Part 8
All It Meant
There were thousands upon thousands of moments Andy could relive through her mind's eye, but she couldn't recall any one of them outside of the singular moment that kept replaying in her head. She could no longer remember her favorite professor's name. She could no longer remember her best friend from high school. She could no longer recall anything that happened before or immediately after she had stepped into Miranda's house that night.
All she could remembered was that her eyes had rebelliously focused on Miranda's alcohol flushed cheek. Her legs pushed her forward, first one step and then another. Her tongue moistened her lips. Her torso leaned forward. Her lips made contact with Miranda's pale skin. Her eyes closed. Her heart stopped. Her complicated life disappeared.
Then, she remembered that her eyes opened, and she pulled away from Miranda knowing that she had drunk too much alcohol. She put her wine glass on the nearest even surface, and then left Miranda's home before Miranda's blue eyes turned her into ice with their anger and she would lose her ability to flee. And now, as Andy laid atop her bed, all her brain could remember was standing in Miranda's home blabbering on like an idiot about her personal life and then for some reason thinking it would be awful nice to just kiss Miranda's cheek before she left.
Oddly, it wasn't the kiss that really freaked her out, although that freaked her out plenty. What really had her shaken up and feeling like Gumby was that the simple act of being with Miranda had actually made her feel better. She had felt better after she had knocked on Miranda's door to demand a job. She had felt better after she had Miranda read her article for the first time, and she had felt better from having spoken to Miranda after fighting with Nate.
There was something about Miranda that calmed her and made everything seem a little bit easier, which was an absurd idea because Miranda didn't make anything easy. Miranda complicated everything up until everyone around her was in a blind panic afraid of committing the sin of unoriginal independent thought. Andy was positive that no one would ever think to run to Miranda for emotional support or personal advice. Miranda wasn't sympathetic or sensitive to anyone else's problems.
Andy held onto no illusions that Miranda had turned into someone else after she had walked away from
Runway. No part of Andy believed that Miranda would change. It didn't matter that Miranda not once but three times opened the front door when she saw Andy standing pathetically on the other side. It didn't matter that Miranda had actually offered her advice. None of that meant Miranda had changed. All it had proven was that Andy really didn't know Miranda at all. The only Miranda she had met was the icon, and she had never been properly introduced to the Miranda that showed personal interest in another person. She had seen glimpses of that person before, but the icon had always been more prominent. It made judging Miranda and finding fault a lot easier. Things were less complicated when Miranda was the enemy, because then it was easier to believe that Miranda was wrong about…well everything.
But now, Andy released a heavy sigh, now she had to admit that Miranda had not been wrong. With the life that Andy wanted, certain choices were becoming obviously necessary, and now it was just up to her to 'unapologetically pursue it'. Her friends would either stand by her or they would leave, and over a decade of friendship would be kicked away into the realm of scrapbooks and forgotten online photo galleries. Andy still had no clue exactly what she was feeling for Nate, but she had a horrible suspicion that Miranda would be right about that as well.
Andy turned on her side and looked across her empty mattress. Miranda had said that 'You do not simply wake up one morning no longer in love with the person you share a bed with'. Well, it had been a long time since she had woken up with Nate beside her. The nights they did spend were far and few between, and the chances they did get to spend the night with each other they didn't choose to do a lot of sleeping.
She heard the lock turning on the front door, and for the first time since getting home, regretted ever leaving Miranda's home. Only two people had a key to her apartment, and she was pretty sure that Lily wouldn't let herself in at four in the morning. "Where'd you go?" she asked as soon as Nate appeared in her bedroom doorway.
Nate shrugged. "I walked around." He moved over to the bed and then sat down on the furthest corner away from Andy. "What have you been doing?"
Andy looked away from Nate. "I went to go see Miranda."
He laughed humorlessly. "I wish I was surprised."
"Yeah." Andy rolled over onto her back. "I wish I was, too."
Nate concentrated on the keys he still held in his hand. "We're breaking up, aren't we?"
"I think we've been breaking up for a long time, Nate," Andy whispered. "We just didn't," she blinked away her forming tears, "we didn't know how."
"I shouldn't have stayed in Boston," Nate's attention stayed on his keys.
Andy slowly sat up. "We were over before Boston, Nate. You weren't," she swallowed the pain, "you weren't the one that walked away."
The keys dropped from Nate's fingers. He didn't move to pick them up. "What is it about her, Andy, that makes you choose her over everyone else?"
"I haven't…" Her brain stumbled over her thoughts. "I'm not choosing her over anyone."
Nate finally turned around and looked at his girlfriend. "Don't lie, Andy. This isn't just about your career."
His words were challenging her to admit to something she couldn't even admit to herself. She didn't know why seeing Miranda made her feel better. She didn't know why she felt the urge to kiss Miranda's cheek before she left. She didn't know why she had given into the impulse to march on over to Miranda's home in the middle of the night not once, but three times. She didn't know why Miranda was the only person in the world that could inspire her to do things beyond all her self-imposed restrictions. "Why can't it just be about my career?"
"Because she already helped you; she made sure you got that job at the
Mirror, and you're not the type of person that throws everybody she cares about away for a job."
"How do you know that?" Andy couldn't look at him any longer so stared at her bedspread instead.
"I know it because I thought you were the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with," his voice got progressively louder as he spoke. "Damn it Andy, I know it because I love you!"
"No," Andy stopped trying to blink back her tears. "No, I don't think you know me at all. I don't think anyone does."
"Except for Miranda." Nate spit out the editor's name like it put a bad taste in his mouth. "She's the one you always turn to now."
Andy angrily wiped away her tears. "Nate, you're not being fair."
"Well, I don't think it's fair that you're in love with someone else." He jumped up from the bed.
Andy jumped along with him. "I'm not…"
"Don't lie," Nate interrupted.
"But I'm not in love with Miranda!"
"Then what is it, Andy?" Nate screamed. "What has you so attached to her?"
"I don't…"
"You don't know," he finished for her.
Andy's hands began to shake. "I have never cheated on you."
"I didn't say you did." He turned away from Andy. "I said you're in love with someone else."
"That's, that's crazy."
"Why?" Nate looked out Andy's bedroom window down to the street below. "She wouldn't be the first woman you've ever loved."
Andy rubbed at her forehead with her right hand. "I'm not going to talk about this with you."
Nate slowly turned around. He walked back to where his keys dropped and then bent over to pick them up. Once they were in his hands, he ran his finger over the key ring parting it so that he could take off Andy's key. He wouldn't need it anymore.
"I hope you figure out what it is you want," he said as soon as he had Andy's key free. He then slowly stood back up. "I'd hate to think you made a fool of me for no reason."
"Nate, don't," she warned. "We're not breaking up just because of me."
"No?" He humorlessly laughed. "It sure feels like it."
"You know what, Nate?" Andy reached out and snatched her key away even though Nate hadn't yet offered it to her. "You need to grow up." She took a step away from him. "And you need to leave." He could go stay with Lily or Doug. She didn't want him around her anymore.
Nate bowed his head and his body relaxed. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to come back here and fight with you."
"Then why did you come?"
He raised his head and then looked into Andy's eyes. "I wanted to say goodbye. It just," he ran his hand across his mouth, "it just hurts to know you uh…" He licked his lips. "It hurts." He looked towards the doorway. "I'm gonna go."
Andy nodded and silently stood as he walked away from her. He had passed the threshold before she called out, "Nate." He turned around. "I'm sorry."
"I hope you two are happy together." He sounded almost as if he actually meant his words.
She listened as her apartment door opened and then shut, then looked down at the key she held in her hand. Nate had been her first serious long term love. He had been the one she had broken up with her girlfriend for. She hadn't wanted to fall in love with him; she didn't think she'd ever have anything in common with someone who wanted to be a chef. Her girlfriend had been a graduate student in the Department of Journalism at Northwestern, and they had more in common than she ever did with Nate, but there was something about him that called her to him and she willfully followed it. Andy followed it just like she was following that same little something that was pulling her towards Miranda.
Andy never really thought she would fall in love with Nate. She never thought she would graduate from school and then move in with him. She never thought there would be a possibility of marriage and a family. But she had fallen in love with Nate, and at one point she had seriously considered marrying him. Then, she got her job at
Runway and everything changed. Nate accused her of losing her integrity and she ended up sleeping with the first guy that came along that charmed her.
Maybe Nate was right. Maybe all of this really was her fault. Maybe she was the one that ruined their relationship.
"Fuck!" She threw the key against her bedroom wall. It bounced off and then fell harmlessly to the floor. It refused to give Andy the satisfaction of destroying anything.
Andy then fell to the ground, choosing the punishment of the cold wooden floor over the softness of her bed. Her body crumbled and she could no longer hold back her tears. Her confrontation with Nate had made her angry at him, but even angrier at herself. She had known it was a mistake to go back to Nate after she returned from Paris, but she had wanted so badly to prove to Miranda that she wasn't at all who Miranda thought she was. She wanted to grab back onto the life she had so easily turned her back to, and she wanted to make everything okay again. She wanted to hold onto something she had already let go of.
Miranda had been right. No one fell out of love blindly, and Andy suspected that what Miranda had held back from saying was that no one fell blindly into love either.
"Oh god." Sobs took over Andy's body. She curled up and grabbed onto her stomach. It hurt so much. She hurt so much and she didn't know how to make it immediately go away. For a moment, she was afraid that she would drown herself with her tears, even though she knew that wasn't logically possible. She lost herself inside of her tears, and then she remembered that Miranda made things easier.
She uncurled her body, and then crawled towards her phone. She dialed Miranda's number from memory, forcing herself not to question her actions. The phone rang once, and then twice, and then, "I certainly hope you're calling me at five in the morning to tell me you're dead."
Andy laughed because she needed to. "Hello, Miranda." She didn't try to hide the fact that she was still crying.
"Andrea," Miranda sounded more alert, "what's wrong?"
Andy wiped at her face. "I broke up with Nate."
"That's hardly worthy of a phone call." It almost sounded like Miranda was doing something as undignified as yawning.
Andy released a heavy breath. "I wanted to say you were right about everything."
"Mm."
"And, and I wanted to say that I'm sorry that I left you in Paris." She hadn't wanted to say that at all, but for some reason it seemed suddenly important.
"But Andrea, I thought I 'let you go' as you so eloquently put it?"
"People either choose to stay or they choose to leave," Andy whispered into her phone. "Isn't that what you said?" Andy picked herself up off the floor and then moved herself to her bed. "I uh. You just opened the door Miranda, I'm the one that stepped through it."
"I still do not fully comprehend why you felt it necessary to call me this early."
Since Andy couldn't say, 'Because I think I've fallen in love with you' she said, "I just thought it was important to apologize."
Miranda sighed. "Fine," she said and then hung up.
Andy pulled her phone away from her ear and looked down at it. She considered calling Miranda back, but she was sure she had already used up all of Miranda's minimal patience. Just because Andy was slowly beginning to realize that she felt something for Miranda, that didn't mean that Miranda felt anything for her. All it meant, was that Andy didn't feel quite as bad as she had after she had watched Nate leave. All it meant, was that without even trying, Miranda had made things just a little bit easier and a little less complicated.
Continued