I felt myself closing up. Felt the walls going back into place, brick by careful brick. Safer this way. Easier.
"Friend of yours?" I asked, and heard the coldness in my own voice.
"He's from the app. From the magic. He's not—I don't want?—"
"You should probably deal with that."
She looked at me with something like desperation. "I was going to kiss you."
Were you? I wanted to ask. Or were you going to find a reason to run, like you always do?
But that wasn't fair. The interruption wasn't her fault. The timing wasn't her fault.
The disco enthusiast currently pressing his face against my window was, however, absolutely grounds for murder.
"Then I guess we'll never know," I said. "If you would have gone through with it."
She left. Greg followed, chattering about mix tapes. The radio went silent—actually silent, for the first time since she'd walked into my life.
I stood in my empty shop and thought:I'm not going to survive this. I'm going to fall in love with a woman who doesn't know how to stay, and a man in a leisure suit is going to be the reason I die alone.
THE TWO DAYS
She texted. Four messages, the night before she showed up at my door.
I'm sorry about Greg.
Can we talk?
Please.
I meant what I said. I was going to kiss you.
I read them seventeen times. Thought about responses. Decided against them. Thought about some more. Typed nothing.
The radio remained silent. Even it had given up on me.
What was I supposed to say?It's fine? It wasn't fine.I understand? I didn't understand.Come back? And then what—wait for the next interruption, the next crisis, the next disco emergency to pull her away?
I'd spent two years learning how to be alone. I could do it for the rest of my life if I had to.
I didn't respond.
The next morning, she was at my door.
And I said things. True things. Harsh things. Things I'd been thinking for two days while I waited for her to come back, while I convinced myself she wouldn't, while I built my case for why this was never going to work.
"I can't be your maybe," I told her. "Your possibly. Your 'let me think about it while I entertain five thousand other options.'"
"I'm not?—"
"You ARE. That's what you DO, Diane."
I watched her face crumble. Watched the words land like blows. And I kept going, because I was scared and I was hurt and I was so goddamn tired of hoping.
"I deserve better than that," I said. "So do you."
And I closed the door.
