it didn’t offer any easy answers. Just memories forged from countless hours of TV and movie watching, spliced with scenes from my visit with Alex. Feeling choked by the crowd, I shook off the fug and turned on my ballet pump. Uptown. Up and out. For the first fifteen blocks, I thought I was heading to the park, but as I crossed over Fifth and onto Sixth, a different refuge came to mind. Hopefully one where I could fill my head with something other than the hamster wheel of questions that were tracking over and over.
Although it was still fairly quiet, it was a museum after all, MoMA was busier than it had been the last time I’d been there. I paid my $20 and hopped straight on to the escalator, travelling up to the fifth floor. I was surprised at the number of kids running around. Very cool parents, I thought to myself, although secretly wishing the very cool parents would scoop all of them up and take them across the road to FAO Schwarz. Even though there were dozens of people loitering, not one of them uttered a word to me as I sank down against the wall opposite Christina’s World and stared. I didn’t even cry. I just stared, losing myself in every last blade of grass. I ignored the curious whispers, although I did pull a bit of a face when one tit in a cagoule suggested to his girlfriend that I was a performance artist. Was I wearing a bear suit? I just shut it all out, every word of everyone. The people who were there, the people who weren’t. I shut out all of the advice, requested or otherwise, not one of them had told me anything I wanted to hear, but they were all right. Jenny was right, I was a big fuck-up, Louisa was right, I had run away, and Tyler was right, I really didn’t know what I wanted. But it was time to work it out.
An hour or a whole day could have passed before I eventually pushed myself up off the floor, it really didn’t matter. As I wiped away a few sneaky tears that had slipped out unnoticed and pulled my messy hair back into a ponytail, I spotted someone else having a good stare. There, leaning against the escalator, was Alex. He smiled sadly and raised a hand. I froze for a second, and then waved back, not knowing what else to do. He gave me a cool single nod and came over.
‘Hey,’ he said softly.
‘Hey,’ I replied. My voice sounded strange after being silent for so long. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Jenny called Jeff, Jeff called me, I called you, you didn’t answer,’ he said. ‘It’s a big long chain of people calling people until I figured out you might be here.’
‘Oh,’ I nodded. ‘Wait, Jenny called Jeff?’
‘She didn’t have my number, and I guess she thought you might have come over to mine,’ he explained. I couldn’t even begin to think how awful I must look. ‘She was worried about you.’
‘They broke up,’ I said quietly, thinking about how furious Jenny had been. I wished I could go back and try that conversation again. ‘Jenny and Jeff. She’s so upset.’
‘Him too,’ Alex looked at me. ‘I hope they work it out, but it’s hard when you can’t trust the other person.’
‘It’s all anyone seems to be doing, working stuff out. Gets tiring after a while.’
‘It does, but what else are you supposed to do?’ Alex put one hand gently on my shoulder. ‘You want to talk?’
‘Not in here though,’ I said, letting him guide me towards the escalators and outside.
‘So, what’s going on?’ he asked after watching me scratch at a small mark on my jeans for three solid minutes.
‘I’ve been offered a job back in London,’ I said, looking up at him. Seemed like as good a place to start as any. ‘I had a huge row with Jenny and then I called home and had a huge row with my friend there and now, just when I thought I had some idea of what I wanted, I’m sort of back to square one.’
‘Wow, I only saw you yesterday, right?’ he asked. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘What would you do if you were me?’ I asked, head tipped to one side, trying to read him. He was playing everything pretty close to his chest. ‘If you could go back to your friends and family, have no visa worries and a great job, or you could stay here, where you’re not quite sure of anything.’
‘I can’t make that decision for you,’ Alex said, taking my hands and holding them lightly. ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘It would if I asked you to.’ I gave him a half-smile, but he didn’t return it.
‘It wouldn’t be fair because I don’t know what you should do,’ he said, squeezing my hand. ‘You know how I feel, but I won’t ask you to stay for me. Besides, it’s not just me, is it? What about this other guy?’
Tell me this isn’t happening, I thought, watching Alex turn away.
‘There is no other guy,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s just you.’
‘I read your blog, Ange, and I just kinda know. Please don’t lie,’ Alex shook his head and slackened his grip on my hands. ‘And Jenny said you’d had this huge row with him? I don’t know Angela, I really like you, but I only just got my head back together, I can’t be in another relationship where I can’t trust the other person. Where I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
‘How can you ever know what’s going to happen?’ I asked, pulling his hands back. ‘But I can honestly tell you there is no other guy. Whatever Jenny might have said, she was so mad at me. Honestly, there was only ever another guy in the tiniest way. And it wasn’t a huge row, I was telling him I didn’t want to see him again. I want to see you. Just you. What did she tell you?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Would you have told me that you had been seeing someone else if I hadn’t fronted you on it?’ he asked. He was smiling now, but it was so, so sad I couldn’t bear it. ‘If I hadn’t had to read about it on your blog?’
‘Oh, God, I wish I’d never even started that thing,’ I groaned. ‘Please, Alex, honestly, it’s just you. I met him before I met you and I just, I was only seeing him because, well, I don’t even know why. The bloody blog, Jenny, Erin … none of it matters. It’s just you. Really and honestly and completely.’
‘OK then,’ he said. His voice was so thick I couldn’t even look at him. ‘What would you do if there was no me, no Jenny, no “other guy”, and you still had the same choice to make entirely on your own? Because that’s what it’s going to have to come down to.’
‘I’m not sure, but I don’t want to be on my own, Alex.’
‘You’re not,’ he said, cupping my cheek with one hand, as the tears starting to track down my face. ‘You’re so not. Do you think Jenny would have put herself through calling Jeff if she didn’t care about you?’
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘But I don’t mean Jenny, do I?’
‘That’s just going to have to have some time,’ he said, after a moment’s pause. ‘I need a little bit more time, and I think you do too. Whatever we might have, I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t be sitting crying about it after only three weeks.’
‘Don’t,’ I stumbled over my words, noticing Jenny loitering. She was still wearing Jeff’s T-shirt, but she had managed to find some jeans before coming out. Thank God. ‘Don’t make it out to be bad.’
‘It’s not bad,’ Alex smiled. ‘It’s good. Really good, you know? Maybe it’s
