“I love you, too,” she says, but she sounds frustrated, and damn it, so am I.
I rub my temples with my free hand. “Maybe we should have a drink.”
There’s fear and concern etched all over Emily’s face. “Okay,” she concedes, and she reaches for the bottle, which has been breathing, and pours us each a glass.
I accept the cup—which isn’t a proper wine glass, but that was probably too much to ask for out here—and take a sip.
“Do you really want to move in with me?” she asks, after taking a drink of her own.
“Yes.” It’s possible I’m saying this too firmly.
“But you don’t want to talk about any of the details.”
I take another long drink, wishing it was something stronger. “I just think you’re a lot better at figuring those out than I am.”
“And Iwill,” she says. “But first I need to know what youwant.”
“Iwantto be with you.” We’re starting to get testy with each other, but no one has turned on the lamp yet. I’m not angry. Just terrified.
She clutches the plastic cup tightly enough it makes a crackling sound. “So why don’t you want to think abouthowthat might happen? Will it kill you to think about the details for a minute? You can plan a week-long camping trip, but you can’t give me a single opinion about moving in together?” Her voice is bordering on hysterical, and she stops and takes a deep breath and another sip of her wine.
She’s trying; we’re both trying. Why does it never seem to make this go any better?
“It just seems like if you cared,” she says in a deliberately calm voice, “you’d think about it. You’d have an opinion to offer.”
“I do care,” I say.
“Then why don’t you want to talk about it?”
I can feel how much she wants to yell at me and get up and storm away, but she’s giving me a chance, and I don’t want to blow it.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “It’s really hard to plan the details when things feel so uncertain. I don’t know how to plan out something I don’t know that I get to have.”
Emily blinks. “Because you think we’re going to break up.”
“I don’t want to,” I say, which is the understatement of a lifetime.
Her hands are shaking, and she sets her wine glass on the stone.The coals have burned down now, and it’s probably time to wrap up the s’mores or throw another log on the fire, but neither of us move. “But you don’t want to move in with me, either.”
“I want to be with you.” I’m certain of that much. But the idea of moving in together, of making that big a shift when things are already unsteady—
I’m afraid it will break us, and this fragile, tenuous place we’re in will disintegrate.
I’m afraid if I take one step forward, the ground will fall out beneath me. I’ll lose everything. I rub my face, which feels like it’s getting too hot, and it’s not from the half-glass of wine or the heat of the fire.
“You want to be with me,” she says. “But you don’t want anything to change.”
The words come out before I can stop them. “Maybe I don’t.”
Her mouth falls open, and her eyes fill with tears.
I cringe. “God, no. I’m saying this all wrong. I don’t mean that I don’t want tobewith you—”
“You just don’t want to move forward. We’ve been together two years, and you’re still not ready.”
Logically, I understand where she’s coming from, but her statement feels deeply wrong.AllI want is to move forward with her. I just don’t want to lose her. But if I say that out loud, she’s going to tell me it doesn’t make any sense, and she’s right. It doesn’t, least of all to me. My mind is spinning, and I feel like I’m suffocating. I need to get my head on straight; I know how important these next few moments are.
But I’ve never been more certain I’m about to ruin everything.
