I knew we’d get to him eventually. Besides Dr. Lang, she’s the only person outside of New York who even knows he exists. Still, I try and dodgeit.
“What about him?”
“I thought he was nice,” she says carefully.
I trace a finger along a bead of condensation rolling down the side of my beer can. “Me too.”
“So?”
“What do you want me to say? It was exactly as you predicted.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t really wantto—”
“From the beginning,” she orders. It’s the tone of the Big Sister. It brooks no argument.
I take a deep breath and tell her all of it: realizing I’d been laid off, Carrie’s underhand HR dealings, my mistaking Connor for an intern rather than my new boss. I tell her about DataStrategy, and the dashboard, and all the dumb little things that have been filling up my days these last few months. I tell her about losing the wager, and hanging out with Connor, and kissing him, and him rejecting me, and then not rejecting me, and then spending the night at his place after they left, and how it all felt like the start of somethingbig.
It all sounds so stupid saying it out loud. How do I explain the little universe of inside jokes we’d created with each other and how much they meant to me? I simply can’t.
As the story goes on, it morphs into a full-on exorcism. Like at Dr. Lang’s, now that I’ve acknowledged it, it’s impossible to deny the truth of what happened and my own role in it, and I’m desperate to release all the shame and regret that’s been festering insideme.
I repeat what Connor said about me doing it to teach him a lesson, admitting how close that was to the truth, and how given the choice, I accidentally chose Andy, lying and then betraying Connor’s trust in the process and ruining the thing between us that might have been perfect.
By the time I come to my sorry end, she’s retrieved a pack of hot dogs from the kitchen and turned on the barbecue.
She lights the grill, then closes the lid. “So what’s your plan now?”
Think about him every waking moment until Idie?
“I don’t know. Find a new job, I guess? At some point I’ll need to pack up my apartment.”
“No, stupid, I meant what’s your plan with Connor?”
“It’s over, I told you.”
“He broke up with you?”
“Trust me, it’s finished. There’s no coming back from that.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, sodramatic.Did he say the wordsit’s over?”
“Well…no,” I say, frowning. “The last thing he said wasforgetit.”
“Ah-ha!” she says, triumphant. “Exactly.”
“Don’tgive me that look. He didn’t break up with me because—because—we weren’t even formally dating. That’s what happens in relationships now, they just…dissolve.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
“Try Hinge and get back to me,” I say dryly. Then: “It’s not like he’s been in touch.”
She hums, nodding her head. “Interesting. Have you contacted him?”
I shrug. “He won’t reply.”
“I think you should call him RIGHT NOW,” she says in her bossiest tone. “Just apologize!”
