Driven Apart

Diane Estelle Choyen

          Driving through the streets of Toronto remains unsettling. I dart through the concrete jungle of luxurious condos with intentional speed on the Gardener. A highway that only serves as a reminder: I am in his city. 

          “Switch lanes, exit at Lakeshore and turn right at Windermere Avenue babe.” 

          Instructions I heard four years ago rapidly replay in my head. This time, the instructions are slightly different. 

          “Meet me at my school; we need to talk…” 

          A text message that haunted me all of last night. 

          Jay and I met in 2016 at a high school district camp. This was the one day a year when school rivals competed against each other in various activities and sports. Due to my lack of athletic abilities, I signed up for the lamest team: improv. My physique made it hard to believe, but I was a walking irony: A lanky black girl with the inability to dribble a basketball. While navigating through the improv department with a group of supposed elites, Jay noticed a girl with big hair on all fours, poorly acting as a dinner table for a scene. He crossed his arms, poked his inner cheek with his tongue, then scoffed as his friends begged him to leave for the girls’ volleyball game. Jay stuck around and fixated on me. That same afternoon, he gathered as much information as possible on the “table” with curly hair. I didn’t see much of him again that day, but he managed to get my phone number from one of our mutual friends. He is the first guy who has ever gotten my number. 

          For four years, we caught multiple buses, took multiple trains, and rode multiple Ubers to make our relationship work. We allowed laughter to crowd most of our high school nights. I was proud of bringing him up in any conversation. The status he upheld in Toronto gave me the attention I didn’t know I craved in Mississauga. I felt seen then. Even if he didn’t roam my high school’s hallways, his name, along with mine now, made headlines in Snapchat group chats. Every day felt like a closeup shot of a main character getting intensely interrogated with a zoom-in effect:

          “Aren’t you dating Jay? Girl, he’s arguably the finest guy at that high school,” 

          “Ouuu girl, you pulled that?” 

          I was flattered until the compliments slowly turned into questionable inquiries;

          “Wait, how long have you guys been together?” 

          “Hold up, isn’t he going to Prom with Layla?” 

          “Girl, I’m not going to lie; he looked pretty single at LK’s party...” 

          He’d debunked those allegations with great care and the ever-so-calming,

          “They trippin’,” 

          And the infamous,

          “You know I love you, right?” 

          I wasn’t stupid then, but unfortunately, I was too proud to believe anything those pathetic girls had to say. His reputation never bothered me since it was a thing of the past. Besides, they all wanted to get with him anyway; at least, that’s what he said. 

          He also said I was different. Said that I reminded him of his mom. We talked about marriage, kids, and wedding ceremonies in detail. Especially since we didn’t have the same cultural background.

          “So… what’s a dowry, babe?” I asked on a random phone call,

          “It’s a traditional thing we do,” he responded,

          “What does it entail?” 

          “So, it’s like a payment I’d make to your family,” 

          “Wait, so you’re buying me?”

          I giggled. He didn’t.

          “It’s not like that, Diane, it’s just something typical African families do,”

          “Would we do that?” 

          “I mean, I don’t know.”

          “Why don’t you know?”

          “Are you even African?” 

          He chuckles. I don’t. 

          My heterogeneous genetic pool always made him question my blackness. It started off with jokes. The subtle “your lips are actually big, babe!” evolved into the “you should really try box braids!” This was his way of introducing me to the culture, his very own “How to be a stereotypical African 101” guide, which I knew was to please his family. I wanted his mom and I to be close, so I was ready for any aesthetic changes that came with that. I also used to think about what my mom would say to the dowry. How she’d feel about the traditional differences.

          My mom doesn’t like Jay, especially after everything. She has seen me go through a thousand tissue boxes these past years. She saw the heart she molded, fall out of my chest, onto the ground and stomped on. She stays far away from that conversation now, relegated to a helpless onlooker, but that wasn’t always the case. Unsolicited advice was handed out, talks were had, fights were held, and a mother-daughter connection was left strained. She still doesn’t understand why, but I stay. And the longer I do, the easier my stance gets despite everything. Out of love, I’d stay.

          Still driving up to his school, the question “What could I have done wrong?” chants in my brain over the Bryson Tiller song vibrating through my car’s speakers. Maybe the better question is, what did he do this time? I just pray another girl isn’t involved. Scanning the area, I find myself only a turn away from his lecture hall parking lot. My hands sweat profusely on my leather steering wheel, and my eyes fix themself on the exit door as I wait for his recognizable trot. Amongst the crowd of people, I find my person. He is wearing a fluorescent blue durag, a Nike tech fleece and the watch I got him for his birthday. He walks out with a crew, as per usual, side-hugs a girl I recognize from his Instagram followers and shares an elaborate handshake with one of his classmates. The two walk away and he briefly searches for my car. We make eye contact for a sliver of a second. Fuck. He walks towards me while fake scrolling through his phone. My once calm heart rate quickly shifts into a loud thumping, vibrating into my hot ears.           A crushing pressure invades my chest while twin tears slowly decorate my waterlines and, eventually, my bottom lashes, too. I avoid more eye contact as I try to figure out how to hide this childish reaction. As he opens the door, a tear drops onto my sweatpants, staining the material in a darker grey. I try to cover up the stain with my hand and wipe the evidence off my face. The squeaks of the car door opening warn me of his arrival as I shut my eyes for one last moment of serenity. He sits abruptly and steals two more tears as the car shakes at his entry. I make not one move. 

          “Wassup?” 

I take a shakingly quick breath. Rapidly, I glance at him, fixing his durag. I dreadfully respond to the dumbass question.

          "What’s going on?” I respond with fake confidence, lacing my tone. He notices and smirks. 

          “You gon’ take that base out your voice or?” he mocks, still fixing his durag. 

          From the tone of his voice, I know what is to come. This conversation is about to be a game. A game consisting of who has the best poker face and how well one of us can play emotional cards. A game I hate playing. A game he always wins. 

          “Can you just tell me what we’re meeting here for?”

          “You don’t wanna see me?” he utters, grinning.

          “That’s not what I said.” 

          He stares at me, looks down at my “actually big” lips, travels back into my eyes and waits for a smile out of me. I give in reluctantly. Fuck.  

          “That’s what you’re insinuating,” he responds.

          “Stop playing. Speak.” 

          He smirks.  

          “You’re being brave today.” 

          I am being brave. I avoid talking to him like that. The repercussions are typically way worse than the satisfaction. Especially since this meeting might be about him admitting to infidelity. Even if he’s never admitted to that before. At least not until he got caught. 

          “Don’t make me beg; just tell me why I’m here,” I continue.

          He snorts.

          “Not with that attitude,” he pauses, “You’re gonna have to drop the tough girl act, babe.” 

          I soften my voice.

          “Tell me,” I say. 

          “Ask politely. I know your mom raised you better than that. Make mommy proud.” 

          I exhale all the air I was imprisoning in my lungs. I gulp what feels like a growing Adam’s apple of tension and ignore that weak-ass diss.

          “Please tell me,” I repeat. 

          He nods, affirms my tone and glances at the viewfinder. A silence emerges and makes itself too apparent for me not to say anything. 

          “So?” I beg.

          Still looking into the viewfinder, he opens his mouth for nothing to come out. I remain quiet despite the growing bonfire in my heart. 

          “I think it might be time to call it quits, Diane,” he states.

          My face completely deconstructs from the “tough girl act.” I allow more tears to join the one I didn’t care to hide on my sweatpants anymore. I bring both of my legs up. Lay my shins against the steering wheel and hold myself into position, locking my hands at my feet. The obnoxious silence from earlier on remains. Only this time, silence is the only thing that doesn’t make this shit worse. 

          “Elaborate,” I whisper.

          “Diane, don’t get in this state. You can’t deny that this is probably the worst our relationship has ever been.”

          He’s wrong. This is the worst it has been for him. Not for me. It’s only been worse because I demand a level of respect he’s unable to provide. He’s tried to make up for his eighteenth mistake for the past few months. A mistake that involves a girl, like it did last time. A mistake that consists of a video, like it did last time. A video that replays in my psyche every single time I hear him say, “I love you.” I forgave him. That was my first mistake. Forgiving him the first time opened the gate for a plethora of cheating scandals I’m not proud to say I stayed for. Like when he stayed at a girl’s house where they slept in the same bed but didn’t do anything because they are “basically cousins.” Or that time when they made a sex tape, where all of a sudden they weren’t “basically cousins.” My guy friends always told me: “Every good girl allows her man one cheating card.” Jay took the whole deck secretly, giving me no chance to hit him with the Uno Reverse. 

          “You know we were just about to figure things out, right?” I exclaim. 

          “Yeah, but what’s the point? You’ll never trust me!” 

          “I want to! You don’t make that shit easy now, do you?” 

          “I want to be here, but you make it fucking impossible! Why can’t you acknowledge that?” 

          “Oh, nice! And this is your genius way of finding a solution? By giving up on us?” 

          He pauses. Tears force themselves out of my eyes like a broken faucet. I begin to wipe them off, then stop. This broken faucet turns into a broken pipe in a matter of nanoseconds. 

          “Diane, have you ever thought that maybe a relationship isn’t supposed to be this toxic?” 

Says the one that continuously injects venom into the bloodstream of this relationship. Despite the audacity, he is right. 

          “Whose fault is that, Jay?” I respond.

          “You’re so fucking oblivious to the things that you’ve done!”

          “I’ve never cheated on you! Why do you keep making it seem like that?”

          “You damn near cheating!” he pauses, “What about our rule, huh? You still text your niggas after 10pm! Don’t you?” 

          The niggas in question were all actual relatives, not fake-ass cousins. The rule in question was only applicable to me and ridiculous. I should’ve never agreed to that. In shock, I take a breath and tighten my boxing gloves for a second round.

          “You’re sick, Jay… There’s no way you’re comparing the two. I’d laugh, but I know you’re dead-ass serious.” 

          “So what? You have to cheat on me for me to be broken?” 

          “Broken?! Nigga, who broke you? You know what you did to me! It doesn’t fucking compare.” 

          At the corner of my blurry vision, my mom’s photo ID appears on my phone, placed in the cupholder between us. I snuck out to avoid a conversation about where I was going. I didn’t know she’d find out that quickly. Now, I’ve got to find a lie. I reach for my phone to answer the call, prepping my throat for a still voice.

          “She’ll never like me either,” he pauses, stopping my reach, “No matter how hard I try.” 

          The call ends. Blinking hard enough to clear my blurry vision, I glare at his now glossy eyes. This is an unpleasant sight. My heart torn between holding him or holding my own. “How could she possibly like you?” is what I want to say. But my lips fail me.

          “We can make that happen, you know.” I pause; what am I saying? “You’ve just gotta make me trust you again. I’ll worry about her.” I continue.

          Jay looks around, exhaling sharply. His neck exposed, I shamelessly check for hickeys. I can’t ever be too sure. 

          “Diane, you can’t fix everything!” he exclaims, looking back at me. 

          “If you can’t, let me!” 

          I pause in disbelief at what he’s got me saying. We’re back into his game. 

          “I don’t think this is healthy for the both of us!” he yells. 

          Looking into his eyes, I see absolute desperation. No will, need or want to fight. The feeling of loss slowly creeps into the car, soon after, into my heart. 

          “No, Diane, we’ve outgrown each other…” he continues.

          That’s insulting. I sob uncontrollably, unable to hear my thoughts because there are none. My body trembles to a familiar beat – an anxiety attack. The ones only he knows how to stop. The ones only he ignites. He notices and comes to my rescue, as usual, out of pity. 

          “Breathe, babe. You know I love you, right?” he utters softly, reaching for my thigh. 

          The warmth of his hand comforts me in a way I’ll never understand. How can that even be possible? Especially now? God, I’m so pathetic. 

          “Jay?” I exclaim with both my eyes shut. 

          I try hard to remember all the good moments we shared together. Anything to calm myself down. The smiles. The inside jokes. The sex. The deep conversations. The vibe. The acts of love. That visual is absent. 

          “Mhmm…?” Jay replies.

          “Get out of my car.” 

          I feel his hand slowly gliding off my thigh as it looks for a placement to finally lift off my skin. I refuse to peek. He takes a loud and shaky exhale. My heart sinks deep into my stomach and reaches the bottom at the sound of the car door closing behind him.

          If my eyes were open, he’d still be in that seat.