“It’s been six years, Holden,” he says as if grief, like the Greek yogurt he buys in bulk from Whole Foods, has an expiration date.
My center of gravity is out of sorts when I ask, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve got to move on already, Holden. It’s not healthy,” he says, completely lacking sympathy and maybe showing me his true colors. I didn’t expect them to be so bleak and off-putting. “And, frankly, neither is that show. It’s everything that’s wrong with American TV.”
My sadness mutates into anger because anger is far easier to express and less quicksandy. “Just because I don’t binge the BBC every free-bloody-wanking-minute I have doesn’t mean I have poor taste.” I don’t care about magical doctors or abbeys or emotionally distressed women who hit on hot priests! I don’t watchMadcap Markettocare. I watch it to de-stress, to enjoy, to forget. All the things I’ve been trying and failing to do since Mom passed away from a freak blood clot after she beat cancer. A shock that tore my tiny family apart right before I graduated high school and left home for the first time in my life for college.
There’s this supercharged second where the agent leans over and whispers, “Are you two filming test footage for a reality series? Because, if so, this stuff is really juicy. This is my card and—”
“Not now!” I swat at his hand and the business card goes flying, landing in a nearby soup bowl, soaking up bloodred broth. “Why do you think you’re better than me just because you have a boring office job and a snobbish taste in TV?”
His nostrils flair like a dragon’s in one of his ridiculous fantasy shows. “Because, Holden, getting your shit together is not as hard as you so claim it to be. It’s called being an adult. How about you try it sometime?”
“Try it? I live it. I breathe it. I am it! What are you even talking about? I havetwojobs. I payhalfthe rent.” I struggle to do it, but I don’t voice that part. After Mom died and we became a one-income household, I had to take out a mountain of student loans to still go to my dream school, which didn’t even land me a good job. A waste of time and funds. I’d say it was worth it solely for my relationship with Buckley, but his glare reads like a countdown clock—detonation imminent.
“You don’t pay half the rent,” Buckley says gravely.
I rock back in my seat. “Yes, I do. Where else is my money transfer going every month if not to our rent?” I ask. We’re amassing more attention the longer this spat goes on. Nobody is even tasting their tastings. Their mouths are too busy hanging open as they try not to stare.
“You pay aquarterof our rent,” he whispers. “You pay a quarter of our rent, and I pay the rest. How else did you think we afforded such a nice place?”
My neck grows hot. “What? Since when? When we signed the lease, you told me what the rent was and we agreed that we’d each pay half.” I knew it would stretch my bank account thin, but I was young and “in love” and desperate not to move in with Dad lest I be reminded of Mom’s absence every time we sat down to a meal. Desperate to make this—with Buckley—work.
Even if, in the back of my mind, I know I rushed into it and then contorted myself into a pretzel at his every whim so he couldn’t see my mess or my pain.
“I lied! I made a sacrifice. Like an adult. I wanted to live there and, at the time, I wanted to live therewith you.”
“At the time?” I ask, my voice breaking, reduced to a deflating tube man outside a car dealership at the end of a shitty sales day. Nothing but a cheap heap of synthetic fabric flattened to the pavement.
“I’ve been trying to tell you.” He wrings his wet napkin.
I blink back at him, not computing this, wondering how one evening can fly so far off the rails. “Been trying to tell me what?”
“That—” he looks away “—I don’t think this is working anymore.”
His words pin me to the chair. “What are you talking about?” I’m hoping the question dulls the sharpness in his voice. That his answer is: this date isn’t working for him or our apartment isn’t working for him, not...
“I’m talking about us. I don’t thinkwe’reworking anymore.” His brown eyes are a mudslide after a rainstorm. “I want to break up, and I want you to move out.”
Words drain out of my mind; blood drains out of my face. “You don’t mean that.” He can’t mean that. People don’t just decide to unlove you, do they? We don’t live in a world cruel enough to take away moms too young and ruin love this suddenly, right?
“I do mean that,” he says in a monotone. “I’m sorry, Holden.” Abruptly, he stands, places his napkin on the table and grabs his coat from the back of the chair. I’m tempted to snatch the fluttering sleeve, tug it back, and beg him to stay, even if I sort of hate him right now.
Instead, as he’s walking off, some demonic spirit possesses my body and throws my anger into the spotlight. I stand and yell after him, “You’re a coward! You’re selfish! Just because you have a full-time job, and health insurance, and can pay three-fourths of the rent on an apartment I don’t even like doesn’t mean you’re better than me! You would’ve held me back anyway!”
Turning around, his visage is twisted and devilish. He says through gritted teeth, “I would’ve heldyouback?”
I cough into my hand, not having expected a response. “Yeah, I never could’ve won the show with you. You’re all work and no play. I don’t need you.”
He laughs an angry, watery laugh. “Okay, Holden. We’ll see about that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He walks away, not even flinching at the booming sound of my voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I’m left answerless, with a broken heart and a massive bill.
Two
FOUR WEEKS LATER
