The Ex Vows

by Jessica Joyce

Sometimes I swear adulthood is staring at your phone and wondering which of your friends has enough time to deal with your latest emotional meltdown, then realizing none of them do.

If you need an out, tell me and I’ll do whatever you need. Help you figure out how to do the best-people stuff separately, let someone else take over, whatever.” All I hear is, you won’t be around if you’re too much.

“You’re more beautiful than ever. Isn’t she, Eli?” I let out what’s supposed to be a carefree laugh; it sounds like I’m choking. “Oh, he doesn’t—” “Yes.” Eli’s response is immediate.

I tend to be a mirror anyway; whatever time someone has to give me is what I give back in an attempt to be unobtrusive.

“I don’t have a making-a-list face.” “You do,” he says with a small affectionate smile, like this is real. “It’s one of your many faces.” “What, are you counting my faces?” “Got a whole list of them.”

I lay in bed for hours, my roaring thoughts too loud for New Girl to drown out,

Shes so me

It was stupid of me not to see it coming, how his job would swallow him whole and give him everything he wanted: rock-solid stability, control over the trajectory of his own life, and a place to call home, one that wouldn’t get taken away. He’d make sure of it.

It’s a gift to know someone when you’re in love with them, and a curse when you’re out of it.

“He abandoned her for a ‘thing.’ He was all over the place on the phone, too,” Margot says, shaking her head. “I don’t understand you kids these days. You’ll settle for crumbs.”

The last thing I want to do is keep failing and live alongside all the memories of Eli and I at our happiest while he’s acting so strange.

when we were best friends and even in the first couple years of our relationship, he just got me. It’s why things were so much harder when it all went bad; I could measure it against when things were good.

“I’m just wondering why you’re willing to take that conversation on alone.” “Because I know it’ll kill you to disappoint him.” He gives me a small, wooden smile as he pulls his phone from the pocket of his backpack, nestled next to his suitcase. “And because I’m used to it.”

Maybe it’s just like going back to visit a home that isn’t yours anymore. Maybe you don’t have the key, but someone lets you in anyway, and you stay awhile, and it feels so good just to be somewhere you once belonged.

Nothing I’ve cared about most has been tied up with a pretty bow before it was given away. It’s all been messy. It’s made me wish and need and crave. And it turns me into this—a girl in a broken dress, crying alone in a bathroom.

“But god, Georgia,” he says, his voice growing thick. “I’m so fucking happy. We could’ve been doing this at Meadowcrest with perfect weather and, like, electricity.” His wet laughter joins mine. “But this is my home, you know? Everything’s a mess, but it is perfect in its weird way.”

Time is cruel and a miracle all in one swoop. It shows you what you had, and sometimes brings it back to you, but it’s always different.

“Jamie, what the hell? You promised you wouldn’t make me cry if I let you help me move up here.” “That’s on you for not knowing I was lying,”

You don’t know yet that with us it’s never goodbye. But you will, I promise.

Time is a miracle. It shows you what you had, and sometimes it brings it back to you. Different. Better.