“Definitely not.”
We get in the car and he starts the engine.
“I’m heading back to New York later this week. I have a place to crash in Manhattan.” He pauses. “You should come. We can split the cost of gas. You can stay as long as you want.”
“Why would I do that?”
“It’s New York; you study art. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Sometimes you just have to take a chance.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be taking chances on anything that involves you.”
We’re stopped at a red light. My head’s pounding, probably from the many glasses of champagne, but also because I can’t shake the look on my mom’s face.
“Hear me out,” Hal says. “I don’t see why we can’t stay friends.”
“We were never ‘friends.’ There’s nothing to go back to.”
From our first conversation, there was a very specific crackle in the air between us that told me this wasn’t a friendship. I can’t run our relationship through a low-contrast filter to dial down the bright spots and dark shadows.
“Okay.” He nods. “That’s fair. But why can’t we try it as a new thing?” We continue up High Street. “You could at least unblock me? I miss you.”
He seems to wait for me to reciprocate this sentiment. But I’m not sure I do. I miss aspects of Hal. I miss flashes of inside jokes and little moments I’ve captured like scrapbook memories. I miss the individual panels where it feels like Lydia and Jughead are in some version of love, but not the entire book where Lydia spends thirty-two pages never asking for what she wants. Howis it possible to know for certain that you’re better off without someone in your life…but still miss them? Why am I the one still holding on to these goddamn balloons?
“Actually, I might stay here,” I say.
He jerks his head to the right in surprise.
“In Columbus? Why?” I see it the moment that realization hits—that I’mreallynot saving myself for him. “Ohhhh. Fuck. The middle-aged guy? I mean, what is this actually about?” he says. “Proximity? Doing something transgressive in front of your mom? Finding a replacement dad? Jesus, Sam. You can settle for a Chili’s manager ten years from now if you want. Don’t do it now.”
“You don’t know a single thing about him,” I say, regretting engaging with this.
“I do. I clocked his whole nice guy scheme immediately,” he says. “I told you exactly what he wanted.”
“Actually,hetold me himself. Which is a lot more than I can say for you.”
“You can’t deal with the fact that I’m a fucking real person, with the same messy problems and contradictions as you. You give up on things when you don’t think you’re winning. Now you can be the smartest person in the room again.”
I wanted attention from Hal so badly that I’d twist myself into knots trying to be whatever he wanted. Like some rigged puzzle I could never quite solve. How can someone feel like my whole world and also hurt me over and over again?
“Pull over,” I say. “I’m not doing this with you. Not tonight.”
He accelerates through a green light. “We’re three blocks away. Come on. Don’t be so dramatic.”
Something about that phrase is so familiar. For a moment I get lost in a memory of asking my dad why he was skipping another weekend. Of hearing those exact words when I stresscried because I stalled his truck while he was trying to teach me how to drive a stick shift. Of showing a hint of vulnerability or hurt.
“Look, I don’t know how to do this,” Hal says. “And I realize things are fucked between us. But we understand each other in a way that other people don’t. I think you know it, too.” He turns into a guest parking spot at The Bixby. “I get you. That guy never will.”
I reach for the door handle, pausing to look at this weird version of Hal, hatless and in a suit. I finally see him for what he is, without romanticizing any part of him. And I know in my gut, or whatever the deepest part of my body is, that I will never be vulnerable in front of Hal ever again.
“I always was the smartest person in the room,” I say. “I just let you believeyouwere.”
“Jesus.” I’ve never seen Hal look so genuinely wounded. “I just poured my fucking heart out to you.”
I get out of the car and swing my duffel back over my shoulder.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” I say, slamming the door.
31
