Page 39 of Not My Problem

“I’ll talk to her,” I agreed.

“What are you going to say?” Rochelle asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better figure that out before you talk to her.”

The next day was Saturday. After a restless night and hours of practicing what I was going to say, I headed out of my house and knocked on my neighbor’s door. Jan opened right away, her face lacking its usual warmth.

“Are you here to apologize?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Jan studied me for a long moment, and whatever she saw in my expression made her relax.

“Hold on, I’ll get her…. Zoe!”

I jumped as she hollered with surprising force. “You have a guest.”

Zoe came out wearing faded jeans and a white tank top and I realized that we were dressed almost identically. She looked good, carrying herself with an air of confidence about her that hadn’t been there before. It was different from the sassy bravado I’d seen when she first arrived. It was hard to describe, but it was like she wasn’t in ‘fake it until you make it’ mode anymore.

“Hi Gretchen.” Her expression gave nothing away.

“Hi. I was wondering, can we take a walk and talk?”

She glanced back at her grandmother, who nodded encouragingly. “Okay, let me put on some shoes.”

Jan leaned closer. “Don’t mess this up or you’ll lose a friend and a girlfriend.”

I must have flinched because her face softened and she patted my shoulder. “I know you can fix things with Zoe, it’s obvious you two are perfect for each other. But you need to let her be her own person, okay?”

Zoe came out and we headed down the sidewalk towards the park. We walked in silence for a few minutes before Zoe spoke.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

I took a deep breath. “I was wrong. I messed up and I owe you an apology.”

She nodded but kept walking. “What exactly are you apologizing for?”

Okay, that was fair.

“When you first arrived in Seattle, I felt a little sorry for you. I could tell you were going through a rough time, and I did what I always do… try to be helpful. Try to fix everything. Make myself indispensable. I thought…,” I paused, trying to think of how to say it, “Some part of me thought if you relied on me for stuff, if you needed me, that would keep you close.”

“That’s not a relationship,” she pointed out.

“I know. I’ve had a few weeks to think about that, and why that’s my default. And I realized that I owed you an apology.” I stopped and stepped in front of her so she could see the truth on my face. “You are strong, capable, and smart, and you don’t need me. You need a partner, and so do I. And I’m willing to do the work to be the partner you deserve.”

Her eyes bounced between mine. “This isn’t just your fault,” she finally said. “The truth is that I was so grateful to have someone taking care of me for a change instead of me taking care of everything for myself that I fell into that dynamic we had the same as you did. So if we’re going to try this again, we both have to avoid falling into old patterns and behaviors. We need to be able to call each other out when we backslide and hear the other person when they point it out.”

I nodded. “I agree. You said, ‘if we’re going to try this again’. Are we? Going to try this again?”

“Well, I hope so. You’re a bossy pain in the ass but I really missed you.”

I took a full breath for the first time since we had that fight on Jan’s porch.

“I missed you too.”

We stood there on the sidewalk staring at each other with sappy smiles for way too long before Zoe finally spoke again. “Should we go back to your house? You can give me an orgasm to make up for butting in with my boss and my job.”