Digital Is Better – Side B (Part 3 of 8)

by Simon Deayelle
10th March 2022

B05 – Plan

I read your letter many times.

I do not understand much.

I have never seen you speak erratically,

But seeing you write in such a manner...

I read your letter, yet again. And I know this much:

You are trying to tell me something,
but know not how or what.

Continue that journey - you are on the right track.

Though tempting it may be,

Stay on it.

Try not to turn back.

Feel I should worry

But have come to know better.

Along with my love

Please make do with this letter

B+

A06 – Seattle

Every year when equinox the ladder roles along, Jules gets all giddy in anticipation. Unlike many people she was always one to enjoy the colder months. As a child she claimed she can, for the most part, do the same things as the rest of year, but could make it look like she was smoking while doing them.
Growing older she kept doing that, but occasionally teased me with it.
She used to tell me “the last few months I smoked as much if not more than you – but now that it’s getting warmer, I think it’s time to quit.”
I think that she was well aware that quitting was not the same as stopping to pretend; and that rather than asking me to quit she had found a way to mock me with her well-meaning.

At the time I thought it was a good idea for the three of us to go on a trip. Jules and I had gone away several times – usually to go to concerts – but we never brought T. along.
This time however the intention was to just go away for the sake of it. Not that there’s too much you can do outside when it’s freezing cold. But at least there were usually not as many people around.
T. was not yet allowed to legally drink, but we agreed he was old enough to experience a hangover. With us being away from home we decided to give him a break and let him have a couple of drinks. The worst we expected to happen was that he would be put off by it.

After dinner we took a stroll through the old town, there was an evening market ongoing and lots of places that served drinks outside.
T. already knew he didn’t like the taste of beer but was attracted to the sweet and spicy scents of mulled wine. We tried to tell him it smelled much nicer than it tasted, but he insisted on trying, and on finishing both our cups as well. He wasn’t impressed by the lack of progress us grown-ups made. One might think we intentionally got a minor drunk. And in a way we did, although one can argue there is a line between forcing someone to do something and simply allowing it to happen.
Seeing that he was old enough to have sex, we figured he was old enough for self-induced headache and indigestion. After all the consequences are usually less permanent.

Although Tee downed his own drink in one go, and mine in only a few gulps, he never got to finish Jules’. His body turned on him too quickly.
We just about managed to get him away from the crowd into a nearby park before he started emptying a dark red reinterpretation of his dinner into the bushes.
After that he was in no mood or shape to walk back to the hotel. We had to carry him between our shoulders as you would with someone who can’t operate both legs properly.

We left him in his room with his clothes still on. Jules thought it would be more comfortable for him to wake up the next morning nicely tucked in, but I overruled her suggestion.
If he could drink like he was old enough, he could wake up as though he was. Whilst it was safe to assume that his body will have recovered by morning, I wanted to preserve the authenticity of him not knowing how he got to bed.

After stowing the little puker away in his room, Jules and I went back outside. We both felt like we could use a drink, not just because we were robbed of the previous one.
We ended up a quiet bar with a bottle of red. That's when she dropped the bomb on me.

"I will drop out of school at the end of the semester.
It was a stupid idea from the beginning. I should not have listened. I don't know why I did.
At the time it seemed like the biggest decision of my life - and I was scared about making a such a big decision alone.
I figured that taking the advice of the some of the smartest people I have ever known was the right thing to do. Most of them suggested going to school was a good way to expand.
Although I am meeting interesting people, learning a lot, I do not feel I benefitted much from my time there.”

"What you are going to do instead?”
I didn't think Julie would just drop out of school without having something better lined up.
Everything she ever did, she seemed to do with purpose and intent.

"Why does that matter?" she looked mildly displeased with my question.
"It is exactly why I will not go back to school after the break.
I will stick around until the holidays. But after that, I'll do what I want, for a change." Her smile returned. Fortunately.

"And what is it that you want to do?"

"I don't know...
I'll see next year...
Right now, I enjoy spending time with my best friend.
I am starting to get drunk. And I need to pee."

She headed for the ladies and left me with my thoughts.

Having already been working on my advanced education when Jules finished her mandatory school years, I was among the people who suggested her the academic route.
Even though I had, by that time, been completely fed up with my fellow students who not only pretended to understand what was expressed through literature and arts during times long past. No, many of them insisted on telling you all about it. People they never met. People that had lived and died – sometimes hundreds of years ago before either of us was born. Making declarations about stuff they read or heard about - from someone else.
It was exciting at first but got really boring really quickly. Boring and annoying. It’s hard to discuss a topic with someone if all they bring to the table is hearsay and a lack of personal insight necessary for a constructive conversation.
Despite all that I was still fully committed to my studies. This made the hit especially hard when Jules added “Signing up for this was the stupidest thing I ever did.”
Not because I felt responsible for her attending art school, but because I felt I did not have it in me to admit that same mistake to myself.
Drifting along outside the realm of responsibility was certainly more comfortable than taking my life into my own hands. That, along with not knowing what else to do was what kept me there.
The fact that I did not know what to do after I obtained my degree was irrelevant. I was sure I would find the answers once that time came.

I wasn't worried about her decision. In fact, I was sure it was the right thing for her to do.
If her heart wasn't in it, no other cell of her mind and body was into it either.

"Could you imagine we move somewhere else – the two of us in a foreign city?"
With that she was back at the table.

“What would we be doing?”

"I don't know...
You could be an alcoholic writer. Free-lancing for international newspapers - covering the local art and music scene for the outside world.
And I would be your destitute artist friend.”

"Would we be lovers, too?"

"I am guessing you are not joking about this. So will give you an honest answer:
No – I do not think so. I imagine in a situation where all we have is each other it would be detrimental to our friendship.
Besides, I don't know how that matters.
All I asked you is could you imagine giving up everything here. The nothing here. The nothingness. And move to away with me. And look for something new. Something else.
So, I ask again - could you imagine that?"

By now there was no doubt she was serious about leaving school and moving away. That realisation scared me. I wasn't so much scared for her - I was scared of imagining what she proposed. I was scared of saying yes. I was scared of saying no. I was scared. And I didn't understand and appreciate why that didn't scare her.

"I'm scared, too, you know."
She said, as if reading my mind.

"But you see, one thing I learnt at school is this: either you overcome that, or you do not.
That is, I believe, in the end, why I want to quit school. It has nothing left to offer me.
That is why I think about moving - because I feel it has something to offer me, a somethingness I can not find at home."
Julie and I hadn't seen each other very often these last few months. We never really got to talk about the big stuff, the important things anymore. It was more, discussing everyday life and catching up whenever we had the chance. She seemed to have grown up a lot since we last spoke.

"So you quit school to move away and paint?" I inquired.

"Not in so many words, but yeah. That is the basic idea."

"It's that easy?" Her case wasn’t convincing.

"I never said it would be easy. But it is that simple.
Look, here's the thing: I could ask 10 people for advice about moving to away and doing whatever. I'd get 100 reasons why not do so it before anyone would even consider giving me advice."
She sounded reasonable, as always. She also sounded crazy, as sometimes.

"And you think by moving to another place you'd find the pieces would fall into place?"

"No, I do not think that - but unless I go and see what kind of pieces there are out there, I will not be able to see what I can do with them."

Back at the hotel I checked in on Tee, making sure he didn't drown in his own vomit, and went to bed.

I laid awake for some time trying to process what Jules proposed. By the time I fell asleep I was convinced that she wouldn't even stay in school for the last few weeks.
I could not imagine anything or anyone getting her to go back there, just like I could not imagine moving away with her in a few months. Or ever.
In fact, I was certain she will never set foot in a school building again.

The next morning, Junior was in much better shape. He fully recovered. But he was on the fence about having breakfast. I convinced him it'll be fine - he got the stomach bug out of his system.
He was surprised that Julie did not join us, and didn’t believe me when I insisted that she was neither too drunk, nor too angry with me to not show. He asked the receptionist to call her room – but came back disappointed. There was no response.

Now a bit worried myself, with check-out time approaching and having a train to catch, we asked the hotel staff to open her door for us.

All we found on an unused bed was note:

“had a train to catch

H”

I felt abandoned by her. It took me a long time to accept that that was not her fault.