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Forty seven days and nineteen hours had passed ever since she’s left. It’s been almost fifty five days since she said she found a man and she was leaving their studio for good. After all they’ve been through, she replaces them for a man. “It’s better for my career.”
Tamara begged to differ.
They’ve had plenty of fall-outs, none as bad as this time. Despite indulging in relationships from time to time, coming back to their roots was just the right amount of messed up normalcy they called acquaintanceship between one another. And it felt enough. And there was nothing needed to be changed.
Why would Tori disrupt this consistency? Why would it affect Tamara the way it did?
Lying on the floor with a half-empty bottle of straight vodka on the side, she strums away on her bass, taking breaks in the meantime to take a swig of the alcohol and stare at the ceiling without any purpose.
She still felt the ungodly presence of Norwegian in her apartment. Felt her gaze bore into her back, full of judgment and despise. And yet, even that would feel better than where she is now. Alone, wallowing in self-pity, barely awake, her consciousness blurry, sloshed by the liquid burning within her. She’s slowly drowning, going down further and further.
What was so special about them that she craved it more than ever? Did she enjoy romanticizing her misery when she was alone? She would never admit to anyone that she missed Tori. So why would she feel betrayed by the woman’s choices? It was her life, she never really cared about her in the first place.
So what if they used each other in ways no one would ever understand? They weren’t tied down in the first place, Tamara had no right feeling jealous of a man. Tori wasn’t her property. Tori was her personal hell. There was no happiness in what they had. They were doomed from the start.
From the day Tamara had leaned on her for the first time on the benches in PE class. She knew it would be doomed.
From the way Tori expressed her distaste for the genre of music the other was into. She knew they would’ve never clicked.
From the first fight that exploded out of nowhere on the kids’ playground, with Tamara’s head buried in the soiled sand, stained with fresh blood that oozed out of her nose, as Tori looked like she was about to blow a second hit to her face before stopping in her tracks, staring down at her bruised mug with dangerously shrunk pupils sunk in by the bored silver irises, seemingly shaking as she took in the sight under her with a sudden surprise. They would never get along.
From their first experiment back in college, in Tamara’s room that she shared with another girl who was never present anyway, always out in the library, head buried into books, the Brit knew, she knew this was only a form of escapism for the two of them.
Tamara had liked many women in her life. She had loved several women, too. She had had hope with some of them, a hope for a bright future, a future where she would belong and her life would finally turn for the better. She would become a famous singer, have a band and organize tours around the world where she would give concerts and be loved by many people. All while her beloved would stay by her side. Maybe she would date another member of her band and be inseparable with her.
Perhaps when she becomes a star, she can drop the fame and move away somewhere far away from society, to a cozy cottage by the mountains, where it’s never too cold but not too hot. She would live with her one and only, surrounded by trees. They would have enough money to never have to work another day. No children, maybe just one dog. Or two. Or maybe even a cat. Anywhere where she wouldn’t be stuck in a cycle she’s in now.
She had grieved plenty of failed relationships with the women she thought were special. She’d had many “the ones” and may have even had her second God. It wouldn’t be surprising to find Tamara in a self-destructive mood after another one was gone.
Nothing could have prepared her for this. To grieve over someone who she’d never considered a friend? So what if she was one of the only things that were consistent in her life. She could understand the complications over losing Ell or Matilda, they were very dear to her and she would never know what she would do without them. But Tori? She didn’t even pay much mind to her in the first place.
A sharp headache snapped her out of her daydream, her mind too hazy to not get double vision when she attempted to take one look at her surroundings. Her lightheaded state didn’t help with focus, so she barely managed to haul herself up from the floor and waddle over to her bed where she shut her eyes closed and patiently waited for the fuzzy thoughts to mellow down.
Now that she was vulnerable and open, on the brink of blacking out, one thought proved to be too stubborn to go away in the end.
She needed to hear her voice once more. She needed to call her.
Two months from now, Tori receives an unexpected call from none other than Brit. She’d pick up the phone but she knew this wasn’t going to be a normal call. Not since she saw the way Brit reacted to the news of her departure. Just the memory of her frown was enough to make her second-guess.
She continues staring intently at the ringing phone the whole time, waiting for it to go to voicemail. Then, the room falls into a momentary silence, followed by a message.
“You have one voicemail.”
With a heavy mind, Tori gets up from the couch and presses the delete button.
“Your voicemail was deleted.”