Her shoulders droop. “So there isn’t really a problem.”
That’s what I’m tempted to think, but Emily looks about ready to curl into the fetal position. “How long have you been feeling like there is?”
Emily shrugs, like she doesn’t want to answer this question. “A few months.”
“Months?” She’s been feeling formonthslike I don’t love her anymore? How can I not have known about this?
“Not all the time,” she says quickly. “Sometimes everything is fine, and I know you love me. But then something will happen, and I feel this disconnect again.”
“You’ve been miserable for months and I had no idea.” I realize I’m sulking now, but damn it, I had no idea I was messing this up so badly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I’m afraid to know the answer to this. I’ve been broken up with before for not talking about my feelings enough, but Emily and I have never had that problem.
At least, Ithoughtwe didn’t.
“I was afraid,” she says. “I didn’t want to hear you say that it was true.”
I shake my head adamantly. “It isn’t true. I swear it isn’t.”
“Okay. So I should just get over it.” Her voice shakes as she says this.
My girlfriend has been unhappy with me formonths. I don’t think this is something she can just get over. “I want to know why you felt that way,” I say. “Otherwise, even if it isn’t true, you’ll just keep feeling it.”
Emily sucks her lips inward. “I guess so. Unless I’m crazy and there isn’t really a problem.”
“There is a problem,” I insist. “The problem is that you’re unhappy. And it isn’t caused by the thing you thought, but that means we need to figure out whatiscausing it and change it.” Am I even making sense?Talking about feelings is not my thing. Fixing them is really out of my depth. “Don’t we?”
She sniffles and nods. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, but she’s still got a tight grip on my hand. “I think so.That makes sense.”
I have no freaking clue where to begin. “When would you feel this disconnect?”
Emily shrugs again. “Do you remember when we checked into that hotel in Hawaii?”
I blink. I remember Hawaii, of course. We went snorkeling and parasailing and spent an entire day lying in bed together, laughing and ordering room service and making love.
Do I rememberchecking in?
“Vaguely,” I say.
“I asked if you wanted to pretend to be newlyweds, like we did when we were in Maine, remember?”
Okay, I do remember Maine. We went climbing at Acadia when we’d been together about six months. We stayed in a hotel, and I made this big show to the reception clerk about switching us to the honeymoon suite. Introduced Emily as Mrs. Winslow and everything.
“But in Hawaii you seemed uncomfortable when I mentioned it,” Emily says. “And you just checked in like I hadn’t said anything. I don’t know what changed.”
I’m pretty sure what changed is that the joke was funnier when we’d been together six months and marriage was distant and theoretical. Other than that—“I don’t know what I was thinking, exactly,” I say. “But it wasn’t that I’m unhappy with you. I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
She shrugs, staring down at our hands. “It was a little thing, I know. But I feel like there’s been lots of little things like that, where you seem distant or uncomfortable about the future.”
I don’t know what would make me act that way, and I don’t remember doing so, but I believe her, even if it can’t be what she feared it was. I want to fix this problem, whatever it is, but—
“Do you think it’s even possible to fix how unhappy you’ve been if we don’t even know why it happened?”
“I hope so,” she says.
“Are you sure—” I have to stop because now my voice is the one shaking. I clear my throat and try again. “Are you sure you’re still in love with me?”
“Yes,” she says, with no hesitation. “That’s why it hurt so much to think you didn’t love me anymore. I don’t want to lose you.”
Okay.Okay.That has to be a good thing, right? If I love her, and she loves me, we should be able to figure this out.
