The year since your divorce from Namjoo has been nothing short of exhausting. 

It’s been a very long year of trying to piece yourself together after you let yourself shatter so thoroughly. Everything went wrong, and you had to come to terms with it. You had to remember who you were, why you acted the way you did, and how to move on from it all.

You’ve spent a lot of nights this past year just staring at a wall, replaying the past and asking yourself why. It’s tedious and tortuous, but it’s left you with some semblance of an idea as to how your marriage failed. In short, you both weren't ready for exactly what a marriage entails. 

Once you realized that, it took every ounce of your willpower not to call Namjoo right then to ask her for a second chance. This was almost six months after the divorce, and as much as you wanted to, you knew you couldn’t just drag her back into this mess. 

Besides, you had yourself to focus on. You dedicated yourself to helping your students at the art school you work at. You offered private lessons and gave every child the attention they needed. You started working out regularly again. You used to work out with Namjoo, but that quickly stopped when the fighting began. It was refreshing to get back into an old routine. You bought cooking books to know how to make more than baked chicken and found books on philosophy to keep your mind sharp. 

You found all of these fulfilling things in your life, but what you desperately missed was having someone to share it with. You still had your friends. Unlike Namjoo, you never snapped or shut them out. You just know you weren’t ever really much fun to hang out with during the unhappier part of your marriage. However, after you picked yourself back up, you were able to see them more often. Still, you missed having someone to kiss and text and ask how their day went. 

You missed having someone to love.

Then, like divine providence, you met Eunji. 

You were covering for a co-worker’s Saturday morning workshop for adults when you met Eunji. She was there with her mother, seemingly dragged to the art lesson based on her bored look. Then, as soon as she saw you, she perked up and smiled. You couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at you like that. Eunji had been amusingly attentive the entire class, and when she asked you for lunch after, you said yes.

You’ve only been dating her for two months, but they’ve been a happy two months. Eunji is easy and happy, and she makes it easier for you to breathe sometimes. She’s patient with you, and she knows you’re keeping something big from her, but she doesn’t push. It makes you ache, but it also makes you sigh with relief to have her. She isn’t perfect, but neither are you. You think you can make it work with her.

You thought you were doing well. You were finally getting your life back on track. You were finally moving on.

Then you ran into Namjoo on the beach, and everything is a mess again. Your insides are all twisted, your head feels like it’s spinning, and you constantly feel like you’re on the verge of throwing up.

The thing about Namjoo is that she’s alway had a place in your heart that’s hard to replace. She was your first real friend and then your first real girlfriend. She was your first love, and there has always been something about her. She’s happy and bright and silly, and she’s not unlike Eunji who is also those things, but there was always something just so bright about her. She dragged you into her silliness, but she never made it feel like you had to. Where Eunji oftens annoys you playfully into caving, Namjoo never had to do that. She was always there with a smile and a gentle way of convincing you to try new things. She made you so happy so easily, blooming a warmth in your chest every time she smiled. It’s hard to forget that, especially when she still makes you feel that way. 

You aren’t supposed to feel that way anymore though. You’re supposed to feel that way about Eunji who surprises you with coffee on her lunch breaks and cooks for you most nights with a warm smile. You’re supposed to be past this. You’re supposed to be over Namjoo.

But you aren’t. You may act like you are, that you’re all healed and better and whole, but you aren’t. 

Despite everything, a part of you has always longed to rewind the clock and go back in time to college, back when you were still with Namjoo. Back when you both were so happy. 

It’s completely useless to think about stuff like that, but you still do it every so often when you’re feeling especially vulnerable. Which is just about every time you think about Namjoo. If you ever had an Achilles heel, you think, it would be Namjoo. 

That being said, that means it would make sense to try and distance yourself from Namjoo even though you agreed to talk to her now. Why hurt yourself all over? You were doing better. You have Eunji. Even with every part of you begging you to see Namjoo again, you should know better.

So really, you don’t know what’s wrong with you when you agree when Namjoo texts you a week later to meet for lunch. 

You tell Eunji about it because you know you should, but it’s pointless because she still doesn’t know the whole story. She still just thinks you’re just friends from college. That’s why when you tell her, she just smiles, happy for you, and replies, “Oh, have fun. Tell her I said hi.”

You hate yourself for not telling her the truth, but you like the way Eunji looks at you like this. She’s soft and warm, and her smile makes you feel like everything will be okay. You don’t want that to change, and you know it will once she knows the truth about Namjoo. So you say nothing and tell Eunji you’ll call her later.

The day you go to meet Namjoo, you’re a complete mess. Not that anyone can actually tell. You’ve always been rather good at keeping your together, or at least looking like you do. If anything, you’ve gotten even better at it over the last year. 

You sit primly at a table at a casual restaurant with fresh flowers on the tables and modern art on the walls, hands folded over your lap with your chin held high. You can tell by the stares you get that you don’t look like you’re about two seconds from a mental breakdown, which is exactly how you feel as you wait for Namjoo to arrive. 

You’re both punctual people, but you were so nervous this morning that you ended up arriving at the restaurant half an hour early. You don’t know how you’re going to act. You can’t help but play over in your mind over and over again your conversation on the beach. The way Namjoo had spoken through her tears, telling you everything you wanted to hear. You had let yourself wipe away some of her tears, but you had wanted to do so much more. You wanted to hug her and never let go and bury your face in her shoulder and apologize for everything that went wrong. 

You hadn’t. You couldn’t. No matter how badly every part of you had wanted to, you couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair to you, to Namjoo, to Eunji, to Hayoung. It wouldn’t have been fair, and you know that, but leaving without having hugged Namjoo left you feeling hollow for days after. Maybe that’s why when Namjoo finally texted you, asking for lunch, you said yes without a moment of hesitation.

When Namjoo arrives, she looks around for you for a second, and when she spots you, the prettiest smile pulls at her lips. You try to smile back, but you didn’t realize how much it would hurt to do this. To see Namjoo smile at you like she used to. 

“Hey,” Namjoo says breathlessly as she sits across from you. Her smile is still there, but it’s shy. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”

A glance at your phone tells you that Namjoo is fifteen minutes early. “No,” you lie. “Just got here.” You hope Namjoo doesn’t realize your water is sweating and has a substantial ring of water surrounding it. 

“Great,” Namjoo beams. “I can’t wait to eat. I’ve been wanting to eat here for weeks.”

And somehow, just with those words, Namjoo makes you relax. The way she talks to you is just like she did before, and you let yourself fall back into old habits far too easily. You let yourself pretend that everything is fine. That you never got divorced. That you never fought. You pretend that this is a regular occurrence, and not like this is the first time you’ve had a meal with Namjoo in over a year.

The conversation flows easily between the two of you despite everything. You tell each other a lot about what the other has missed over the last year, carefully tiptoeing around mentioning exactly why you don’t know the other has been up to. There are still awkward pauses in the conversation, like when she mentions the divorce too directly or when you tell a story and Eunji is in it, but besides that, it feels like nothing has changed.

Something about that makes you feel both relieved yet terrified. 

It’s after you playfully argued over what dessert to get that Namjoo finally addresses the elephant in the room.

“This is really nice,” Namjoo says. Her voice is soft when she says this, like she’s afraid to scare you away with these words when they only serve to draw you closer to her. “I’ve really missed talking to you.” She laughs, and it’s sad and self-deprecating, and you flinch away from the sound. “It’s been hard.”

“I know what you mean,” you say quietly. 

Namjoo reaches out with her hand then stops halfway. Wordlessly, you stretch out your hand and lay it on top of hers. It should feel wrong, but you almost want to cry with how right it feels. You remember how you used to always reach out to hold Namjoo’s hand when you were together because it brought you comfort, and it still does. It’s like the nerves just melt away.

“We should try,” Namjoo says, and your head snaps up to stare at her. “I think we could be friends, don’t you?”

It takes all of your strength not to recoil like you’d just been slapped. Here you were, thinking about the old days and thinking about how right it felt to be with Namjoo again, and here she was talking about being friends. You always knew you had your moments of stupidity, but this one really takes the cake.

“That’s a great idea,” you say, but when you say it, it feels more like you’re a puppet. Someone is controlling you, propping you up and making you say words you don’t mean at all. “I would like that.”

“Great!” Namjoo says. She beams at you, and her smile is so excited that it feels like a punch to the gut. You can’t ruin this, not this time. You can’t lose her again. You have to go with this. You need to. You can’t lose her again. “Maybe dinner sometime next week?” Namjoo asks with a tilt of her head that reminds you of days when she would do that exact move when she’d ask you to skip class with her. 

You swallow your pride and smile for her as you say, “That sounds good. I’ll text you when I’m free.”

Then your dessert arrives and the conversation easily shifts to Namjoo’s new obsession with a bakery near her apartment that has the best apple tarts. Talking about simple stuff like that makes it easy to forget about the utterly stupid decision you made to just be friends with Namjoo. 

When Namjoo tentatively gives you a quick hug as the two of you say good-bye, it becomes glaringly apparent to you that you can never just be friends with Namjoo. Except for the part where you’ll wholeheartedly just be friends with Namjoo if it means having her in your life again.

It’s downright embarrassing how eager you are to have her in your life, one way or another. If you’re being honest, it’s always felt empty without her, even with Eunji. Namjoo carved a place for herself in your heart and in your life, and it’s not something that you think anyone else can replace. You come to this realization as you’re walking back home from lunch, and it’s in the middle of the sidewalk on a Thursday afternoon that you know you have to break up with Eunji.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise as it should. You should be so surprised by the fact that you have to break up with the woman who’s shown you so much kind