Page 58 of Isn't It Obvious?
Talking so much
Elle
You’re probably right. I don’t think I can make myself stop feeling like this if we’re texting every day. Maybe we stick to email?
Ravi
That’s probably a good idea
Elle
I’m sorry
I wish it wasn’t like this
Ravi
I’m sorry too.
I guess this is it, then. I’ll miss you, Elle
Elle
I’ll miss you, too
Ravi feels his heart in his throat, tears pricking his eyes. He stares at his phone for a while, but no new message comes, because there’s nothing more to say.
It was always going to end this way, he guesses. With him hollowed out and disappointed, mostly in himself.
YAEL LEANS BACKin her chair, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand.It’s better like this, she tells herself. It has to be.
She’ll be okay, soon enough. She’s never met Kevin. She doesn’t even know his real name. There have been heartbreaks far worse, ones that have dropped her into a place that seemed impossible to crawl out of, and she’s survived all of them. There’s still Charlie to worry about: how she’s going to talk to him about Ravi tomorrow.
There have been bigger heartbreaks, she tells herself.There will be bigger heartbreaks again.
Shewillbe okay, but tonight she can let herself cry.
And so she does, as she brushes her teeth, takes her lamotrigine, and climbs under her covers. She doesn’t really stop until she falls asleep, her tears wetting the pillowcase.
Yael wakes up the next morning an hour before her alarm with a splitting headache. When her coffee isn’t curative, she knows she’s in for a long day. She takes some naproxen, which will dull the pain, but this is the kind of headache where the rest of it—the fogginess, the vague pulsing, the tightness in her neck—are here to stay until she can finally go back to sleep.
Even with her bit of stumbling around the dimly lit kitchen while she waits for the meds to kick in, she’s ready before she usually gets up. Before Sanaa should be at work, even. Yael texts her asking if she can call, scribblesthank you for the soup, talk tonight?on the notepad on the refrigerator, and hauls herself outside.
It’s only just daybreak, but the sky is cloudless, a promise of sun. Her phone rings,LOML <3 <3 <3 <3 <3flashing across her screen.
“You’re up early,” Sanaa says the moment Yael answers. “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” Yael croaks.
“Alright, I’m gonna walk instead of taking the subway. Let’s hear it.”
“I’ll say this first part for context, but I don’t really want advice, okay?” Sanaa makes a noise of assent. “I’ve been talking to my editor every day for weeks now, and not in a professional capacity, and I think I fell a little bit in love with him, which I recognize was ill-advised for myriad reasons that I don’t need you to recite to me—”
“I won’t,” Sanaa says. “At least not while you’re actively in distress. You might get an itemized list from me later today, though.”
“But whatever we were doing,” Yael continues, “it’s over now, so we can just do the podcast, and I’m sad, but it’s the right thing, so I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay… no list, then. What’s the second part?”
