Page 40 of Just Try, Again and Again

I don’t answer him, not because I don’t want to, but my mind is too busy studying him. My husband. The eighteen-year-old boy with the sun-kissed skin who swore up and down he didn’t want to be like his father, is now coming home from his office job at 8:30 p.m. Looking at him now—clean-shaven, styled hair, expensive suit—you wouldn’t realize that he’s living in his teenage nightmare.

“You look nice. Different,” he says, changing the subject.

Suddenly, I feel exposed. Bryce might turn out to be the person he tried so hard to avoid becoming, but I would be a hypocrite to judge him. I didn’t do much better than him. But maybe that’s how our story was always supposed to end. We were living in a fantasy bubble and we needed to grow up.We were two stupid teenagers wasting time with each other, sponsored mostly by Arthur Simmons’ credit card.

“So, you came all the way here just to not speak to me?” he says softly before he opens the front door, walking to thehallway outside. “Let’s go to my place. You can give me the silent treatment there,” he says with an expression I can’t make out. “Lily and Birdie will be home any minute.”

When he closes the door to his own apartment, my eyes directly scan the room, taking in how Bryce lives his life now as Bryce Randall Simmons, fancy head of business development of an equally fancy tech company. Aside from the stacks of what looks like homework belonging to a kid on top of his dining table, it’s sleek and clean, different from Lily’s. He must only come home to sleep; I can’t even spot a dirty glass lying around. His father must be proud of him.

“So who’s the lucky guy, Haruki?” Bryce repeats himself, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans on the wall. “If you tracked down where I live and flew here just to ask for a divorce, it must be serious. You could have just sent an email or given me a courtesy phone call.”

“There is no guy,” I admit. It’s only the end of March. Spring hasn’t even started yet, but somehow I feel the scorching heat filling up the air in the space. I tug on my turtleneck, trying to cool myself down. “And don’t act like you’d reply to an email, Bryce.”

He opens the top button of his dress shirt as he shakes his head. “No, probably not. No.”

“I understand if this comes as a shock to you, especially after us shelving the discussion for so long, but we need to start the divorce process, Bryce. You need to sign the documents.”

“We still need to hammer out the details.”

Breathe. Be direct, Haruki. Keep it short. Keep it clear. Neither of you talk in circles, there’s no need to start now.

“No, we don’t,” I say with a finality to my tone. “Our dads and their lawyers spent three years hammering out the details. You just need to sign.”

“Why are you here, Haruki?” he asks, ignoring what I just said.

“You know already, I’m here to ask for a divorce,” I repeat the sentence while rubbing my temple.

There’s an old Japanese legend, Akai ito de musubareteru(Red String Theory).Some people believe we are bound to another person by an invisible red string, forever tying our fate to theirs. The string might get tangled, pulled, or worn down, but it can never be severed. A long time ago, I thought he was my twin flame, connected to me with a string crossing oceans and continents. The universe put us both on that beach, after all. But that’s the thing about legends, isn’t it? They are just made-up stories.

“You could have called me first,” he says, and I groan inwardly.He’s still going with this. “It would have been nice to know that you were flying in from Japan. This kind of feels like an ambush. You’ve given me radio silence for two years now.”

My eyes focus on the floor, too scared to meet his. “I flew in from Denmark.”

I pause. When I look up, Bryce is looking at me, confused.

“What were you doing in Denmark?”

“I live there now.”

“You live in Denmark.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“We’ve dragged this on for too long, Bryce. You have a nice life here in Berlin and I have a wonderful life where I live. We should have done this a long time ago. Don’t try to fight me on this one, you know I’m right. Our ship has sailed.” I pull out a manila envelope from my bag and place it in front of his chest. “Please, just sign the papers.”

His phone rings, causing the both of us to jump. Bryce curses under his breath as he looks at his screen. “I have to get this,” he says. “I kind of left work in the middle of a really importantmeeting. I don’t know how long this will take, but…stay. We’ll talk.”

“It’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m in town until the end of the week,” I say, turning on my heel. “You have my contact details.” I take a look at Bryce one more time as he thins his lips, but says nothing before nodding and answering his phone.

The truth is, both of us are to blame here. The two of us should have just cut our losses the moment Bryce left Elsham Cove. We could have labeled our time as aholiday fling gone wildand remained friends after that, but Bryce and I kept on holding on to something that was only a pipe dream. I blame rom-coms for making people believe inright person, wrong time. It makes you hold on to things that aren’t real. I know I kept holding on to that light at the end of the tunnel. The light was dimmed five years ago by an action that can’t be undone.

36

Haruki - 26 years old

To say I’m nervous right now would be an understatement. There are no words to describe how all my brain cells are going into overdrive thinking about my lunch tomorrow with Bryce. Over the years, we have kept in sporadic contact—birthday wishes, holiday greetings, important life updates. For a long time, it was no more than that. I think it’s too painful for both of us. We also sent each other our new addresses every time we moved, and our new numbers every time we changed providers. But lately, we’ve been sending each other more and more messages, the stories and paragraphs getting longer with each conversation.

I posted a picture on social media this morning. Bryce must have noticed the Hollywood sign—not that it’s hard to miss—and sent me a message asking whether I was in California or not. The moment I confirmed, he asked whether it would be weird if he were to jump on a plane to meet me since he was in Elsham Cove.

He didn’t say much else after that other than to ask where I was staying so he could book a room at the same hotel, and to tell me a few hours ago that he was about to board the plane. The last-minute ticket must have cost him a fortune. But then again, this is the first time in a while that we are in the same country. If I had his money, I probably would have done the same thing.

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