The coward's way out, maybe

When I got back home later, I wasn’t surprised to see that Charley had left. And she didn’t come over the next day, either.

By Wednesday, when I hadn’t received a single message from her since the week before, it was becoming increasingly clear that our argument had finally made her lose hope that she could course-correct our relationship. I couldn’t help but wonder what that was like for her, too – Charley wasn’t exactly overly familiar with failure.

Anyway, by this point it was obvious that if I was going to talk to her, like Max suggested, I would need to be the one to make the move.

I stewed over it pretty much every waking moment for the remainder of my time in London. And in character, the week passed without me being able to figure out what I wanted to do. My flight was Monday morning, and Saturday came by without any progress.

But then, Saturday evening, I got a text. Not from Charley, though. From Kate - the Australian girl from my dorm.

Hey Luke, hope your break is going well. Not sure if you remember, but we briefly talked about how you might be able to work in Australia after graduation? It turns out my older brother actually works with a guy who came over from London at his firm in Sydney, so I could put you in touch with him if you wanted to ask about it. Anyway, we can talk about it when you get back to Tokyo if you’d like.

See you soon!

And with the idea brought up again, slowly becoming more and more material, I realized something.

I could just skip the step where I went to see Charley and listened to her tell me once again that she didn’t look at me that way, or that even if she did it would just lead to a shitshow that would completely ruin our lives. That the ‘plan’ simply didn’t allow for it. I already knew all of it, and I was just so worn down from thinking and hearing about it.

Instead … I could just make the decision to give up. Walk away from this. Come back from Japan, finish my last year of uni in London, and then just leave it all behind. Not just for six months, or a year. Forever. That had been kind of been along the same lines as my plan after all, way back when I thought she would stay in the US after she graduated. A lot had happened since then, of course … and yet it wasn’t like I was in that different of a position to the one I was in before last Summer.

I could start messaging her on her birthday again, say thanks when she did the same for me. I could fly back once in a blue moon for a cousin’s wedding or something, **** down any resurfacing feelings for a day while we caught up about our lives apart.

That, I could manage. She had said the other day that she needed me to be in her life. Well … pathetic as I was, this felt like the best I could do for her.

At the time, I had no idea how things would shake out during my final year in London, but it definitely didn’t seem like anything was going to happen before Monday. Although I already knew Mum wasn’t going to pass up forcing the family into one last dinner the day before I left.

I just had that to get through. And then … six more months. Six more months, and then forever apart. I guess that was what it had all come to.