Rae felt the panicked sensation of a door that had closed before she’d managed to reach it, but she avoided interpreting their words as truth. She just went into defensive mode, disliking how the rest of the Scramblettes had apparently started a separate group chat to stage an intervention.
“Things have been getting better,” Rae said. “I think I’ll be able to present my market size analysis to a client at a pitch meeting next week.”
“You’re doing that thing,” Ellen said, “where the shitty boyfriend does one mediocre thing, but relative to everything else he’s done it’s amazing, and so you think this means he’s really changed.”
The glare from Ellen’s engagement ring felt very bright, and Rae didn’t like the sight of it. “But the worstisbehind me,” she said. “And if I stay one more year, I can pay off my student loans.”
“I’ve heard you say that for years now,” Ellen said. “You’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off.”
“But with TB and GQ quitting, I’ll be on the fast track for the vice president promotion … then I’ll have a lot more exit options. And I’ll start setting more boundaries. No checking emails after tenP.M., things like that.”
“You’re wearing investment blinders,” Ellen said. “You can’t see clearly.”
Mina looked up from her phone. “It’s an emotionally abusive relationship.”
Rae got the sense Ellen had coached her on the points to make.
“Physically abusive, too,” Ellen said. “You’re losing weight.”
“No, I’m not.” If she was, it was only because she’d been trying to feed Dustin her food. “I’m giving it one more chance. If it doesn’t get better, I’ll quit.”
Mina made a skeptical sound and Ellen made a skeptical face.
“We’re just looking out for you,” Ellen said. “Sometimes it’s hard to see how toxic a relationship is when you’re in it.”
Rae looked down at her cappuccino, refusing to dwell on the double meaning, or even the single meaning. “I’m twenty-seven,” she said, avoiding calculating the exact number of days before her thirtieth birthday but knowing it was now under one thousand. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
EMOTIONAL DEPRECIATION
“You know how investors just blindly follow what everyone else is doing?” Rae said to Dustin from the Lorimer Loft rooftop on February 14. “It’s the same thing for how people approach Valentine’s Day. Everyone buying overvalued roses and cramming into restaurants to overpay for undersized portions.”
They were standing at the railing of the vacant roof deck, overlooking the volatile skyline that had begun to feel, for better or worse, liketheirvolatile skyline. An open pizza box was propped on the ledge that they’d made into a table.
“I’m glad we’re going against the market,” Dustin agreed, giving her hand a squeeze. His skin was the only glove she wanted, the only glove she’d ever want. She had a feeling, magnified by the symbolism of this red-hearted holiday, that they were turning a corner together. As much as the depression tried to keep them apart, Rae thought that it just as often brought them closer together as they fought against a common enemy but never against each other.
“Pick up the next slice,” she said, nudging Dustin toward the pizza.
They’d agreed on a no-gifts policy, which they’d both breached. Dustin had had potted sunflowers waiting for her when Rae arrived (Rae didn’t like the metaphor of gifting cut flowers) as well as freshly made, nonalcoholic hot chocolate.
Rae had brought a framed photo of the two of them from Indiana, along with a poetic pizza. Under each slice, she’d put a Post-it note with a mini poem, all of them Rae originals and all different poetic voices she was trying out to see which fit.
The poems hadn’t exactly written themselves, but there had been a certain flow that gave her hope her stories wouldn’t always be stuck within her.
Dustin picked up the pizza slice and read the yellow sticky note underneath it.
when memories of him
multiply (never divide)
and make you smile
even as you stare at
pointless decimal points
—yup, that’s love.
