So ... long distance is a bitch

My second semester in Japan started off weirdly similar to my first, but for completely different reasons.

When I had first arrived last September, I was still sorting through the shitstorm of hurt and regret from the way Charley and I had ended things and had only just been able to get through it all because of the crazy excitement of being in such a cool new place with all the amazing people I’d met. Now, I had kind of settled into the new environment so the novelty of being in Tokyo was sort of wearing off; what was very far from wearing off however was the novelty of knowing Charley loved me, and that we were actually together.

It got to the point where I started to get quite a lot of questions from my friends on exchange – and it didn’t help that I really couldn’t get into any details about who it was I was seeing. Charley and I hadn’t exactly been readily snapping pictures of what we were up to last Summer, especially given that we had spent ninety-nine percent of our time together indoors. And she had Instagram of course, but there were a couple family photos in there I wasn’t sure I wanted to risk trying to explain my way out of.

I basically just had to vaguely describe a nameless, faceless girl whose relationship we were keeping on the down low. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was walking on air to a comical degree, I don’t think anyone would have believed me, and rightfully so; even with that a few people remained skeptical.

Charley and I had been facetiming every few days since I arrived back in Japan, and when the topic finally turned to my difficulties she helped me out by laughing in my face.

“You’re right though, I guess we really were quite careful back then. Not a single photo that looks even remotely non-familial.” Charley had gotten out her phone to look through her Instagram herself now, and she suddenly frowned. “Aw. I forgot to post anything when I was blonde.”

All of a sudden, I remembered the question I’d had when I saw her for the first time again coming back from my first semester in Tokyo. “Why did you dye it back?”

Charley hesitated, just for a moment. “Well, I…”

The split-second pause was all the confirmation I needed. “I knew it!” I cackled triumphantly. “It was because of me!”

“Hey! Don’t get cocky!” she exclaimed. She was lucky this was over video call, because it meant could only just see her blushing. “It would have been a good strategy, if you hadn’t been obsessed with me for over a decade.”

I ignored her retort. “I can so see you brainstorming at your desk, realizing that the missing ingredient in your master plan to bring me back in line just had to be your hair color,” I snickered.

“Oh, shut it,” Charley grumbled, holding up her middle finger at me. “Your friends really don’t believe you’re seeing someone?”

I shrugged, still unable to stop smiling but graciously allowing her to change the topic. “I can’t exactly blame them. I’m like that one kid back when we were younger who’d claim he had a girlfriend who went to another school. What am I supposed to say? ‘Trust me guys, I have a hot, older girlfriend back in London but no, I have no pictures or any other evidence of her existence.’”

Charley didn’t respond for a good few seconds, long enough to where I thought the call had cut out for a moment. “…Did you just call me your girlfriend?” she asked quietly.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean…” I paused. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what it was I hadn’t meant. But I suddenly realized that by nature of the long-distance thing, and the fact we weren’t exactly going around spreading word far and wide about our relationship, it probably had been the first time I’d said the actual word in front of her.

“You don’t have to apologize.” Charley smiled. “I like it. A lot.”

Now I felt my own face getting warm. “Okay.”

Unfortunately, that warm feeling didn’t last very long. I wasn’t sure why, but the mood of our conversation seemed to suddenly shift. All of a sudden, Charley’s smile withered away.

“I really miss you, Luke.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, I … I miss you too.”

I wasn’t really sure what to say after that, and we ended up sitting in silence for a few seconds. The call suddenly felt kind of somber.

Eventually, Charley cleared her throat and shot me a smile that was very clearly forced. “Anyway, you should get to class, and I should get some sleep. Talk to you later?”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight,” I replied, my mouth dry. I closed my laptop, and even though it was nighttime in London, not here, I felt drained like I’d already been awake the whole day.

I hoped that the weird melancholic feeling of that call was just a one off, but that turned out to be far from true. It had always been quite difficult to coordinate when we could call each other because of the time difference and Charley’s job, but as the days and weeks rolled by it seemed to get even harder. I was always glad to see her and talk to her, but every time the call would get strangely tired and despondent pretty quickly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the ten thousand miles between us was at least partly to blame, especially considering how abruptly everything had happened just before I left.

And through it all, there was one topic that seemed to get more and more untouchable as time went on: our parents. The last time either of us had spoken to them was the day Dad walked in on us all the way back in mid-March; two months later, neither of us had gotten so much as a text from either of them. It was getting harder and harder to not think about, but the more time that went by without us talking about it the harder it was to bring it up with each other, too.

As May was coming to a close, things weren’t looking that bright. My exchange didn’t end until the very end of July, so it was still going to be a while until I was scheduled to fly back to London. I had always heard from people that long distance was a bitch – but it was one thing to hear it while never having been in a serious relationship, and another thing to go through it a single day into the only serious relationship I would ever want in my life. There was a small comfort in that for the first time the issues in my relationship with Charley were pretty standard, but that being said, it didn’t take long before I was itching to do something about it.

And so, a week into June, right after one of Charley and my calls ended in the same weird energy that it always had recently, I ended up impulse buying plane tickets to London.

For the very next day.