6

Elle

No one really said anything on the ride home from the airport. Jeffrey kept his eyes on the road, and every now and then I caught Lily stealing a glance at me. I had the feeling they both thought I would spontaneously combust given the physical distance that was gradually growing between me and Jude, but, in all honestly, I felt just fine.

I turned to face Lily after catching her giving me one of her side glances.

"You know I can see you doing that, right? Like every other human on earth, I have peripheral vision."

"Oh, well, I just, you know, was making sure you're alright," she said.

I poked my head between the two front seats. "You can stop tiptoeing too, Jeffrey."

"Just trying to give you space in case you needed it."

I watched a light pink tint creep up Jeffrey's cheeks in the rearview mirror.

"I'm fine, really. Obviously I'm going to miss him, but it's only two months. People sustain relationships for far longer periods of time apart than that."

Lily smiled at me. "Very true, and now we can have the London experience we were meant to have before you had to go and fall in love and dedicate all of your time to the most adorable relationship on earth."

"I've missed hanging out with you, Lil." Her sarcasm would never be wasted on me.

Jeffrey pulled up to our flat and helped me get my hulking bag out of the trunk; it had to fit almost a month's worth of clothes and whatnot and was nearly bursting at the seams.

As Lily walked towards the door, I turned to Jeffrey and threw my arms around him. He seemed taken aback, and it took him a few seconds to wrap his arms around me.

"See you in a few months. Thank you, really, for everything you do for him, for us." I broke away from him and watched his eyes soften.

"You have my number right?"

I flashed him the business card that had his number on it.

"If you're ever in a bind and you need a ride, please don't hesitate to call."

"Thanks." I gave him my warmest smile before grabbing the handle of my suitcase and dragging it back into the flat.

Upon entering, I headed straight for my room. I'm so fixated on having everything exactly where it needs to be that I knew I wouldn't be able to relax until all of my things were put back where they belonged. As I pulled clothes, shoes, and random toiletries out of my bag, I heard the familiar ding of my cellphone come from the depths of my clothing pile. There was a text from Jude waiting for me.

"Just sat down in my seat. We've got those pod things to sleep in, so I guess that's kind of cool. It'll be about 13 hours from here to Singapore, and then we've got a bit of a layover before the final leg to Sydney. I keep trying to figure out what time it'll be in London when I land, but I was never good at maths. You still want me to call? Even if it's like, 3 am or something absurd?"

Was he crazy? Of course I wanted a call. I didn't care what time of night it would be. I composed a snarky response to him.

"Duh. I want you to call all day every day. I'm going to be extra needy with my phone call time from you. But really, I want to know you're safe. I love you."

My phone buzzed in my hand before I had a chance to set it down.

"That's my girl. I'll call you when I land in Singapore, then again in Sydney. The flight attendant is staring me down...apparently this isn't one of those flights where you can text all the way through. Don't they know who I am?  ;) Love you, Elle. xxxxx"

I loved sassy Jude. There wasn't a chance in hell the grin on my face would be wiped off any time soon.

I set about putting the rest of my things away, and when I finally pulled my laptop from my bag, I opened it up to check my email. I'd been shirking my adult responsibilities over the last few days being so wrapped up in my final hours with Jude that I hadn't checked it. Mistake.

"Shit!" Though I'd meant it to remain in my head, it came quite loudly out of my mouth and brought a concerned looking Lily to my bedroom.

"What's wrong?"

I slammed my laptop shut and banged my head against it.

"Uh-oh. Is this the breakdown? Elle, it's only two months, and—"

"It's not Jude." I picked my head up and swiveled in my desk chair to face her. "I forgot to submit my January payment for my student loans, so now, on top of the nearly $700 I already pay per month, I'm stuck with the fucking late fees. Looks like it's going to be ramen and nights in for this girl."

I probably should've been more careful about the money I saved in not paying rent while Rob had filled my spot at the flat, but I wanted to finally at least try to pay Jude back for all of the times he's paid for me. Now, whatever I had left was going back to the bank to pay down my loans.

"Ouch. Sorry, bud." She clapped a comforting hand on my shoulder. "I guess now is as good a time as ever to bring this up then, so, here goes: have you thought about what we're going to do when our housing stipend runs out?"

I couldn't stop the moan that came out of my mouth. "Sell my soul?"

"We could move into a smaller place outside the city."

"But I like this place and this location."

"I do too, but London is expensive."

"Very expensive," I said. I brought my eyes up to meet Lily's, but she seemed to be avoiding mine.

"When Jude comes back, maybe you can move back in with him." It came out barely above a whisper.

"And what will you do? I can't just leave you, Lil, you moved here for me."

She finally matched her gaze with mine. "I don't know. What if...what if I move back home? If Rob and I last, which, I hope we do, I guess I'd stay, but I didn't really see this move as something permanent. I don't think you did either."

I let her words melt into my brain. "But then I met Jude. And you met Rob. And we will both live happily ever after forever in London. And our kids will be best friends."

"You're getting about a decade ahead of yourself with the kids being best friends part. Best case scenario is that you move in with Jude, and, hopefully, Rob and I are still a thing and we move in together when this lease is up. Worst case scenario, I move back to the States. You'll obviously still be here in London because your relationship status isn't going anywhere."

"But I don't want a Lily-less London. I already have to suffer through two months of a Jude-less London, I can't do a whole lifetime free of my best friend."

"Okay, you know what? Let's stop talking in hypotheticals. As far as we're both concerned, we'll be in London until at least June, right? That would put us here for one year. We can reevaluate when we're being forced to either renew or end our lease."

"I love the Lily who pushes all of our problems under the rug."

"It's not a now problem. We have five months to figure it out. If you're feeling strapped for cash though, I can't really help in that department."

And that was when I remembered Jasper's proposal. "Actually, I may have a solution. You know my friend Jasper from the studio?"

She nodded.

"He said they need another teacher for some night classes. I'm sure it'll either give me a break on my tuition or an extra paycheck. Then I can put that towards our "going out and having fun exploring London" fund."

"Or towards a savings account," she said.

"True. I would like to own a house one day."

"Have you talked to Jude about this? Doesn't he usually give you a hard time about paying for things? I mean, he has to be extraordinarily wealthy. Rob almost never lets me pay when we're out."

There it was. "Yes and no. We don't talk about money much because it tends to lead to an argument. I appreciate the fact that he wants to take care of me and that he offers to pay every time we go out, but I also feel like every time he does it he's chipping away at my independence."

A confused look took over Lily's features.

"Not purposefully. He doesn't have a mean bone in his body toward me. It's just that, at one point, he had to help support his family, and the way he wants to do that for me is beyond endearing. But my mom was never just a housewife. She's always worked just as hard as my dad, and that has made me want to be an equal contributor. Just because Jude makes a lot of money and can support me, it doesn't mean that I want him to. He doesn't always seem to understand where I'm coming from, but I just can't imagine a life where I wasn't working. I love my career. I don't want to give it up."

"I get that, Elle, really, I do, but you can always let him pay for some things, like your rent, while you pay for other stuff."

"I know, but I still worry that I'd feel some weird sense of owing him. Like, one night I brought groceries home for us, and he wanted to give me money for them. He was letting me live in his house, rent free, and still wanted to pick up the grocery tab. There's this little voice in the back of my head that makes me feel like he thinks I can't support myself."

Lily's eyes grew twice in size.

"I'm not saying he does think that. It's just something I've got in my head. I know he's doing it from a place of love, but I want to be able to do things on my own. And I never want to have to feel like I need to ask him for something. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever ask my significant other for the funds to buy something. Honestly, I think I'd feel that way with anyone. It has nothing to do with Jude. It's just the fact that I'd feel like I wasn't equally contributing."

"You've used some form of the word "equal" twice now, but unless you win the lottery or become famous, I'm not sure you'll ever be able to contribute equally to a household with Jude."

"Funny. Let's just take this one step at a time. On Saturday I'll tell Jasper that I'm going to take him up on his offer to teach at the studio. That'll at least give me a little breathing room."

"Sounds like a plan. Good to have you back, Elle."

"Glad to be back."

Lily started to head out of my room, but just as she reached the door, she turned around.

"Heads up, I'm reinstating our going out policy. This apartment is to remain unoccupied on Saturday nights. We are going to go out and make more than just work friends, got it?"

"Aye, aye captain." I gave her a half-hearted salute as she flipped me off behind her back.

***

By about seven o'clock that night, I could barely keep my eyes open. The combination of mine and Jude's mostly sleepless night and the emotional stress I went through earlier in the day made me flat out exhausted. I laid in bed scrolling through my various social media accounts when I felt my eyelids begin to droop. I thought I'd close my eyes just for a little while, though somewhere in the recesses of my brain I knew I would likely fall asleep. I placed my phone on top of the letter Jude had written me on my nightstand. I figured I'd keep it there so it was within a quick reach if I started having a meltdown one night.

I don't know how long it took me to fall asleep; I presume it was almost instant, but I do know that my phone started ringing around two o'clock in the morning. I rolled over in bed and smacked my hand around on the table in an attempt to grasp it. When I finally had it in my hands, I slid the answer bar across the screen and put the phone to my ear.

"Jude?"

"Hi, baby. We just landed in Singapore." For having just been on a thirteen hour flight, he didn't sound tired at all.

"Everything was okay?"

"Mhmm."

"What time is it there?"

"Ten in the morning."

"Why don't you sound tired?"

"Rob gave me a sleeping pill a few hours after we took off. Knocked me out until right before we landed."

"Stop taking things from Rob," I said.

I let the music of his laughter float between my ears.

"Go back to sleep, love. I'll call you when I land in Sydney."

"Don't take another sleeping pill. You'll throw off your circadian rhythm even more than the jet lag will. Love you."

I hung up to his laughter once again filling my headspace before immediately falling back asleep.

When I woke in the morning, I reminisced about the dreams that filled my head. They were full of Jude's laughter and his voice and his curly mop of hair.

After sufficiently stretching in bed, I marched over to the calendar on my desk and put an X through the previous day's date. One down, fifty-nine to go.