Key To Your Heart

4

Roseanne

I slept in the old bunkhouse, where we used to hide out during a thunderstorm or have group sleepovers as kids. It smells like damp wood. The bottom bunk is only slightly more spacious than the top. The sheets are cheap flannel. And even though a bullfrog croaked away outside as I drifted off, I can't remember the last time I slept so well.

Being back in Rose Valley feels like stepping out of the city-girl meatsuit I've forced myself to wear day in and day out, hoping I'd get used to the new me. But now I've shed the costume and I feel like I can breathe again.

It's as though I had this idea in my head of what success looks like. I could see my life so damn clearly-the most vibrant scene right before my eyes. So real I could almost reach out and touch it.

But every day I spent inserting myself into that scene, I grew more and more uncomfortable. More and more dissatisfied.

I questioned why winning didn't bring me greater satisfaction. I kept trying to convince myself I needed time to adjust to the way winning felt. After all, I'd finally gotten what I thought I wanted.

As I stand just a few steps out the door of the bunkhouse, soaking in the wild beauty that surrounds me, it hits me full force-I don't miss the city at all.

The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and the lake sparkles like a sheet of infinite diamonds. Even the crushing burden of my student loans and debilitating lack of income feel more tolerable in this peaceful setting.

This. This is what I missed. This is what I needed.

From my left, I can hear Cece up and tearing around the farmhouse. Farther up the mountain, smoke curls from the chimney of my parents' new build. I know I need to make the trip up there and fill them in-shit, even just say hi-but I'm dreading it down to the tips of my toes.

I don't want to admit to them how thoroughly everything has fallen apart. Felix is the one who always had to come clean about making mistakes. Getting arrested. Crashing his car while drag racing. Knocking someone up. Getting injured. It's only since he had kids and started his horse-training business that he's taken a break from turning their hair gray.

But me? I'm the good one. The one who flies under the radar and handles her shit by herself so that no one needs to worry.

But as much as I hate to admit it, I'm tapped out on handling my own shit. All of a sudden, it dawned on me that I am monumentally tired of having it all together. Which is why after two weeks of moping around and sending out résumés that get no response-or that require a reference-I told Jaehyun I was going home to see my family. I couldn't meet his eyes when I told him I didn't know how long I'd be gone.

That was nearly twenty-four hours ago, and I have one lone text from him asking if everything is okay with me. It almost made me laugh when I saw it on my phone. He's so agreeable. He didn't even ask me to stay.

You do whatever you need to do was all he said.

We've probably been done for a long time, but we like each other too much to actually pull the plug. I don't hate Jaehyun. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But I don't miss him. And I don't burn for him. And I'm acutely aware that like is not love.

Those thoughts stick with me as I make the short drive into town. While I navigate through the winding cliffs that lead to the hill descending into the main drag, I mull over why I should go back to the city at all. Without a job and without a partner, what's there for me?

My friends are his friends.

My condo is, in fact, his condo.

It's depressing if I let myself think about it for too long. The things that are truly mine are this car and a couple of postsecondary degrees, which go hand in hand with a mindboggling student loan balance.