We went quiet for a moment.
“I called him last night. I couldn’t help it. It feels impossible, Bri. How am I going to get through this?”
She turned to look at me. “You know what’s great about Derek and his wife? I’ve been thinking a lot about this.”
“What.”
“There’s nothing in it for him except for her. Your parents hate her. His friends don’t get it. He had to move to Cambodia to be with her. Nothing about their being together is simple. So you know he’s with her because he really loves her. There’s no other explanation.” She looked back at my ceiling fan. “There’s something so peaceful about that, to just hit zero fucks about everything else but the person you love.” She paused. “I wish I had that.”
“I love Daniel more than I’ve ever loved anyone, but it doesn’t make the rest of it disappear.”
“It’s not supposed to make it disappear. It just prioritizes things.”
I shook my head. “I should be happy right now,” I whispered. “I got my house. I got the job I wanted. My parents are off my back. I’m fulfilling my obligation to Royaume. Neil is finally going to be out of my life. I’m going to be able to help thousands of people, save lives, make a difference. And I am absolutely, one hundred percent miserable. I am so unhappy, Bri, I can’t even stand it. If all these things are so wonderful and so important and so meaningful, then why do I feel like this?”
“Because you can’t breathe.”
I lolled my head to look at her. “What?”
“You’re dead inside. You’ve lost the thing that gives you life.”
I watched her quietly. “Is that how you felt when Nick left?”
She scoffed. “Fuck no. You’re way worse than I was.”
I snorted.
“Seriously, I wouldn’t give that jackass the satisfaction. But you? You’re a mess.”
I laughed a little.
She turned to look at me. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah…”
“If you could wipe your whole life clean and rebuild it from scratch and nobody would question how you’ve done it, what order would you put it in? Royaume first? Then your parents? Then Daniel?”
I shook my head. “No…”
“Then what?”
I paused to think about it a moment. “Daniel. Then Wakan. Then Royaume and everything else.”
She jabbed a finger at me. “That’s why you feel like shit, Ali. You’re all out of order.”
I blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
She propped herself on her elbows. “What I mean is you have been conditioned your entire life to live for everyone else. To do what’s expected of you, to blindly serve. You were promised to Royaume Northwestern before you were even born. And it’s a super important thing and I’m not saying it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it. You can decide to put yourself first—you do have a choice. It’s not an easy choice. It’s not without consequences. But you do have a choice.
“If your life is this bad without Daniel in it, then maybe you need to take another look at your priorities. Derek did. I mean, for him to do this Cambodia thing, he’d have to have felt like you feel right now, don’t you think? I don’t think he didn’t care about Royaume or you or his parents. I just think at the end of the day he just didn’t care more than he cared about her.” She shrugged. “She was his nonnegotiable.”
“His nonnegotiable…”
“Yeah. The one thing he couldn’t live without. Everything else was just everything else.”
I shook my head at her. “But…but I can’t leave Royaume—”
“I mean, can’t you? You’re going to help people, no matter where you end up, Ali. Yeah, it’s not gonna be on the scale that you can at Royaume. But you can still save lives. Derek is. He found a way. And personally, I think a hundred and twenty-five years is a nice round number to end it on, if you want my opinion.”
I sat up and gawked at her.
“What? Seriously. If you left, would you feel worse than you do right now?” she asked. “If you just said ‘Fuck it’ and dipped, would you be as unhappy as you are today?”
I blinked at her. Because the answer was remarkably simple. “No.”
“You don’t have to feel like this. You literally don’t. Quit. Leave. Pick him. Pick yourself.”
I stared at her a long moment. Then I started to breathe hard.