“We’ll send them your therapy bills.”
“Way to sneak that in there,” I say. “But I think Nate was also a matter of timing. I was burned-out and sick of pushing so hard. What I was doing wasn’t working for me anymore. I wanted a fuller life and someone to share it with. I think he was the wrong man at the right moment.”
George watches me for a beat and then gives me the final bite of his power bar.
“Can I ask you something without you getting mad?” he says.
“No promises.”
“Why Nate? He’s not who I pictured you with.”
I frown. “Whodidyou picture me with?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze drifts to a couple about our age. The man has a baby strapped to his chest. “I guess someone with a little more depth, someone less…toothy.”
I sputter out a laugh. “Toothy?”
“He was always smiling, like a cartoon prince. Was he like that all the time?”
“Kind of.”
“And you were into that?”
“Sure. I mean, he was easy to be around. We liked each other, maybe even truly loved each other, but in a way that wasn’t threatening.” Nate was divorced and didn’t want his heart broken again, and I didn’t want to be with someone who’d subsume me. “It was never intense. Never the kind of relationship that could destroy you.”
George looks at me, squinting against the sun, but he doesn’t speak.
“Shows what I know. Now I’m thirty, living with my parents, and I don’t have any of the things I thought I was supposed to have by now.”
“Like what?”
“A place of my own. Meaningful work. A passport full of stamps.”
He ducks down to meet my eyes. “Nobody’s going to giveyou an award for ticking off all the boxes you think you should have checked.”
“Oh. Well, fuck it, then. I was only getting my shit together because I thought there was a trophy at the end.”
I sit back on my hands and arch my back, stretching out the knots. “Anyway, I’m doing pretty well on the breakup front. I’m not pining for Nate, or logging into his Netflix account so I can see what he’s watching, or rereading his texts. I don’t feel angry the way I used to. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the way he ended our relationship, because that humiliation was truly horrific, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s over.”
He studies me, frowning slightly. His thinking face. “So there are no residual feelings there?”
“Mostly confusion,” I say. “I can’t understand why he waited until the day before our wedding to break up with me. It feels like part of the equation is missing. He obviously had doubts, which makes sense, given that I’m me and he’s him.”
“Frankie,” George says, his voice gentle, “you’re as good as a thousand Nates.”
“I’m honestly not. My temper is appalling. My obstinance is—”
“One of your finest qualities,” George interrupts.
I ignore him. “I was always careful not to be too argumentative, toome, around Nate, but clearly I was still too much.”
“You should be able to be yourself with your partner without dampening your spark,” George says. “People fight, Frankie. Every real relationship has conflict. I’m not saying there aren’t healthy and unhealthy ways of arguing, but it happens. What matters is wanting to work through it.”
“The last time we fought, I barely heard from you for six months.”
“I know. I’m unpacking my own issues.” He leans closer. “In therapy.”
“Wow. You really brought that one home.”
