I lick my lips. “Well... you know how I’ve been trying to sort out what I want to do with my life? All that... dream job stuff?”
He nods slowly.
I swallow. “Well. I ended up applying to NYU a while ago, back before we were—you know, dating. And there’s an internship program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that I applied for too.”
Oh, god. He looks so serious. “And?”
“And... I don’t know. They’ve both just emailed with their answers.”
“Did you get in?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read them yet.”
He stares at me. “Are you going to go, if you did?”
“I don’t know,” I say again. My voice sounds high and strange. “They’re probably just rejections. There’s no way my university grades are good enough for NYU, and the Met thing probably gets thousands of applications—”
“But if you get in,” he repeats, “will you go?”
I attempt a thin smile. “Shouldn’t I look at them first? If I didn’t get them, it won’t matter.”
He looks at me for a long moment. “It matters to me.”
Well, fuck.
I break his gaze and fiddle with the handle of my coffee cup. I want to say, “No, of course not!” I know that’s what he wants me to say.
But... what if I got in? The Met internship is a long shot, butit’s not entirely impossible to think that I might have gotten into NYU. And if I did... will I go?
“I... I think so,” I say haltingly. “Yes.”
A thick silence falls, then he lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “Seriously?”
“Well—yes,” I say, defensiveness slipping into my tone. “It would be a huge opportunity—”
“A huge opportunity.”
“Of course! You know I’ve always wanted to live in a city—to do something big—”
He puts his coffee mug down. “I thought you’d decided to stay here, actually.”
“I—this is stupid,” I stammer. “There’s no point in arguing about it before I’ve even read the emails—”
“Are you serious? Of course there is.”
“If I didn’t get in—”
“What? Then you’ll deign to stay here with me?” He lets out a humorless laugh. “This is an acceptable fallback option, is it?”
“That’s not—that isn’t what I said!” I push myself off the bed.
“Yes, it is,” he snaps. “If you got in, you’re going to go.”
“Okay, well—why shouldn’t I?” I demand, anger coming to my defense. “Don’t you want me to be happy? Don’t you want me to find a job I actuallylove? That I care about?”
He exhales impatiently. “Of course I do. But you can find that here. I know you, Emily. You like it here. You’re happy here. You’re just still convinced you’re too good for it, or that there’s some bigger, better life somewhere out there—”
“Well, there might be!” I say, gesturing to my phone.
