“I’m sorry,” she says. “This is not how I wanted you to find out. It’s not personal. I just…I’ve been feeling like maybeSo Proud ofYouhas…run its course for me. I really want to contribute to climate action, put my degrees to use.” Her voice is small when she says, “I never stopped wanting to.”
My insides crumble like a sandcastle in the rain. The shock is so overwhelming that I have to remind myself to keep breathing.
How could Maral leave behind what we’ve built? The people whose lives we touch every day? Me?
How will I go on without her? I’ve never done a single podcast episode without her by my side.
Now I understand why she’s been so weird about L.A. every time it’s come up recently. But we’ve been pursuing that for ages. What about all our plans? She’s moving to the literal opposite side of the country, even farther away than we’ve been from her parents all this time. And for what? To follow her freakingdreams?
Okay, that’s a good reason.
Through the betrayal and shock, I can’t help the pride that seeps through. The happiness I feel for her. The gratitude that she’s stuck withSPOY,with me, for so long while secretly wishing she could be somewhere else. The guilt over limiting her in what she wanted to do with her life. This angel, this queen, worthy of every good thing the world has to offer.
Questions pile up and snake through my mind, bottlenecking and becoming trapped before they reach my mouth. I want to scream and rail. I’m in a place too public to feel this much hurt.
I stand up, test the ground beneath my feet, make sure it’s solid and not the quicksand it feels like.
“I need some space,” I say weakly. Then, with a bit more strength, I add, “Congratulations.”
“Ayn,” she says. A plea.
Her look of dejection tugs on my sympathy. My beautiful Maral. I reach out and clasp her hand, the most reassurance I can muster in this moment, before walking out of the salon and into the vast darkness beyond.
The doors leading to Fifth Avenue crunch loudly as I push through them and outside, inhaling the humid late-summer air in gasping breaths.
Hold it together. Get home, get alone. Then you can let yourself feelit.
At the base of the wide stairs, someone is racing toward the entrance. Someone so familiar now, so welcome, that I feel I may split in half at the sight of him.
Ryan.
He came.
He reaches me halfway up the broad staircase, breathing heavily from running. “Shit,” he says. “Did I miss it?”
Miss my life falling apart?I nod weakly.
“Are you okay?” he asks, stepping closer. “I’m sorry, I had a thing and didn’t expect it to go so long, and then there was traffic and my cab got stuck—I wanted to be here for it. I feel awful, I’m so sorry I missed it.”
He looks wretched with guilt. This man who owes me nothing yet gives me everything. I can’t stop myself, stepping onto the stair just above the one he’s standing on, walking directly into him, and burying my face in the concentrated scent of him at the base of his neck. Breathing deep for the first time since the ground collapsed beneath my feet and stole all the oxygen from my lungs.
His arms go around me so quick it’s as if they don’t obey the laws of physics. And I’m cocooned, comforted, coveted. His touch is a snake charmer’s song, stoking the emotions in my belly, manipulating them to rise. They crowd up my throat, threatening to spill out, and I swallow hard, push them down again. Step back, breaking contact.
“What happened?” he asks.
I want to tell him. Want to share the heaviness so he might holdsome of it for me, ease its weight with his understanding, his care. His Ryanness.
But I can’t. I’m too raw—the walls around my heart papyrus-thin and ready to crumble. And if they do, that’s it. There’s no protection left.
I know from brutal experience that the price for that level of intimacy is too high. And I’m less equipped to pay it right now than ever.
“You resigned,” I say.
His face falls.
“Meredith has a mouth like the Grand Canyon, apparently,” I say.
He sighs, rubbing his jaw. “I didn’t want to worry you. Your book is in good hands there, my leaving won’t impact—”
