July 20, 2023
My ending is on a roof. It’s a summer night in New York City. It's the same NYC that I keep imagining based on "The Devil Wears Prada" and vogue shoots. Oh, and "Someone Great" and "How I Met Your Mother." That’s the NYC of my ending.
It’s summer. It’s one of those hot nights where the air is sticky, and everyone hates it, but my heroine loves it. She loves nights where she can walk in a tank top at 3am and still feel sweat pearling on her forehead.
And she’s staring out at the city lights. The buzz from a party can be heard downstairs, but right now, there’s no one else around. She looks up, and even through the light pollution, the navy sky is clear enough to see a few stars.
Okay, let’s add "How to Be Single" to the list of NYC images this New York is based on. You know what? Let’s make it that roof. The roof of that birthday party Dakota Johnson has in the movie when all three of her love interests show up, and she ends up crying on the emergency staircase.
So my heroine is alone. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She thinks back to a year ago, when she was sleeping on her brother’s couch, having just been kicked out of her house, dumped like trash on the highway. When she would take the bus and stare at the grey linoleum floor, feeling so empty, so dead inside that she just wanted to roll into a ball and lay there until the sea of people washed her away. She thinks back on the many times she just wanted life to pause. For everything to take a beat, for time to stop, for all the sounds to be muted, for all the thoughts and questions in her head to have space to unravel.
‘That girl,’ she thinks, ‘how can that girl be me?’
That girl had never kissed a girl. That girl had no idea what to call the monster in her head. That girl thinks she’s grown so much in the past 6 years, thinks that it’s wild how much you discover about yourself from 20 to 26.
‘Man, she’s about to be taken for a ride.’
And my heroine smiles. She smiles at the city, at the buzz, at her quiet haven which won’t stay calm for long. She smiles through all the painful memories. Because she’s got words to name them now. She knows about the monster. She knows how soft girls' lips are. She knows pain and questions and heartbreaks will tear her down again and again and again. She’s almost looking forward to it, though.
Because there’s solace in knowing how much you can handle. There’s peace in knowing your happy years don’t have to be perfect. And there’s joy. So so so much joy to be had.
She takes a joint out of her jean jacket and lights it. The smell is sure to draw out some of her friends.
My heroine has no idea what’s going to happen next. She only knows that what feels right right now may not feel right in a year or a month or a week, even. But my heroine knows how to listen to herself now. She knows who she is. And more importantly, she knows that that definition will change.
She inhales deeply, feeling her shirt sticking to her skin. And she goes down that emergency staircase. She doesn’t feel like partying. She feels like sitting with her thoughts. Maybe she’ll start writing her story. Maybe she’ll pour it all out on the page for someone else to find light in. The awkwardness, the insecurities, the ouches, the beauty, the joy, the pain.
When her friends, drawn by the smell, walk out onto the roof, she’s long gone.
‘I’m home,’ she'll tell them.