There are days for mirrors.  You know, special occasions: prom, for example, when you’re wearing a gorgeous dress that fits you perfectly and you’re mom’s spent the whole day teasing your hair to perfection and the only thing you want to do is gaze at your reflection and wish you looked like that everyday. 

Then there are days where, if you happen to catch the hideous sight of yourself in any sort of reflective surface, you might just spontaneously combust in the effort to avoid the stupefying horror of your own face.

Needless to say, today is one of the latter, as has every day of the past two weeks been.  Every day since That Day.   

My complexion has paled so that the splattering of freckles and bruised bags underneath my eyes are highlighted for the world to see.  After washing my newly cut hair, I realized I had made the somewhat catastrophic mistake of getting the type of haircut that, when styled properly, looks fantastic, framing my face perfectly and complementing my features.  However, when left to dry naturally, draped over a cushion whilst watching a rerun of Friends, it curls into a messy Afro not entirely unlike an unkempt garden bush.

For the past two weeks I have almost completely foregone makeup.  Remember the days of childhood, when you could leave the house without a lick of artificial enhancement on your cheeks and people still thought you were cute?  Where did those days go?  I specifically saw the guy packing my groceries at the store vividly recoil as I tied my hair up and revealed more of my unmade face. 

“Cat dear, do you want some eggs?  I can make ‘em poached or in the form of Benedict’s or…poached.”

Poor Ed.  Despite being as emotionally stunted as the average heterosexual man, he’s trying his dandiest to bring out the stereotype in his gay self by cooking meals and buying tubs of ice cream that go uneaten and trying to gently prise me open about the situation by repeatedly asking, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”.  

But there’s little he can do.  Him, or anyone else.  I had to endure the usual embarrassment of admitting to family and friends (the few that Justin and I didn’t share, that is) that we had broken up, dodging the customary, “Aw, why did y’all do that then?” with an uncomfortable, “Um, yes, well…people just, er, grow apart…”.  I admitted to my little sister Dawn that I had been “dumped”, but she just said it was his loss and his last album wasn’t even that good, so she didn’t know why he was so cocky.

Ed seemed surprised that I spread the news of our relationship-meltdown so quickly, assuming I was keeping the option open in case we got back together again.  But no, procrastination is a flaw that I need to correct, and I’ve decided to be honest with myself for the first time in months.  Justin and I are over, the longer I spend craving him and wishing for reconciliation the harder it’ll be to accept it when that time doesn’t come.

“You’re giving up very easily,” Ed had said, staring at me with a dubious look across his cutely nerdy features.

“Ed, there’s no point in messing around here; I have to get over him. If I don’t admit to myself that we’re definitely over now, then I never will.”

“Still,” he said uncertainly, “you’re being very…swift about it.  I thought you’d go through the normal proceedings of emotionally charged phone calls and begs to get back together.”

I had shrugged.  “And where would that get me?”

But I can’t lie to myself that much; no matter how straight to the point I’ve been about it, my mental state is still in a frenzied torment over the loss of Justin.  I still call out for him, like when I cut myself while shaving my legs (I don’t even know why I was bothering; it’s not as though I have a man to impress now) and instinctively said, “Oh shit…Justin?!”

The nights are even worse.  Ed’s bed is almost too cramped for space to think (that’s what you get for trying to squeeze a six foot man and a rather chubby young woman into a barely-more-than-a-single bed), but somehow I still manage it.  The humidity of the summer keeps me awake at night, staring at the ceiling and feeling an utter emptiness chip away at my heart as I think about Justin, think about Trace, think about how my life enjoyed a period of sheer happiness.

I try to reason with myself—after the true bliss of the six months of our perfect relationship, it only seems fair that I have it taken away from me.  Maybe somewhere else someone just like me is being pulled from the darkness of unhappiness into the lightness of love, and I hope for his or her sake they enjoy every minute of it while it lasts.

My mom called it “a prolonged honeymoon period”, insinuating that our feelings for each other were perhaps not love, but rather a really good friendship fuelled by an attraction for each other.  I’ve given up even trying to figure out the past few months, nothing makes sense, nor do I particularly want it to.  Sometimes I wonder if I was ever even in love with Justin Timberlake at all.

That’s when I know I’m not procrastinating, but I’m sure as hell lying to myself.

“Liar.”

“No, really, we were together almost a year.”

Anna raises her eyebrow.  “You kept that quiet.  Very quiet; how come it wasn’t all over the papers and shit?”

I shrug.  “I was quite far out of the limelight, people were more interested in who Usher was dating.”

“Well, it explains some of these lyrics,” she laughs, casting her eye over the true words of a broken heart angrily scrawled onto a piece of paper.  “These are very…raw.”

“Too raw?”

She nods, flipping out her cell phone and glancing at a message—one of several hundred she seems to receive every hour.  “I’ve got a friend who’s really good with these sort of lyrics…Martin Fuertes, heard of him?”

I shake my head as Anna shoves her phone back into her back and swings it over her shoulder, running her fingers through her bright-as-Barney purple hair.  Even at, goodness, it must be forty-five years of age, Anna still dyes her hair extremist colors and wears anything she damn well pleases.  She’s one of those kooky characters with square shaped red glasses who always looks like she’s just stumbled out of some vintage shop in the back streets of New York with her eccentric clothing.  Odd, that she should be such a successful producer in the pop, R’n’B area when quite frankly she looks like an aged hippy, and, by the way, has managed to color her hair twice in the past week (the last color was apple green, in case you’re asking).

“He’s this bomb of a songwriter, worked with Elton John back in the day and he’s getting back into it now.  Do you want me to take these to him, have him take a look?” she asks, her wrinkled eyes staring at me inquisitively behind her glasses as she brandishes the song sheet.

The lyrics are a written account of the anaesthetizing pain that I’ve endured lately, as though I’ve simply cut out my heart and dumped it on a piece of paper.  Deeply, deeply personal, to say the least, it’s hardly the sort of thing I want shown to just whoever thinks they can match words to a tune.

But I don’t give a shit: those lyrics are dead to me, as is Ms Catherine Saunders.

“Yeah, go ahead, I don’t care,” I mutter, making a point to do an aimless swivel in my office chair to hide the frown creeping onto my face.

“Sure?” she questions, raising a pencilled eyebrow.

“’Course,” I bend over the desk with a pen, trying to look as though I’m writing an important correction on a song sheet, when really I’ve just written Justin Timberbored in capital letters.  “I’ll see you on Wednesday, okay?”

“Sure thing,” she says, before leaving the room in a cloud of sunflower smelling perfume.

I pause in my writing, applying unnecessary pressure on the pen, as though I’m about to break it in two in my anger.  Yes, that’s where I’m at now, that’s the stage I’ve been promoted to after piercing pain: anger.

As any guy does, I had the usual few days after That Day drowning my sorrows and spending time alone in my room.  Through my alcohol dazed mind, I think it at one point occurred to me that perhaps I should pick up the phone and try and get in touch with Cat.  To check she was okay, to see where she was, to try and sort of what was in fact a very messy end.  Relationships don’t usually end in a bang like that; they peter out slowly, almost torturously, you get used to the idea of not being with them anymore.

With Cat, there was no forewarning; suddenly she was just out of my life, even though I had been the one to throw her out.

So, there I was, clearing away the surprising number of empty bottles that had gathered over the days, and just as I was about to reach for my phone and type in the number my fingers were so accustomed to, it rang for me.

“Hello?” I had answered, a whisper of hope in my ear suggesting that it might be Cat.  We used to do stuff like that all the time, as though we were psychically connected; I would call her, only to learn she had just been dialing my number, or I would turn around in the store and see her there, when we didn’t even know the other was shopping.  

“Hey Justin, Ryan here.”

I tried to hide my disappointment.  Ryan is this Australian friend of ours who lives in the city, more Cat’s friend than mine to be honest.  “He-ey,” I replied, my voice cracking uncertainly.  What the hell did he want?

“Just wanted to call and say I’m sorry to hear about you and Cat,” he said casually, as though he was apologising for not being able to attend a cookout I was having.

“What?” I had replied, astonished. 

“Yeah, Cat told me the other day, and I just wanted to say I’m really sorry, if there’s anything I can do…”

He had trailed off uncomfortably, probably unprepared for my muted silence.  I was shocked; I wouldn’t even have known how to respond if I had wanted to.  How would this guy, who as far as I know wasn’t exactly bosom buddies with Cat, know about something so personal?  Why had she decided to go public with our break-up when my own mother didn’t even have inkling that we “might be having problems”?

So…it was over?  It must be, if she was telling people not in our immediate circle of friends that that was the case.  But…we hadn’t even spoken, don’t all couples have at least one customary phone call finalizing or perhaps opening up the chance of the relationship restarting again?  Cat had suddenly slammed the page shut on the book of our relationship before there was even a chance of writing an epilogue; the final chapter had already been and gone and I felt as though I had missed it.

I admit it: the thing that probably hurt the most was my pride.  Here I was, pickling my liver with alcohol in mourning and having dreams about our reunion and she was already banging the nail in the coffin of our relationship?  Was I that easy to get over?

“Well, you know…this things happen,” I had stuttered after a drawn out silence. 

“Yeah…” he trailed off again, unsure of what to say.  “Yeah.”

“So,” I tried to swallow my hurt, “I take it she’s doin’ okay then?  I don’t need to worry about her?”

I was being cold, and I knew it.  But fuck it, if she was going to toss me aside as easily as some chewed up bone then I was going to treat her exactly the same.  There are many things I could say about Cat, but her being heartless would have been the last. 

Had she changed, then?  Or was she always this complex to begin with, only my desperation to be with her blinded me to it?  No, no…I loved her, I really did.  Her flaws were fatal but I adored them and knew their harmless extents; Cat couldn’t do anyone wrong even if she tried.

But what do I know; by the sounds of things Cat’s changed into someone I don’t even want to know anymore.  Furthermore, her interest in me, something I once mistook for that thing called “love”, if you can believe it, has clearly faded to nothingness.  She wants me even less than I want her. 

“She’s...I don’t know, it’s so hard to tell with Cat, isn’t it?  She never gives anything away.”

Damn right, the cold-blooded bitch.  “Mmm.”

“But I guess she’s fine, she’s staying with a friend for a while before she looks for her own place.  In fact, she mentioned seeing an apartment in the newspaper the other day that looked okay, it’s just so hard for people to find places in this city nowadays…”

What’s her heart made out of, ice?  “Well, I’m just staying where I am for the moment…”

“Damn straight, mate.  Beautiful place you have there, don’t let it go.”

Oh yes, because letting go of an apartment would be both callous and cruel…letting go of a year-long relationship?  Piece of cake …at least it is for Cat Saunders.  “Well, I’d better go now, Ryan.  Got a lotta work to do.”

“Sure, sure.  Well, if you need anything, just call.”

How about a chisel, to chip away at her heart of stone?  “Okay, bye for now.”

I hung up the phone quickly and without hesitation.  That was it, we were over for sure.  Quick, simple, and over.

And then, I had started to cry.  And not even for myself, but for the disappearance of My Cat, because I knew I would never see her again.

I should have called, why didn’t I call?

Because just hearing his voice would’ve caused you to burst into tears, that’s why.

But this is just plain rude, to turn up unannounced.  I should really just turn around and go back to Ed’s…

Come on, you big pussy.  Look, that ancient doorman’s seen you; see, he’s nodding at you in recognition.  You have to go up now.

Shit.

Having firmly lost this argument with my subconscious, I uneasily push myself towards the towering, therefore increasingly intimidating apartment block.   Collecting my stuff has to be done at some point; it’s not as though I’m leaving behind a sweater or two, there are large items of furniture that I need, kept away in my old home, otherwise known as Justin’s new bachelor pad.  Financially, it would be stupid to leave these just because it might be awkward seeing Justin; I have to be grown up about this.

But it’s proving to be rather difficult.

The time in the elevator ride up to the top floor vanishes, and suddenly I am confronted by Justin’s, not our, looming white door.  My hand pauses, the key clutched in my fingers hovering midair.  I can’t just unlock the door with my key; it’s not my house anymore.  I slip the key back into my jeans (I spent hours this morning choosing an outfit that said, “Hey, I’m doing fine without you but between you and me I cried at an episode of Seinfeld because I remembered it was you’re favorite”…I settled on jeans and a baggy sweater) and knock hesitantly at the door.

The sight of him still knocks the breath out of me.  He’s just as I remembered him; I don’t know what I was expecting, there’s hardly a lot a person can change in two and a half weeks, but it’s still a shock to see him just as I left him.  Curly brown hair, which I teased needed to be cut on what I didn’t realize would be our last night together, clear skin with the beginnings of a tan from the summer sun, an expectant expression on his face.

His eyes are different, though.  They were confused and watery, matching his tone as he explained he just didn’t know about us anymore.  But as they gaze back at me now, my ex-boyfriend and sadly the man I still love framed in the doorway, there’s a coldness, an almost indifference that literally sends a chill down my spine.

He was telling the truth; he really doesn’t love me anymore.

I am comforted by the silence, if he’s as shocked as I am to physically be standing before him then maybe I’m misinterpreting the look in his eyes.  Perhaps it’s not indifference, but I dread to think what else it could be.

“Hey,” I say softly, the familiar lump in my throat wedging itself in its customary position.

“Hi,” he says, his tone giving away nothing about from mild surprise.

“I…I should’ve called, sorry.”

“No worries,” he replies, folding his arms and leaning against the doorframe.  “What can I do for you?”

My breathing becomes shallow, I can hear my heartbeat thumping in my ears and my heart longs to release tears of devastation; no, I won’t let him see me cry.  I can’t, I have to remind myself that we’re over and that’s it, no looking back.  Pining for what isn’t going to help anyone, it’s just going to make moving forward even harder.  Luckily, thanks to being in the school play every year in high school, I have the ability to wipe my face and eyes of emotion, displaying nothing but blankness to the outer world.

But dear Lord, my inner world is crumbling at an alarming rate, right before Justin’s oblivious eyes.

I shove my hands in my pocket sheepishly, mirroring his casual, confident pose.  “I thought we ought to…discuss, um, matters to do with belongings and such.”  That’s right, keep it business-like, keep it simple.

“Oh, yes, you’re right.”  After a moment of consideration, he moves to the side, showing me in.

Ignoring how odd it seems to be invited into a place I called home, in fact still do, I step into the apartment.

Home is just the same too.  Nothing’s been moved, nothing’s changed.  Even the message paper beside the phone has the same scrawled message on it—a message I wrote.  It was the time that the plane was supposed to arrive in JFK airport when Justin arrived in from LA. Was that really only written by my own hand three weeks ago?  Did I have any idea then of the dire state of our relationship, or Justin’s clear shift of feelings from me?  My life with Justin feels like a lifetime ago, as though so much has changed and yet nothing at all.

“Cat, let’s just make this as easy as possible,” he sighs, unconscious of my eyes watching his chest rise and fall in his breathing.  I can’t help it; I can’t tear my eyes from him.  “This is difficult enough as it is without, you know…dragging it out,” he says slowly, as though searching for the right words.  “Well, it is for me, anyway.”

He suddenly locks his eyes with mine, the strange bitterness of his words confusing me.

“It’s difficult for me too, Justin.”  My tone appears defensive, but I am merely stating the obvious.  What does he think, that the past two weeks have been a breeze for me?  That he’s not crossed my mind, that I’ve not gotten silly-drunk just for the comfort of two minutes without him weighing on my conscience?

Oh Justin, if only you knew.  If only we could talk like we once did, but I know it’s my fault we can’t.  Maybe this is why this is so hard, because I know it’s my fault and I can’t blame him at all for his loss of love for me, the only door at which blame can be placed is at my own. 

How did I let this happen?

“Why don’t we just…go through the rooms?  You show me what you want or what is yours and then I’ll get it shipped to you?”

I pause.  “That seems the best idea.”

“Okay,” he firmly strides out and returns a moment later, the message pad left beside the phone in his hands.  His eyes skim over the paper, recognizing his flight details decorated with those stupid flowers I always doodle when I’m on the phone.

He firmly grips the paper and tears it viciously from the pad, hastily scrunching it into a ball in his hand, ready to throw away another reminder of my presence in his apartment.  The only thing that makes it worse is that I know it means nothing to him.

“So, what’s your address now?”  He glances up at me, causing a temporary mind block as I stare at him.  I never believed it when people said you can get lost in people’s eyes, I thought it was some sad phrase invented by the great Danielle Steele to fill gaps in her stupid romantic novels, but it’s genuinely true.  Whether it’s the love of your life or the guy in your Biology class who you think is cute, something happens in the space between their eyes and yours that causes your heart to do a double take.

I rattle off my address robotically, my words falling in the air as cold as bits of snow in the otherwise total silence.  Two lovers, suddenly strangers—nothing can be colder than that.

“Right, how do you want to do this?” says Justin briskly, sliding the piece of paper into his back pocket.

I shrug.  “Well, it’s mostly all yours, except for the bookcase, my bedside table, the laptop…that’s all I can really think of.”

"And personal stuff?  Photos, clothes, toiletries...."

 "Toiletries you can throw out, unless you have any use for Nair Hair Removal cream," I joke awkwardly, and he has the decency to grimly smile.  "I've got most of my clothes, but any more or other bits and pieces I can just put into boxes and take with me to Ed's.  Have we...you still got those spare empty boxes in the attic?"

 He nods.  "And...photos?"

 I want them all; anything to remind me of the good times we had together so I can look back and laugh.  Over the past year and a bit, I've enjoyed some true happiness, and at every available opportunity I whipped out a camera to snap the memory in a picture that Justin and I could look back on.  There must be over a hundred beaming pictures of us, just...existing happily.

 "Split them in half?" he suggests, and I seek some solace in the fact he wants to keep some memories too. 

That solace wanes soon as he promptly continues in the same strict, business-like manner I'm trying to imitate.  “What about the stuff in Tennessee?”

Oh, of course…there’s a whole other house with my belongings in it; that’s why I seem so empty-handed.

“I…hadn’t thought about that…” I fluster nervously, feeling a slight heat rise to my face from the embarrassment of looking so stupid before Justin’s cool gaze.

“What are your plans?  Are you staying up here in New York or are you heading back down south?”

“I…again, hadn’t thought about it…” I chuckle falsely, something I’m sure he notices too.

“Well, I was just thinkin’, because if you’re staying here we’ll have to get it shipped up but if you’re going back to Memphis we can deal with it locally.”

Suddenly, I feel very young, and very lonely.  It’s been so long since I’ve had to make decisions for myself I’ve almost forgotten how to do it; it’s sort of ironic, I took my life into my own hands at the age of seventeen, caring for no one but myself while other people still lived with mom and dad.  And now at the age of twenty two, when most are standing on their own two feet and having someone else protect you from the harsh world is just a memory of childhood, I’m about as independent as a Kindergartener. 

“I guess I’m just staying here, so it’ll need to be shipped.”  In an attempt to salvage what little Justin thinks of me, I quickly assure, “I’ll pay for it, don’t worry about it.”

“No, no, I brought you up here, I owe you it.”

“It’s my furniture, it’s my responsibility.”

He stares at me for a second, a tired look in his eyes.  “Okay, if that’s what you want.”

And that’s it, in a single moment, I know Justin’s given up on me.  He’s tired of me, of the complications I bring, and of having to fight back all the time.  I don’t blame him: I’m tired too.

Then, without any emotion that may resemble regret or relief or love or hatred, we go through the numbingly alien process of going through every room in the house, slowly but surely removing my items from his, sifting through our belongings and sorting them into two organized piles, tearing our united life in half.  All the time retaining a stuffy indifference with each other, feeling as though the person opposite is a total stranger.

Justin, I’m still me, why can’t you see that?  See that I love you, and that anything that I changed about myself was for you, not an act against you.  Why are putting up this charade of civility, like two people meeting for the first time at a business function, forcing politeness and ignoring the awkwardness.  We know each other’s greatest secrets, fears, hopes, hates, loves.

So, Justin, why are you looking at me like you don’t even know me at all?