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CHRIS
I glanced down at my phone with a sigh as I throw my keys on the kitchen counter. Dodger greeted me happily before returning to his overstuffed doggy bed in the kitchen.
I meant to call Harper back but I had gone out with some friends for dinner, and then dinner turned into shooting pool and it was 11pm by the time I got home. Which was only 8:00 Harper's time but I wasn't even sure I wanted to talk to her. That sounds a lot worse then I intended it to. Of course I want to talk to her but damn if she wasn't right this distance is a bitch. If she could just come and spend some time in Boston. I had seen her face though when I mentioned it and she looked like I had insulted her with the mere idea of it. So she has no plans to come to Boston long term and honestly deep down I have no plans on staying in Los Angeles long term. That has never and will never be my goal. LA is a necessity but I don't love it there. It's not home. Harper should just move to Boston, my entire family is here, I won't leave. And then I realize how selfish I sound. Her whole family is in Los Angeles. So where does that leave us? Someone's going to have to sacrifice something. I just don't know that it can be me.
After a restless night of little to no sleep I call Harper.
"Hey." Her voice instantly makes me smile.
"Hey I'm so sorry I didn't call you back last night." I feel like a dick. "I know you wanted to tell me what happened with your day."
"It's fine." Uh oh she's pissed.
"Harp." I literally whine.
"I'm about to get on a plane." Her voice is muffled.
"Where are you flying to?" I frown before a tiny fraction of hope makes me think she's flying to Boston.
"Home, I'm in San Fransisco."
"Why?" I tried to not feel to deflated with the fact she wasn't coming to me.
"Well if you had called me back last night I could have told you. I flew out to meet with Tawny about the job."
"The movie set job?"
"Yeah." She curses under her breath, "I'll have to call you back."
And the phone disconnects before I can respond.
3 hours later she calls me back.
"I'm home." She lets me know.
"Good. So tell me about the interview, or audition. I don't know what you call it."
"Neither I don't think. It went really good. I think I'm going to take the job."
"So that means what exactly?"
"Well I'm going to give the salon my notice, do the wedding on Valentines Day and then fly back to San Fransisco till the end of February."
"Wow." I swallow.
"Yeah." She replies softly. She's thinking what I'm thinking. We won't be seeing each other for awhile.
"The best part is," She continues, "that Teddy can come with me. So I won't be completely alone."
"Are you sure you're ok with leaving LA?"
"No. But I think this opportunity is to good to turn down."
"What about coming to Boston?"
"I'm not going to have time to come to Boston. What about coming here?"
"I don't know my schedule yet." I wince. I hate this. So damn much.
"Ok.....so....we don't know when we will see each other."
"No I guess not. I mean if you were staying in LA it might be easier for me."
"So it's my fault because I took an amazing job opportunity. Only you are allowed to travel the world and bounce in and out of my life."
"That's not what I do. You know I want to see you. You know I don't like to be separated."
"Nothing's going to change. In fact it will get worse."
"Don't say that. It won't. I'll get a break soon-"
"And what? I'm supposed to wait for that so we can spend a month together before you're ripped out of my life again?"
"Harp." I plead. I don't like where this conversation is heading.
"I don't think I can do this." She says quietly.
"Don't say that!" I repeat.
"You know how ridiculous this is that we're even trying to make it work."
"No, not to me." My heart feels like it's being squeezed.
"I didn't want this to begin with. I hate being apart from you. It hurts. We don't get to do normal couple stuff. We facetime and make plans that are never certain and always get broken. Let me ask you a question. You got to go to Boston early, so could you have possibly come to LA for a few days?"
"Babe, it wasn't that simple."
"That's my point. It's not that simple. Being together isn't ever going to be simple. Call me selfish but I don't want a boyfriend 25% of the time."
"You have me 100% of the time." I choke out.
"No I don't. You couldn't even call me back last night. I had a huge day and was so excited to tell you about it and you never called."
"So this is what this is about. You're mad I didn't call you back last night."
"No! You're not even listening!! Look I have to go. I just walked in my house and I need a shower to wash off airplane funk. I'll talk to you later."
"Harper!" I try to stop her but she's gone.
She just broke up with me over the phone. I collapse onto the chair at my dining room table. I try to call her back but she sends it to voicemail twice before turning her phone off.
"Dammit!" I slam my fist into the table and Dodger jumps up, hanging his head he slinks off into the other room.
I run my fingers through my hair and try to figure out how things just went to shit in 2 minutes. Maybe after her shower and she has time to think things through she'll call me back and we can talk this out.
I wait and the phone doesn't ring. At 10:00 my time I make one more desperate attempt to call her but it goes directly to voicemail and I realize that we won't be talking this out. Not tonight, probably never.
