The question hangs in the air like smoke, and for the first time, I allow myself to really consider it.
“It would look like me,” I whisper, “actually choosing myself.”
The silence that follows feels like a confession—the kind that changes everything and nothing at all. I run my finger along the seam of the leather armchair, tracing the stitches like I’m following a map to somewhere safer than this moment.
“I think that’s a good place to end for today,” my therapist says, closing her notebook with a soft finality. "You’ve done some important work here.”
I nod, suddenly exhausted. The weight of truth-telling has hollowed me out, left me feeling both lighter and strangely empty. I gather my belongings—purse, phone, and the cardigan I brought against the office’s aggressive air conditioning—and step out into the late-afternoon sunlight.
The city hums around me, indifferent to my small epiphanies. I check my phone out of habit, that Pavlovian response I’ve developed over years of waiting for his name to appear. Three emails from clients, a text from myassistant about tomorrow’s meeting, and a reminder about my dental appointment next week.
Nothing from Devon.
Relief and disappointment tangle in my chest like fighting snakes. I slip the phone back into my bag and decide to walk home instead of taking a cab. The ten blocks will clear my head, give me space to process the session’s revelations.
I’m halfway home when my phone vibrates against my hip. My heart lurches traitorously before I can remind it to behave. I pull it out, squinting against the sun’s glare on the screen.
Devon.
Free tonight? Need to talk. It’s important.
The familiar words send a cascade of sensations through my body—hope, dread, anticipation, anger—all of them at once, like a chord struck on a piano with some keys painfully out of tune. Three hours ago, I would have already been typing back. Sure, what time? Already mentally rescheduling my evening, already wondering what “important” means in Devon’s vocabulary.
I’m frozen on the sidewalk, pedestrians flowing around me like water around a stubborn stone. A woman in a business suit shoots me an irritated glance as she swerves to avoid collision.
It would look like me actually choosing myself.
My thumb hovers over the screen. I feel dizzy with possibility, with the vertigo of standing at a precipice. Seven years of habit urges me to respond, to be there, to be good, reliable Betsy.
But something else—something new and fragile—whispers otherwise.
I type slowly, deliberately, each letter a small act of rebellion.
I’m not available tonight.
The message sits unsent for a moment as I stare at it, those five simple words that have never before arranged themselves in that order when Devon calls. My finger trembles slightly as I press send.
Three dots appear immediately. Devon typing. My stomach clenches.
Come on, Bets. I really need you tonight. Karen’s stuff is still at my place, and I can’t deal with it alone.
The old familiar script. Devon is in crisis. Devon needs rescue. Devon is offering just enough vulnerability to hook me back in.
I close my eyes briefly, feeling the warm October sun on my face, hearing the symphony of car horns, conversations, and footsteps that make up my city. When I open them again, I type:
I’m sorry you’re going through that. But I have plans I can’t change.
I don’t have plans. But the lie feels cleaner somehow than the messy truth—that I’m choosing myself over him for the first time in seven years.
His response comes quickly: Since when do you have plans that can’t be changed?
The naked entitlement in those words hits me like a slap. Since when? Since always. I’ve always had a life, desires, needs—I’ve just been trained to set them aside whenever he beckons.
My phone rings. Devon’s name flashes on the screen, the familiar photo of him at the beach last summer, tannedand laughing. My finger moves to answer out of muscle memory before I catch myself.
I let it ring. Once, twice, three times. Each unanswered ring feels like removing a brick from a wall that has been confining me for years.
On the fourth ring, I press decline.
