Under Control.

chapter forty eight.

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This time, everything was different. This time, Albert wasn't enough himself to find Nora and bring her back, or to set Julian right in her absence. And so, she drifted, and so did they, and time staggered onwards.

For the first few weeks after Nora and Julian fell apart — after the night they'd spent trying to inhabit the same space, or getting as near to it as two bodies could — he'd called, and she'd called back, and neither of them had spoken anything but hollow niceties to one another. They had tried in vain to be friends, just like he'd promised her they would.

But then weeks turned into months, and on one ill-fated, too-late night — because, there was nothing left for her to rush home to, anymore — Nora had been making her way downtown from the office, careening through the revelrous Friday night crowds as an anonymous yellow blur, when she was struck by the sight of Julian tumbling into a car with someone she didn't recognise.

It was a miracle they didn't fog up the windows with all of their hungry togetherness.

And after the shock and the heartbreak of it all — a wound still deep and fresh, no matter how much time had passed — the worst thing about it, was that Nora couldn't even bring herself to be mad.

All she had left was to be sad, and then to go home to her desolate apartment, broken, and alone.

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The first time Nora tried being with someone who wasn't Julian she had to keep her eyes open the whole time, because whenever she shut them, all she could see was the ghost of him under the pelt of the shower on the morning she'd left, his tears and hers together mixing with the tepid spray.

She had crept out when they were done — her and the man who wasn't him, wasn't Julian — and on her way home, on the subway, Nora had almost run into Nick.

The city was cruel, that way. There was nowhere to hide. Not from Fab happening upon her on her way out the office and asking her if she needed any more help with recovering from the flood, and not from the memory of Julian and the traces left of their lost love lurking around every other corner of midtown.

Even when she slept — which was a halting and rare enough thing, these days — still, Nora couldn't escape the life that was no longer hers. In her dreams, her subconscious forced her to revisit the morning she'd left over and over again, and to remember the look on his face — the very one she yearned to forget — and every time it happened, she woke up wondering if he ever did the same. If he thought of her ever, or if he missed her, too.

And then, one day, a brief eternity after her world had first shattered, Nora decided to try for something new —

A couch.

She went alone on a Tuesday, and failed. But even though she didn't go home that day with the promise of something untarnished and fresh to rebuild her life around, while she'd attempted it, she'd gotten asked out on a date.

One she'd said yes to, and then shown up for, just like she'd said she would. And all the while, she'd pretended like she was perfectly fine.

She tried again, just to see if there was someone else out there who she might fit beside.

And unbeknownst to her, while she did, Julian had been there to watch.

Julian had been trying just as hard as Nora to find himself, and to figure out how he might belong in space without her nearby him. And, just like her, he too had been failing, and failing more. He had tried familiar and strange, unknown and not. He'd tried it in his apartment and backstage and in hotel rooms far away. He'd tried hook-ups that lasted hours, trickling into days at best. And rarely, he'd attempted dates in restaurants, all of which went badly — even when the lost lover he'd sent away wasn't sitting unawares on the other side of the airless room.