ghosted me. And now you’re the second one who’s turned back up again.’ That Benjamin evidently never planned on hanging about for too long, even the second time around … she doesn’t feel the need to mention that part. She just continues. ‘You remember me telling you about Benjamin Lowry? The guy I married in Las Vegas?’
Fia waits for the other girl’s nod.
‘He joined my law firm this summer. So that’s been … interesting.’
And if there’s a slight sense, now, that George’s curiosity is piqued … well, good, Fia finds herself thinking. Let her wonder.
She imagines she could capitalize on it – she would not be the first person to use the base human interest in gossip as a lever, as the means of cracking open an intimacy. She could rehash the whole saga right here and now on 5th Avenue, seek George’s comfort or advice or comedy.
What Fia realizes, though – what she realizes this very second – is that she doesn’t actually need any of that from the person before her. Whether out of habit or genuine desire, she’s certainly wanted George’s input at various points this summer. But she doesn’t want it anymore.
‘The thing is, with Ben, that should have been worse on paper, right?’ she continues. ‘I mean, he was my husband. You say that word, people take it seriously. That’s a relationship that’s supposed to be exclusive. Permanent. It has legal impact. But, actually, for me? It was so much worse when you disappeared.’
She pauses for breath, somewhat unable to believe she’s really admitting that out loud. In a certain way, the vulnerability feels good, though. Just as she’d begun to half-suspect it might, it feels like freedom.
‘You’ve made me think I don’t know what’s real, or that nothing will ever last. I’ve driven myself crazy trying to figure out what went wrong, between us. I literally dream about you sometimes.’ She halts again, offers a little shrug. ‘And, look, maybe you’ll go out for cocktails tonight and repackage all this. Maybe you’ll say you bumped into this girl you used to know, and she was so intense and self-obsessed, or she was obsessed with you, or … whatever. That’s your business. I’m sure you have your take on all this, and I can’t make you share it with me. But I’m just telling you how it’s been for me.’
Sitting across from her, George looks like a rabbit in the headlights now. ‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ she replies uneasily.
And, honestly, Fi can’t call it. She doesn’t know if George’s struggle is that she has taken in everything Fia’s just said or that she hasn’t – that, somehow, she simply isn’t equipped to. It probably doesn’t matter. As it turns out, Fia can give catharsis, some sort of closure, to herself. She’s been doing that – slowly, slowly, at her own pace – even before today.
‘Those first couple of years, living here in the city, I needed you,’ Fia says softly, and the smile that rises to her lips is a genuine one. ‘I’m so happy we were friends. We had so much fun.’
A flicker seems to pass over George’s face – a spark of recognition – and it lets Fia know: that’s true. She at least gets to keep that. She gets to know it wasn’t all a lie, between the two of them. That’s something.
‘Even after I didn’t need you anymore, I wanted you in my life,’ Fia continues. ‘Obviously, that’s not how it’s worked out. Sometimes, things just aren’t meant to be forever, I suppose. But, yeah …’ Fia trails off. And this time, in the raise of her eyebrow, the tone of her voice, she knows it’s perfectly clear that she’s the one who doesn’t mean it at all: ‘We should grab a drink sometime.’
With that, Fia pushes back her chair. She gets up from the little table, turns on her heel, and she starts walking. Her high heels click against the concrete as she goes, and she’s sure she can feel George’s eyes on her retreating back all the while. With every step, her heart seems to beat faster, every inch of her like one big ball of nervous energy.
Already, she has to fight not to replay the interaction in her mind, not to think about how she could or should have handled it differently. She handled it how she handled it. And, though there are tinges of sadness in the mix, mostly – as Fia keeps walking, as she takes a few deep breaths in and out – what she feels is something close to euphoria. It rises and spreads, extending all the way to her fingers and toes.
It makes her want to do things.
And, suddenly, Fia knows, right as she passes the entrance to the Met, that she isn’t going inside.
There’s another conversation she needs to have right now instead.