something we're supposed to feel
and even when we do feel it, we still can't explain it
“I think he was in love with you. And I think you loved him too, from the very beginning.”
Good morning my angels,
It’s Thursday, February 22nd. It’s 6:01 AM. I’ve been taking my sleep gummies, because I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep. I can stay asleep, no problem. But it’s the closing of the eyes, and drifting off into dreamland, that I’m having a hard time with.
I can blame this on many things. Period Insomnia - which is the worst. My newfound TikTok obsession. Maybe it’s late dinners. Maybe I’m not eating enough, maybe I’m not meditating enough. But, at the root of it all, I know it’s because I am, just maybe, the tiniest bit sad.
I’ll set the scene for you, like I do with every letter. I’m curled up on my friend’s sofa, with a navy blanket spread across my lap. There’s an espresso beside me. It’s my second attempt at making one, since I burned the first 5 AM pot. I have these sparkly orange eye gel patches under my eyes. Anti-aging and illuminating. Important. I’m waiting until 7 to place my Starbucks order. Sometimes you really just need a giant coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich delivered directly to your door.
-
It’s been a few months since I’ve last seen my therapist. Since October, we’ve calculated. Almost four months have passed. We’ve been by the sea, we’ve been in Rome. We’ve been home, we’ve been back to Rome again. And now, we’re in Milan.
So, naturally, I had a lot to fill her in on.
I started from the very beginning, I started with my apology text to PN. My friendship with the Man At The Front. “I don’t know what happened in between me leaving for the sea, and me coming back after Christmas. But I think he just…completely fell in love.” I told her about New Years Eve, about being called “baby Emily”, and how much fun I had hanging with the Man at the Front outside. I told her how PN would come outside to ask if I was coming inside. And I told her the amount of smoke breaks he took, but I felt like it was mainly to watch me, to assert something. I told her about how those 2 strangers thought me and him were dating. I told her how he asked the Man at the Front, “Where’s that crazy girl?”, and how he later told me that he meant “crazy in a good way” (to which she rolled her eyes). I told her that the Man at the Front said PN’s just mad because he wants me and can’t have me (to which she nodded in agreement), and I told her how, amidst all of this, I still ended up telling PN that I’ve always had feelings for him.
No matter how hard I tried to forget him through Peter Pan, through the Man at The Front, and through a few others. How far I’d run, how far I’d go to distract. I had always felt something.
“And I just needed…to set myself free. You know?”
She nods. “Absolutely. And what did he say?”
“He told me that I needed to go to Milan. And he made me promise that I was going to keep taking these experiences, these adventures, and that I needed to keep writing about them. And then I just…I just lost it. I cried in the bathroom. I cried outside. The Man at the Front asked me what was wrong, and he was sympathetic at first. He gave me tissues, and then he started to go on about how he had wished I told him about how I felt about PN. And I think all of these things started to click in his mind. Like puzzle pieces. The growing tension between the both of them. And he started to realize how much I felt for PN, and how I didn’t feel the same way about him. I told him that my biggest fear was that I meant nothing to PN, that I was just another girl. And it was bizarre, because the MATF started to give me this speech about how I wasn’t “just another girl”. And then he asked me how I felt about him. And I was confused, since clearly, I’m crying to him about another man. So I basically told him it didn’t matter how I felt about him, and he looked at me and said: “I was wrong about you. You are just like every other girl who comes here for him.” He went inside. And then I really couldn’t stop crying.
Who needs Netflix, honestly?
She’s disgusted. “And that statement was designed specifically to hurt you. He knew that. It was the one thing he could have said that was really going to get under your skin.”
I nod. “Exactly. But I’m not surprised.”
“Well, because you know where it came from. Jealousy.”
“Yup. And now, PN is leaving the bar.”
“WHAT?” Her jaw drops.
No, but seriously. Who needs Netflix?
“He wrote a post. A few days ago. He’s leaving.”
“Okay. Emily. I was not expecting this ending.”
“Trust me, neither was I. Neither were my friends. We all had a feeling something was going on…but we never thought we’d see the day.” My best friend immediately FaceTimed me at 7 AM when we found out. “Emily. I had a dream. I had a dream of all of us. And he was painting this…this doorway.” I still have chills.
“How are you, really? This is all…so much. And it’s all still so fresh.”
That’s all we ever need to be asked, isn’t it?
Those four words: How are you, really?
The drama, it’s ridiculous. It’s insane. It’s another world. But it is too much to handle and navigate on one’s own. Everyone else’s emotions. The jealousy. The passion. The anger. All of the suppressed feelings. How you become a mirror for someone else’s unhappiness.
How are you, really?
-
“You know, I thought I was saving him, and doing him a favour. By ending it. I thought I was setting him free, by acting like I couldn’t care less. Acting indifferent. Pretending like … I was just another customer at the bar. I thought we could be friends. And he acted like it was the absolute worst thing that I could have ever done to him. For years. I thought he hated me.”
“Oh, no, Emily. That’s really not it. It’s love, in its own toxic way. He loved you, and he thought that the jealousy and possessiveness was the only way he could show that to you.”
“That’s…really not healthy.”
It’s a Monday night. I’ve decided to take myself on an Emily Mais date. The first one in months. My friend sent me this gorgeous bar, with green velvet seats and dangling chandeliers. I’m on my second Lambrusco spritz.
I’m telling the man beside me the full story. He’s a few years older than me, from a small town in Sicily. He works in the food and drink industry, and told me he’s lived in London for the past eleven years.
“No, it’s really not healthy at all. The South of Italy…it can be a different world. A really different world.” He shakes his head. “The mentality there. But you know what feels worse than hate?
“What?”
“Indifference.”
-
“I’ve been having a really hard time getting out of bed the past few weeks.” I tell my therapist. “Of even leaving the house. And I feel so guilty about it. Milan is so beautiful. But I try to do it. I force myself to. I go on long walks, and I go on dates, which I’m proud of myself for doing. I go shopping. I took myself to a beautiful bar the other night and then went out to dinner with a man I had met there. But it all just feels…”
“Heavy. And it’s really all a part of grief. That bar, those men, it was such…it was such a fixture of your life in Rome.”
I cried every single day for 3 weeks, after that night happened. Every. Single. Day. I would get these flashbacks. The hostess who always knew to seat me in that corner spot. How, no matter who was working behind the bar, if they were new staff or old - they’d know it was always “Dirty with Vodka.” I’d think about how PN would put my martini in the fridge if I was talking to the Man at the Front for too long. I thought about how everyone double kissed each other on New Years Eve. And I thought about how many nights I’d stare up at that tower in the centre of the parking lot with the Man at the Front, my head resting on the arm of his wool coat. I’d look up at his 6’4 frame and smile.
“We have fun, don’t we?”
“I love my job. I get paid to talk to you.”
And I thought about the first time I went in. My leather jacket and black silk dress. That corner spot. My nerves. His eyes. And those accidental 5 hours I spent with him at the bar that night. A reservation at 7, and home by midnight.
I thought about how the routine would become me setting my purse down on the counter. Him approaching. The tilt of my head, and my green eyes looking up at that tattooed frame. “Can I ask you something?”
I thought about becoming his Emy. I thought about the fight we had in front of my friends, after he saw The Man at the Front kiss me last summer. I thought about me storming out. I thought about him apologizing to my best friend. I thought about how he kept repeating, “But I know her. I know her. I know her. I’ve known her for a long time.” I thought about telling her I wish I had never met him. And I thought about her wiping away my tears and telling me, “That isn’t true. At all. And you know it.”
I thought about him apologizing. I thought about me telling him, “You care only about optics. What everyone else around you thinks.” And I thought about him telling me, “No, Emily. I only care about what you think.”
And I think about that final night. That look of relief that washed over him, when I looked into his eyes and said those words: “I will always appreciate you.”
Home. He was always there.
And now he won’t be.
And it’s hard for me to express that to a lot of people. To explain it. Because the immediate response is always, “What an asshole”, when I talk about PN.
But…our story. It wasn’t about him being an asshole. It was really about…
“Love.” My therapist says.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Exactly.”
“I think he was in love with you. I do. And I think you loved him too, from the very beginning. You both shared this connection, and I don’t think anyone will ever understand the depth of it, except the two of you. All roads, it always led you back to the bar. Back to him. And I think he was so frustrated at his own situation. Of how he wanted to pursue you, but he knew he couldn’t. And I think he was scared of his own feelings. Of how he felt towards you, of why he felt that way towards you. For so long. The other girls…they were a distraction for him. It was all a distraction.”
I’m silent for a few moments. She understands. She really understands it all.
“And maybe it all had to happen like this. He was meant to leave the bar, and you were meant to…”
“Have this story.” I smile.
“Love. It’s not something we’re meant to explain…”
“I know. It’s something we’re supposed to feel.”
“But even when we do feel it, we still can’t explain it.”