As soon as the words “ten minutes” were out of the choreographer’s mouth, Jackson slid to the side of the room, picking up his phone and putting it to his ear.

“Still there Chrissy?”

“Of course.”

He smiles, hearing her voice over the phone, even though there's a swarm of moths in the pit of his stomach as he dreads bringing up the topic he wants to. He looks to s milling around the room and drinking water, and he gets up and walks out of the room, hoping for a bit of privacy.

He needed to do this quickly before she goes off to bed, because though it was daytime for him, it was late at night for her.

“Chrissy…”

“Jackson…”

“We’ve been talking—friends for about five months now. And you know everything about me. You’ve been my… I’ve been able to talk to you whenever I have trouble or when I’m happy. And you do tell me about school, and work stuff. But I feel you won’t let me in. You’ve been there for me. I just want to be there for you. I want to know more about you. Can’t I?”

“Of course you can, Jackson. I’m… sorry for this being one-sided. I… you want to know about my divorce?” She asks. 

Jackson can hear the sadness in her voice and it made him sad and mad that he was dragging this out of her, but he was feeling something for her and he wanted to know everything. “Yes,” he whispers.

“I never wanted to get divorce—No, that doesn’t cover it. I wanted to end the relationship just like he did. I wanted the divorce, but I grew up thinking I would only marry once, and never divorce. The idea was ingrained in me, and the idea of losing that…”

“Why did you get a divorce?” Jackson asks, his voice low.

“When I first got married… No, before I got married, I struggled with mental health issues, but I was raised to hide it. Mental issues as a black woman was like a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of thing. So I stuffed it down deep inside of me. So when I found the man I wanted to marry, I continued to push it down, until my brain decided that since I had the support that I was safe enough to handle the truth of mental health. I had a nervous breakdown...tried to commit suicide, failed, and ended up in a psych hospital.So my husband helped me. I was on medicines, I was getting therapy, and it was rocky. I was codependent on him, and he had my back. Finally, after five years, I was stable. I was on medicine that was great for me, I started writing, and then I became independent. But after everything settled, we got to see how exhausted he was from having to do extra work to support me. We got to see how different we were. On the other side of the war, we just weren’t in love anymore. Oceans formed between us, and it was just time to move on.”

“Do you think that you’ll ever get married again?”

“... I don’t know. I want to make sure m good before jumping into another relationship period. I think I need some me-time before that. I want to write, travel, and spend time with good friends like you.”

“But you’ve been having a good time with friends, right? The last time we talked you were going out for a girls' night,” Jackson says.

“It’s different. I have friends, but they’re married with kids, so they might not always have time like me who’s divorced and childless. And they’re also my ex-husband's friends, too. I want to branch off.”

“Well...my group is going on hiatus soon...do you want to come to visit Korea—You’d be traveling, you could spend time with friends like me, and make more friends, and you could write while you’re here. I’ll buy you a ticket—”

“Wait! Wait!” She laughs as he tries to catch his breath.

Jackson turns around and leans his head against the wall, smiling wide, praying she’ll say what he wants her too.

 “I have to send in these edits to my editor and then I can come out to play. And I’ll buy my ticket. But I fully expect you to pay for at least half of the dinners we go to deal?”

“Cool.”