It wasn’t as if she was ever getting invited back here. She might as well discuss what she wanted to.
“None of you know this. But I actually started teaching in live environments for the first time this year. I know it sounds wild, but someone actually let me teach a seminar about modern intimacy.” Someone—because she couldn’t say his name. “I was asked here to speak about the future of sex education, but in putting together that course, I committed to the idea that intimacy is so much more than sex. And I’m more than sex. I planned out a syllabus across seven weeks, and I didn’t get to finish the last one.” She smiled a little. “It’s actually pretty rich in karmic hilarity. You’ll understand why in a minute, I promise.”
A group of teachers had clustered, hands up over their mouths as they whispered to each other. Naomi wasn’t worried. Most of them had been cowards then. They were likely cowards now.
“Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “The last lecture I was supposed to deliver was about how to break up with someone, and I think I’m just gonna talk about that now, if it’s okay with you?”
No one answered. She hadn’t expected them to. Naomi nodded back at the projector. “I’ll put the sex ed slides up on the Internet or something. You can look at them later if you want.”
The seminar was canceled, but the course she’d started with Ethan didn’t feel complete. As if, like their relationship, it had ended on an inhale. She desperately wanted to see it to the finish line. Enough that she’d stand up here and keep talking until they physically carted her away.
“No one ever teaches you how to end a relationship. You go through a breakup, and it doesn’t matter if you were blindsided or if you were planning it for months. It fucking— Can I sayfucking? Probably not, huh?” She blinked into the crowd. “Oh well, sorry.”
She gave a little wave to the teachers, who seemed to be debating who would have to storm the stage. Good thing she was terrifying. “As I was saying, it fucking sucks. And I just... I want you to survive it.” She stared down at her hands wrapped around the mic. “I want to survive it too.”
The students must have sensed the recklessness of what she was doing, going off book when she already hadliabilitystamped across her forehead. They ate it up like bees to honey, buzzing in their seats.
“I’m not saying all relationships are doomed. Relax. I’m a grown-up who can handle the demolition of the most important and valuable relationship of my life.”Try to sound a little less bitter.
“But I am saying, endings happen all the time. Sometimes for reasons you’ll never know or understand. Other times prompted by logic. Occasionally fueled by rage and resentment. But almost always, at the root of these partings, there’s pain.”
Naomi closed her eyes for a second. Was she really doing this? Really going there? What did it say about her personal brand that shewas suddenly maudlin and poorly lit, publicly lamenting the loss of love in front of a bunch of high schoolers?
She didn’t have time to examine her downfall.
Naomi opened her eyes.
“Depending on where you carry your hurt, it might manifest as an ache between your ribs, a crick in your neck. Maybe your jaw is sore, your stomach sour and unsettled. I carry my heartache in my throat. In a tightness that makes it hard to speak. That no amount of tea or honey can soothe. My voice is getting raspier by the day. This isn’t like a sex-kitten effect I’m putting on. I sound like this because everything in me is grieving.”
Her heartbeat slammed, angry, against her chest.
“I don’t know if any of you are Jewish...”
A little holler went up in the back.
“Oh, yay.” She smiled and raised her arms. “Go Jews!”
Someone coughed.
“Uh... anyway, there are a lot of Jewish mourning rituals. We say the Kaddish. We cover our mirrors. We don’t have sex for seven days. There’s comfort in tradition. So I thought I’d write a breakup ritual. It’s not sacred or anything, and probably this is exactly the reason the board of Beth Elohim doesn’t want me hanging around, but maybe it’ll help someone. It’s been helping me a little. And let’s be honest with ourselves, in times like this, it can’t hurt any worse, right?”
No one laughed. Okay...
“Hang on a sec.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I wrote it down.”
Naomi licked her lips, tried not to let her mouth go completely dry. Probably half these people were wishing she’d hurry up and get off the stage, or at least take out her tits or something.
“Before I start, I just wanna say that you don’t owe anything to the person who broke up with you. You don’t owe them your ear to listen to their rationale. You don’t owe them forgiveness for any grievances,real or imagined, they may have committed against you. You don’t owe them a response when they text you at three a.m., drunk and lonely. If you see them across the street ten years from now, you don’t have to wave.”
Naomi pushed her dirty hair out of her eyes. She was talking to Ethan, even though she knew he couldn’t hear her.
She didn’t expect him to wait for her to come to her senses and beg for him to take her back. Didn’t expect a cordial card on her birthday. If he wanted to hate her—she really hoped he didn’t hate her, but if he did—she’d allow it. If he’d broken up with her, she’d never have forgiven him. She was a hypocrite like that.
“Okay, here’s the breakup ritual.” She scanned the note. “I’ve been doing it for about a week now.” Naomi took the mic off the stand and started pacing a little. It was harder to hit a moving target, right?
“That’s the thing. About ritual or religion. Sometimes just going through the motions, even when you’re struggling to believe in them, sometimes that’s enough. To keep you going. Keep you sane. Keep you tethered to the disastrous fireball spinning toward destruction that we call earth.”
She cleared her throat. “Right. Here we go. ‘Wake up,’” she read, “‘wash your face, and brush your teeth, even if you don’t want to, even if it seems like it doesn’t matter. Like nothing has ever mattered or will again.’”