Sage makes eye contact with Ash through the rearview mirror. “What if you don’t break up? What if Luke quits, gets a new job, and you two still get to date? There’s nothing to say you will or won’t break up. It sounds like your relationship is strong. You share the same values. You both think this can go somewhere. So what’s the harm in letting it?”
“But what if it doesn’t go anywhere, and I have to feel guilty for the rest of my life because Luke quit his job for me and it didn’t work out?”
Michael let out a laugh. “Why would you feel guilty? He’s offering to resign. He wouldn’t offer if he didn’t mean it.”
“What if he’s just offering because he wants me to offer to resign? He did have this job first.”
Trixie smiled. “Ash, people don’t do that. People don’t offer to do something big because they’re secretly trying to manipulate you to get you to do the thing. Maybe some people do, but you wouldn’t want those people in your life anyway. So if he gets mad because you didn’t offer to resign, he’s not the right person for you. No normal person would do that.”
Ash furrowed their brow. Were their friends right? Was Luke genuinely offering to resign? Did Ash have no part to play in this? Ash shook the thoughts from their head.
“I think I’m scared of the relationship failing after I put everything on the line for no reason.”
“What’s the worst that could happen, Ash?” Michael asked. “Genuinely? Worst case scenario, what happens?”
Ash sighed. “Luke resigns. Our relationship fails. I never get tenure because I broke the rules.”
Sage smiled at Ash through the rearview. “Then you change universities and try to get tenure somewhere else.”
Ash hadn’t thought about that. If the school refused to give them tenure, they could leave. Did they really want to live in Binghamton for the rest of their life anyway?
“Now, tell me what the best-case scenario would be,” Trixie said.
“Luke and I keep our jobs. We do amazing research and find a novel detection method for thyroid cancer. We stay together and live happily ever after,” Ash said.
“While that first part sounds unlikely,” Michael started, “it doesn’t sound unrealistic to me. You never know. You two could meet up in a job later in life and continue your research. You don’t have to keep doing something you don’t want to do.”
Ash desperately wanted to believe their friends, to believe everything would work out, but something deep in their heart kept telling them it wouldn’t. Ash wasn’t sure what they were going to do, but their friends were right—if Luke was offering to quit his job, then maybe Ash should let him. Ash drove around for a while, continuing to ponder what to do. Their friends offered sound advice: talking to him, Ash applying for jobs, asking Luke if he was even happy atBinghamton. But in the end, Ash knew they just needed to sleep on it. As a chronic overthinker, they needed adequate time to think.
“Thank you for talking me through this,” Ash said.
Michael squeezed Ash’s shoulder. “That’s what we’re here for. You know we have your back.”
“And once everything is worked out, I want all the salacious details of your relationship,” Trixie said, mischief in her eyes.
Sage let out a long laugh and met Ash’s eyes one last time in the rearview. “It’s all going to work out, Ash, one way or another.”
Ash knew that was true. Eventually, it would all be fine, but that didn’t help Ash from freaking out.
“Come on. Let’s go do something fun,” Ash said. They turned left on Main Street and made their way to Jupiter Games.
Jupiter was a nondescript white building; if you didn’t know it was there, you would probably never go. The sign had seen better days, and the entrance was around the back. Ash led their friends inside, and they were met by the slightly musty smell of the board game store. The rug, which was probably installed in the eighties, was fading. The dim fluorescent lights made it hard to see the various games on the shelves.
Ash made a beeline for the counter and asked the clerk for the binder of Magic: The Gathering cards under ten dollars. Every time they came in, they were on the hunt for a particular card that made a fuck ton of zombies. It just so happened that today was their lucky day; there was one copy of that card in the binder. Ash paid and slid the card into their pocket.
“Now we’re never going to win against you,” Michael said, sliding up beside Ash. “That card is not fair.”
“If it wasn’t fair, it would be banned,” Ash said with a smile.
Ash playfully elbowed Michael before following him downstairs, where Trixie and Sage were already setting up a board game. This waswhat they needed—a distraction. After three hours, they were feeling significantly better. They were thankful for their friends. Even when they annoyed the hell out of Ash, they could count on them.
And thank fuck for that.
Chapter twelve
Ash seriously did not want to teach today. They sat in their chair at the bottom of the lecture hall, their feet on their desk. They’d been up since four in the morning, their mind swirling with thoughts and panic about what to do with Luke. Unable to fall back asleep, Ash went for a walk around the block before deciding there was no way they were going back to bed. So instead, they wandered to campus, ran a few simulations of the molecular interactions, and set up for class an hour early.
Ash knew they would deviate from the syllabus today. Instead of going over the end of one chapter and the beginning of another, they were just going to end the one chapter and let their students out early. By now, the lack of sleep was catching up to them. The twenty-four ounces of coffee hadn’t even helped. All it did was make them tired, but faster. Even just sitting in the desk chair was impossible for Ash. They were wiggling their feet with all the nervous energy.
