Or was it day 3? or 14? I'm not sure when to start counting.
Do I start from that initial conversation two weeks prior, which ended with us deciding that it was probably best not to continue our relationship? No, because the rest of the day we spent in each other's arms, just gazing at one another; and the next day he dutifully downed my glass of tomato juice which his sweet ol' grandma serves to all her lunch guests; and then we spent the rest of the day strolling hand in hand through Montreal's Botanical Gardens, taking sickly couple photos, and, sometime around the Japanese Pavillion, admitting aloud what we'd both been feeling all day long: "I want to be with you". On a honeymoon high, I charged my credit card with two one-way flights to the Midwestern city in which I'd been studying for the past year, some 900+ miles away from the city in which he'd been studying in that year. We planned to spend the month of August in Midwestern City, just like we had last August, when together we painted every single wall and ceiling in my new apartment…during a heat wave…without A/C. So no, definitely not day 14.
Maybe that day--the day I boarded a flight to Midwestern City solo--was actually day 3. Two days prior, we had revisited the conversation, and four hours later we reached the same conclusion that we had two weeks earlier. But there was no going back this time. Knowing that our clock was ticking down, we spent the next two days affectionally joined at the hip, except for the twenty minutes when I excused myself to call Expedia and change the reservation from two to one. Hundreds of miles would separate us soon enough, and we just wanted to be us for a little while longer. So we stayed up until our eyes failed us, held each other all night long, lazed around in bed longer than usual, and had great sex. When he dropped me off at the airport, it wasn't as difficult to say goodbye as I had expected. We had said it all to one another in the last two days. And besides, we agreed to remain best friends, so it wasn't really the end, right? So no, it wasn't day 3 either.
Day 1, I suppose, was when I arrived at my front doorstep in Midwestern City and realized that I'd have to haul 100 lbs of luggage up three flights of stairs all by myself. If He was there, I'd probably insist on doing it myself anyways, but the point is He wasn't there to grab the handle despite my protests and make some comment like, "Gotta be faster on the trigger, tootsie." And that's when the tears that had been streaming silently down my face since I sat at Gate A15 in YUL turned into full on sobs. I think I made it inside my flat before the desperate gasps for air started, brought on by the realization that exactly one year ago the two of us had arrived in Midwestern City to an empty apartment, save for the air mattress an acquaintance had offered up to spare us from the hardwood floors. Approximately a year prior to that, we had also arrived to a completely empty apartment, that time in a similar city in the South, where he was starting a two-year Master's program, and where I'd be living with him and playing housewife while applying to graduate schools. There was not even an air mattress that time; instead, He made a makeshift bed out of my yoga mat and the clothes contained in our three suitcases (the only things that we brought with us, having sold off everything else in our Montreal apartment). This time around I had a comfortable bed, furniture, and a stack of mail...but not Him.
Yup, that was Day 1. And it sucked.
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