It’s funny how something seemingly good can turn into something extremely bad in the blink of an eye. That’s how Jacob felt about the last couple of days. And not just about Pip. Although he still didn’t know what to think about the distance that was escalating between the two of them - there was a part of him that was disappointed about the widening gap, it had formed like a crack in a large barren piece of earth, a crack that was slowly drifting further and further apart, forming a chasm that had been narrow enough to step over at first, but would soon be too wide to bridge.

  But the voice in his head was still there telling him that he’d made the best decision. After all, Pip’s transfer had gone through perfectly well, and she’d packed up and left the office without saying a word to him, or rather, without him saying a word to her. In reality, deep down, he couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. Yet the voice kept repeating the same line in his head over and over. It’s for the best. His mind kept wandering back to the few opportunities he’d had to farewell her, or say something - anything. When he’d seen her clearing her things out of her desk; when she’d gone around farewelling her co-wokers - there was one moment when Jacob had thought she was going to approach him to say goodbye - but in the end she’d just been going to the photo copier. His heart sank with regret every time he revisited the moment. Jacob wondered how long it would take him to forget about it.

  Their fun little work group that had quickly formed, was falling apart just as quickly. Thomas had dwindled; he was organising hangouts less and less frequently. Daniel said it was because it was getting more comfortable with Sally. The few hangouts that he did organise, well, neither Jacob nor Pip ever took up their invites - out of fear of running into each other.

  Amidst all these thoughts, while Jacob was sitting in front of his computer barely a few days after Pip had left, it was safe to say that it was pleasing to have them interrupted by a call from Maria. He answered the phone straight away, and when Maria told Jacob that she’d gotten a new job offer, he couldn’t have been more happy for her. It was an excuse to go out for dinner and Jacob hoped that focusing more on their relationship would take his mind off Pip. Maria was so excited when she told him about her new job offer that Jacob thought that she might break out in tears.

  They went out for dinner to celebrate that Saturday night. It was a restaurant with table service, not so fancy that they needed a reservation, but fancy enough that the waiters wore vests and ties. Maria was always trying to get him to go out to higher class restaurants, even offering to pay for him, but for Jacob it wasn’t about the money - eating out just wasn’t his thing. Unless it was burgers and chips in the park. Or pizza and a movie. He did love sitting down at Zambreros though, and occasionally went out to Chinese with his family. But this time Jacob decided it was time for a change.

  The restaurant was in the city; it was lively and cosy. Maria and Jacob ate and drank and laughed. Maria enthusiastically recounted her video interview, highlighting the mistakes she’d made, the stupid things she’d said and how she was sure she’d messed it up. In the end she got a call back a few hours later with an offer for the job, so she must have done something right.

  It was a happy night. But four words would change everything. It was a mystery how they got so far into the evening without those four words coming up.

  ‘It’s in New York.’

  In an actual fact, Jacob didn’t know if New York counted as two words or one, being a place name. Also if she didn’t contract ‘it’s’ it might have counted as five words. But that didn’t change the impact it had on him. He dropped his fork, and knocked over the glass of wine on the table as he swung around to pick it up.

  ‘Crap!’ he cursed as wine dripped down the table, some of it even onto the wooden floor. Jacob reached for the serviettes, but one of the waiters was already by his side, mopping up the wine with a white cloth.

  ‘I’m so sorry about that,’ Jacob said to the waiter.

  ‘It’s not a problem.’

  Jacob waited awkwardly for the waiter to finish, then wiped his hands, and turned back to Maria who was looking a little embarrassed by how clumsy he’d been. Though Jacob would really have thought that she’d be used to it by now.

  ‘What did you say before, I don’t think I heard properly,’ Jacob asked hoping that he really had misheard her.

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  ‘New York. The job is in New York. Manhatten actually.’

  ‘What do you mean New York?’ his happy demeanour had changed in a matter of seconds. Maria cocked her head and threw him a confused look.

  ‘I mean the big city on the East Coast of America; the iconic setting of pop-culture media. Spider-man. Sienfeld. Brooklyn 99.’

  ‘Yeah I know where New York is. But how is…us… this…’ Jacob began waving his hands about awkwardly as he fumbled with his words.

  Maria slid her hands across the table and took his hand in hers. Jacob stilled as he felt himself being calmed by the cold touch of her fingertips.

  ‘You’re going to move with me. Obviously.’

  ‘Move…to New York?’

  Maria nodded her head as if the decision had already been made.

  ‘But my life is here Maria… I can’t just pack up and leave… overnight.’

  ‘Sure you can,’ Maria moved her hand up past his elbow and began caressing his arm, ‘don’t you want to have at lease a little bit of an adventure while you’re still young. While we’re still young? Just a bit? Besides - you won’t be moving overnight. My job doesn’t start for another couple of weeks, but if you need a bit longer, that’s fine. We can get a place together, visit the empire state building. Ride the subway. You can go running through central park every morning. Get some of that New York coffee?’

  ‘I’m not going to lie, the central park stuff does sound kind of cool. But what about my job?’

  ‘You’ll find something else,’ Maria said.

  ‘And my friends?’

  ‘You’ll make other friends. And I’m sure Thomas, Daniel and Alex will come to visit you at some point. Or we’ll come back here to visit. And it’s not like we don’t have this special thing called the internet - you can play your game things with them, online, like you do here anyway.’

  ‘It won’t be the same.’

  ‘Trust me. It will be great,’ Maria said joyfully as if she hadn’t noticed a single ounce of the anxiety that was clearly flowing through Jacob’s voice.

  ‘Maria, are you listening to me? Do you understand that I don’t feel good about this decision? I don’t want to just pack up and move to New York.’

  Maria sighed. Jacob sensed frustration in her facial expression, but he didn’t really care.

  ‘I’m not turning down this opportunity Jacob. Quite frankly, I really like you, and I want to make this work. But it can’t work if we live on the opposite side of the world from each other. I thought you’d be more enthusiastic about this. You know, happy for me. Supportive.’

  ‘I am happy for you, and I’m trying to be supportive, but you’ve just asked me to quit my job, pack up, say goodbye to my friends and move halfway across the world. And you’ve literally thrown it on me over a matter of minutes. How do you expect me to react?’

  ‘Not like this! You tell me all the time about how cool you think New York is.’

  ‘Yeah, cool to visit. But this is completely different! I like you - I do. But I feel like I’m being put on the spot right now. You didn’t even really talk to me about applying for a job that far away either.’

  ‘Jacob! I don’t need to talk to you about everything I do in my life!’

  ‘That’s true, you don’t need to talk to me about everything you do. But if it involves me moving to a different country - well I think that’s something that should be mentioned. At least in passing.’

  Maria reached down into her bag, pulled out her purse, opened it and then slammed a fifty dollar note onto the table.

  ‘That’s for my half. Call me when you want to be more supportive.’

  And with that, Maria grabbed her bag and walked straight out of the restaurant without looking back. Jacob thought it was odd how four words could change the mood of the night so drastically.

  ***

  Jacob sat on his bed later that night, with the lights on and his mobile in his hand. His head was swimming with thoughts. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep - so there was no point trying. The clock was just about to tick over to 1pm. He suddenly began scrolling through his message chain with Maria, a message chain that went back a long, long time. Jacob hadn’t realised how often they messaged each other. Their chats were full of pictures, jokes, and stupid memes. There were even a few messages between the two of them that dated back to before they were going out. He never really did have many conversations over message, even with his best friends. Jacob was more of a face to face kind of guy. But for some reason, he realised, he’d been messaging Maria at least twenty times a day, sometimes about things as trivial as the kind of sandwich he’d eaten for lunch.

  Without thinking, he hit the call button on the top right hand of the messaging app, and put the phone to his ear. He didn’t think Maria would be awake this late, but quite frankly, he didn’t care. To his surprise, she answered after two rings.

  ‘Jacob!’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry about tonight. I feel so bad about it! I don’t know what came over me, I just got fired up and I wasn’t thinking, and you’re right - I should have told you earlier and I should have told you I was applying for the job and -’

  Jacob cut her off before she say anything else.

  ‘I want to move to New York with you.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Maria replied eventually.

  ‘I’m sure. I think I can make it happen in three months. If that’s okay?’

  ‘Jacob, that’s perfect! And I’ll help you in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The two of them spoke throughout the early hours of the morning, sharing ideas about what they’d do when they got to New York, how they’d get there, and what the people would be like. When they finally hung up, Jacob looked back up at the ceiling of his bedroom and wondered if deep down he really did want to move to New York.