Dedicated to AAAngel a Watty friend of mine!
"If you were me, what would you do?"
Yoona had invited me to dinner at her place, and I was always happy to have a delicious Korean meal and spend time with her rambunctious toddler. Mali had grown so fast, her curly black hair was a mop that covered her beautiful brown eyes.
Yoona added gochujang, a hot chili paste, into a bowl of simmering red tofu stew mixed with vegetables, mushrooms, onions, and prawns. It was one of the best dishes she made, and after she handed out our bowls of soup it was customary to crack a raw egg over it and let it cook in the heat of the broth. I was already watering at the mouth.
"Are you asking if I'm #TeamEvan or #TeamEthan?" she asked as I bounced Mali in my lap. She was peacefully sleeping after a long day at daycare.
"Gross," I groaned in response.
She laughed quietly to herself as she stirred.
"Jules, instead of asking why it should be Ethan or Evan, why don't we ask why not either of them first? Who says you have to pick A or B? Why not pick C - none of the above, try again? 'Thank u, next' them," Yoona mused.
"Ethan has been with me through so much," I sighed. "I loved him a lot. I still do love him, but recently he's been so...so finicky about everything. It's not all on him though, I know it's because I did a 180 on him."
"What about Evan?" she peppered.
"I will always have a soft spot for Evan," I said, almost surprising myself with how honest I was being. It felt strange to say out loud, but I knew that moving on didn't mean forever gone. "He hurt me though. He chose his career over me, which you encouraged by the way, and now even if...even if...I wanted to have feelings for him again, I'd be wary."
"I'd be wary too," she agreed. "Evan can be kind of a wild card."
"Ethan will be there for me," I said. "If I chose him, he would be by my side."
"I'm not saying you have to give Evan a second chance, but do you think that if you chose him, he wouldn't make the same choices he made almost half a decade ago?" she asked.
She slid over a bowl of steaming brown rice. "I mean, you're in the same position you were half a decade ago, boyfriend wants to go somewhere and he wants you to come with him. 21-year-old Julie would have already packed and shipped all her things across the country by now."
I shimmied Mila's sleeping body over to the couch. "I didn't do this that though."
"Case-in-point, J."
"You're just saying that because you're #TeamEvan," I scoffed after gently folding a fuzzy blanket over Mila.
"Hey!" she snorted. "I'll have you know I'm always #TeamJulie."
I gave her a side hug in response. "Thanks for dinner."
She grinned. "You're welcome."
I spooned some stew into my rice. "We don't know if Evan would make a different choice."
Yoona drummed her fingers on the table. "Hmm, if he did....is that the game-changer?"
I shoved almost scalding hot soup into my mouth to keep from answering. I hadn't thought too deeply about Evan, my mind was scattered.
"Do you think about what life would have been like if you stayed in Northwick?" Yoona asked as I chewed. "Would you be married with four little rugrats running around?"
"Honestly, I do," I answered plainly. "I knew what my life would be like if I stayed, I would stay home, cook, clean, take care of the kids, and marry some guy ten books over. I have nothing against housewives though. That is a job that never ends, and maybe I might even do it one day. It's just..."
The idea of that life made me happy.
"Before my dad died, he told me to leave Northwick. He told me to explore the world more, that's what he wanted for me and Kathy. He said that life was more than the 20-mile radius we knew." My heart twinged.
Even years later, the memory was hard to relieve. I didn't think of my dad as much anymore but I loved him all the same. "When I got into NYU and broke the news to my mom, I didn't tell her about that. I didn't want her to think I was only doing it for my dad."
Yoona offered a sympathetic look.
"Your mom got around though," she reminded me.
"Then it was telling her about Evan...I told her I wanted to bring him to Thanksgiving the year we graduated. I was so sure, Yoona. All I could think was, if Evan loved me and I loved him, then we could make it work no matter what."
Rehashing felt weird but it was like the moment Evan came back, all the unresolved feelings rushed in along with him. "Then spring break came and she asked me about him...and I told her there was nothing to say because there wasn't anyone in my life worth mentioning."
Yoona furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Wait, didn't you two break up after graduation? I remember we took pictures in the shade to hide your runny mascara. Why would you say that?"
I remembered Evan's face when he told me he heard the conversation. "I ran into Evan's friend a month ago before that, and he told me...that Evan had applied to that Master's Program in China."
"That didn't mean he was going to go," Yoona insisted.
"Says the one who encouraged him to go," I said light-heartedly.
She blushed in response. "I have a more in-depth defense, J. I'm still really sorry about that. I know I had no right to do that, and I'm sorry."
I shook my head. "Yoona, you voiced your opinion. That's okay. Would I have wished you went to me first? Yeah, but I'm not mad. You telling Evan what you think he should do didn't change the fact that he had to make his own choice."
She hugged me apologetically. "I was sad to see him listen if that was any consolation."
"It just hurt me to know that he was making all these plans behind my back. I know he doesn't need my approval, it wasn't about that. It just felt like...here I was thinking about our future...all by myself, and there he was planning to leave me behind," I said.
"It kind of makes me feel like I'm in my mom's shoes and Evan's in mine. She warned me. She told me this would happen, and I just felt so ashamed that she was right."
"That's different," Yoona argued. "You were her daughter, you leaving the coop isn't the end of your relationship with her, but Evan leaving New York was a game-changer for your relationship with him."
It was a frustrating situation. "I'm in the same spot again like you said. Ethan, he wants to find his mom. He wants to do his residency in California. What's another state? I can always find a new job."
"You can't find a new Yoona," she interjected.
I smiled. "Of course, that's a given."
"Ugh," I buried my face in my hands. "Do I not like Ethan as much?"
"I think, opinion-alert, that you like Ethan just fine, and if you picked him and decide to fly across the coast to be with him, that's 100% your choice." Yoona refilled our now empty soup bowls. "Do you think there's something more though, Jules? Not just to Ethan, but to your life. It's like your dad said, life is more than what's familiar."
"Does this mean I just bounce between Evan and Ethan until I figure out how I feel? That seems unfair," I argued. Ethan would just give me an even harder time, and I did not need to relieve earlier's subway scene. The only baby I would be taking care of today was Mali.
"Why don't you tell them both the situation? No lies or sugar-coating it, and if they're not okay with it then you have your answer," she suggested gingerly.
"I don't want them to feel used."
Yoona snorted. "They're big boys, Julie. You're making a big decision, it's like you interview for two jobs: they're both interested and you doing your researching and making an educated choice is the best for everyone. Otherwise, everyone's left wondering if they're the second choice and you're wondering if you could have been a...more enthusiastic employee elsewhere."
"The only question is: are you willing to end up with neither?" she asked.
"It's better than whatever this hell of a seesaw ride feels like."
She nodded. "I agree. So who's first on the chopping block?"
I cringed at her word choice.
As much as I didn't want to see Ethan so soon again, I felt like I owed it to him to be clear about the situation first since he was the one most affected by my choices.
"Ethan's gonna kill me," I groaned.
"At least he could bring you back to life afterward," Yoona chucked.
I hope you guys don't mind backstory, I think it just makes Julie's experiences all the more real and her actions now more meaningful. Like, all that hope she had was crushed from Evan's departure and that makes her (reasonably?) worried about Ethan's permanence in her life, but things are different now.
Now, Ethan's asking her to come with him to California and at one point in her life that's all she ever wanted from a boyfriend or at least what she thought she wanted.
The question is: does she think her relationship with Ethan is what/who she wants for the rest of her life?
Also, Evan's reappearance in her life is going to bring up a lot of questions like was it the right person but wrong timing or has he grown into someone she can learn to love again?