▪️Saturday, February 13th, 2018▪️

▪️Chicago, IL▪️

I give her space. I detach myself from her life, even though that's the last thing I'd like to do. The opposite of my instincts, the most painful thing I can imagine doing, but if that's what she needs, I'll do it for her. I'll do anything she wishes, no matter how counterintuitive. So I remove any reminders and mentions of Angie from my life. I mute her Instagram feed. I block Google from showing me any news about her. I change my home screen to an old picture of Mom, Louka, and me from last year. Before Angie. When I thought my existence could be picture-perfect.

Like with the diet advice, I clean my life's pantry of Angie's presence. I ignore the chain that hangs slack from my heart, and resist tugging on it to find out if it's still attached on the other end. I can't allow myself to fall off the wagon, follow where it leads. I stay. Even though every day in the unknown without Angie is a dreaded routine, I will myself to survive. One morning at a time.

If I could change my life in an instant, go back and do anything differently, would I?

My answer changes every morning. Today I'm wishing I would've stayed and persuaded Angie to reveal whatever the fuck it was she built her impenetrable fences around. What is she guarding from me, from the world? Yesterday I thought honoring her wishes was the right choice. Tomorrow, I might return to thinking I'm a traitor, someone who didn't stand by the person they love. The day after . . . who knows? I still check the phone for a text or a call from her first thing I wake up.

The present might be separate for us, but the past, the past is shared. I'm part of it and I go down the memory lane more frequently after not hearing from her for three weeks. Occasionally I pretend I don't notice my fingers scrolling up, as I sneak re-readings her texts with everyday chatter, with her lyrics, with her the descriptions of the events of the day, or photos of the venues and food.

No news should be good news. Not for me. The dead air between us sucks mouthfuls of oxygen from my lungs. When I look at the screen of my computer at work, at the world rushing by when I ride, at the decals I need to pick for the walls of the dojang, I struggle to see them. With every passing hour the world around me blurs and fades. Each tiny hole her silence pokes in the thinning walls of my hope pulls me closer to running out of caring about what's going on around me. And there is so much that needs my attention.

The dojang opening is a week away, and I have more unfinished stuff to take care of than I should at this point. My decision to sink Ben's and my money and time into this passion project keeps me awake at night when thoughts of Angie leave enough space. Sleeping more than four hours became a luxury I can no longer afford. I should've let the people who have a clue about what they are doing convert the space into a restaurant. Instead, I elected to be the fool who chose a dream over the well-paid reality of my engineering job, who can't let go of the possibilities and settle for a perfectly safe and hard-earned reality, who is going to let many people down. Again.

So I punch. I kick. The mess of my life fades only when I move my body. When I'm physical. When my muscles burn, and heart rate is through the roof. Ben insists on adding weekly runs to our calendar on Saturdays before we head to the dojang to attack the never-ending list.

This Saturday, the Millennial Park is more crowded than usual. People take the day without snowfall and clouds as their challenge to cram as many outdoor activities into this February morning as they can. Snowballs fly. Sleds of every color pepper the white lawns. Kids built forts in the recent snow that sits shoveled into gray-white piles along the salted paths. My trail running shoes occasionally plop into a dirty snow patch, but at least I feel alive when the prickly winter air hits my skin.

"Are you training for speed or distance?" Ben's running alongside me. "I've downloaded a marathon training app. And submitted my name into several marathon lotteries for this year."

"I'm training to not think about Angie." My muscles hate me, sore from over-use, the excessive moving in my attempt to stop wishing the next morning I'd wake up to her words. But I understand Ben's recent obsession with running more now. He's been suffering from Amelie withdrawals while I was in a blissful state of Angieverse. Failing at friendship? Check.

"Running does help." He pulls his beanie lower on his forehead, so it almost touches his sunglasses. "But make sure you increase your carb intake. I've lost ten pounds in the first month after Amelie left." Ben's never been a big guy, and while I spent time at the gym growing my muscles throughout college, and extended many invitations for Ben to join, he rarely does.

"Thinking about food isn't something I have the mental capacity for right now." I failed my SE exam. I argued with Louka over his decision to move to LA. I forgot to get groceries Mom asked me to pick up. I'm behind on the renovations. Every time I remove a completed item from the dojang re-opening list, one or two new ones make it onto it.

"Thinking about food might be a great way to occupy your brain."

"I'm not a food person like you are." My polite way to say fuck off to Ben without hurting his feelings.

"You eat more food than I've seen anyone else eat..."

"But I don't cook it." He can't be harping at me about eating too. Mom's been trying to keep my energy up with food, after I did what Angie said I should: told her about how I feel about the dojang, and my engineering job. I was expecting tears, or worse, a silent reproach in her eye, but Mom smiled. She cried happy tears. She said she was proud of the man I've become. She looked excited for me to be a small business owner. Not mad or disappointed. The only way to stop Mom from cooking giant meals every day to show her support of me taking over the dojang was to put her in charge of organizing the food for the opening, so that she talks about that instead.

"I'm not telling you to start a YouTube channel like I did. Just write down what you're eating, and that's going to focus your mind on something else."

My lungs hurt, but I'm not sure if it's from running or from the hard punch Ben's words deliver. The YouTube channel. Angie's the beta watcher for every new episode of Ben's cooking channel, and those have been coming out without fail. I know Ben's still talking to her. I could ask him about Angie, about how she's doing, but I'm not going to do that to myself. One question, one piece of information will send me into binge searching anything I can glimpse of her on the Internet. And that's not the point. I'm not the point. I'm supposed to let her figure stuff out and not stalk her while she's doing it.

"Thanks for the advice, but I have enough things to track." The iciness of my voice matches the cold of this morning's air.

"The longer the list, the less likely you are to have time to think about her. Unless you want to think about her."

"I'm not thinking about her." Or I'm doing my best not to. 'Do not think about the polar bear' experiment I read about in college was right: in my desire not to think about Angie, all I end up doing is thinking about her. "You are the one who keeps bringing Angie up. Stop doing that. I'm not driving here to run with you to talk about her. I'm looking for the opposite effect." My insides twist with anger and longing instead of peace and oblivion I'm after. Maybe running is not as effective as I hoped for.

"No Angie conversations. Got it."

We run in silence. The sun is low in the sky, but its brightness reminds me of leaving Angie's apartment after our first night together. It reminds me of the last day Angie and I spent on the beach in Seattle. It reminds me of the morning at the mall, with her singing and the sun peeking between the buildings. My chest hurts, and even though I keep telling myself it's muscle pain, the ache goes deeper. It lives in my heart. What am I to do if even the fucking sun is nothing but a giant reminder of her? Does she look at the sun and think about me? My mind rushes to calculate which city she's in. "Fuck. I can't not think about her. Why is this so difficult?"

"Because you love her." Ben says it as a fact. Mike has brown hair. Mike loves Angie. Mike is a fool. All true.

"You've noticed."

"Everyone who knows you noticed."

"Not her." I was going to say the three words on the bus on her birthday, but that went sideways. The words I prepared-into the bottom of my fucking shambles of a blood-pumping organ. "She wouldn't have sent me away if she knew how I feel. That no matter what she needs, I'd do it for her."

"And you are doing it." Ben slaps my back, but I can barely register is though the thermal I'm wearing.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You are living your life the best you can. Working on your goals. Not actively doing something for her doesn't mean you're not doing anything for her." Ben's voice breaks. "I wanted Amelie to stay. But I knew it was better for her to leave. She's gone. I don't know if we'd ever get a chance to be together again, but her doing what she deserves without me is a better outcome than me being with her when it's not what she wants."

"Don't get me started." I'm not gentle like Ben. My heart wants Angie. And my body wants Angie. And my mind wants Angie. "I think you could've worked it out. Long distanced it, like Angie and I did. Where there's a will, there's a way."

"You knew you'd be apart for three months, and you are on the same continent. We would be apart for half a decade with an ocean between us. We are not operating in the same universe of possibilities."

"You could move to France. Live with her." I'd love to live with Angie.

"And do what? I don't know the language. I don't have a job there."

"To me, these are excuses. If Angie would ask me to stay with her for the rest of the tour, I'd take a leave of absence and do it." Mom's well. Louka will be on his own soon. No one needs me in Chicago anymore.

"Abandon me here with the opening of the dojang by myself?"

"I could fly here and do the things I have to for half a week and then fly back to her." I kick a forgotten snowball, but instead of rolling away it spreads it mush over my sneaker. Can't do anything right.

"Without any income, how many flights are you going to afford?"

Why does Ben have to be so correct about everything? "This is a pointless conversation." I slow down, attempting to get my shoe clean.

"You can worry about her." Ben turns and jogs backwards. "But I promise you, you are not doing any damage to her, only to yourself."

I huff. "Did she tell you this?" I succeed at moving the fucking snow off my shoe and onto the ground where it belongs.

"That is my personal opinion. We've agreed I will not be the go-between between the two of you." Ben stops to allow me to catch up to him. "Her friendship and work with me and my friendship and work with you cannot mix. I keep the two threads separate for the sake of my sanity."

"Sanity." I huff again. "Must be nice to be in control like that."

"There are few things in my life I can control." Ben's tone is serious.

"There are few things most of us can control," I bite back.

"You can control many things. Stop wallowing. Start thinking about yourself. And pick up the pace," Ben barks the last command. Now I know Ben is pissed at me. "If you can talk and run, you are not running full force."

Fair enough. I shoot ahead of him and don't wait for Ben. My muscles hurt, my lungs burn, my heart rattles against my ribs. I get into the state I was searching for, where I forget about anything that is not my effort to move my body in space. Where I can focus on myself as I propel the shell of me forward.