“Wait a second.” I sit bolt upright. “Did you bring me to Europe specifically to have sex with me?”
“No!” Ian says, sounding honestly offended. “Of course not. But—”
“Because I don’t actually owe it to you to have sex with you,” I inform him, swinging both legs off the mattress and standing up. “You know that, right? We could date for twenty years, we could bemarried, and I do not have to have sex with you if I don’t want to.”
“Of course I know that,” Ian says, shaking his head like I’m being dramatic. “Come on, Molly, don’t make it like that.”
“Don’t make it like what?”
“Like I’m a fucking sex predator!” he all but shouts. He’s never sworn at me in anger before, not once in all the time we’ve been together; I flinch, glancing instinctively at the closed door. The last thing I want is for Gabe and Sadie to overhear us. Ian takes a breath. “You’re my girlfriend,” he continues, lowering his voice with what seems like some effort. “It doesn’t make me a creep to want to have sex with you.”
“I’m not saying you’re a creep,” I protest. “I’m saying it’s not cool to put pressure on me when—”
“I’m not putting pressure on you!”
“Then what do you call this?” This time, I’m the one who’s yelling; Ian looks startled, then slightly cowed.
“It’s not some gross, cheap thing,” he says after a moment, raking a hand through his beard roughly enough to yank it right off his face. “I want to be close to you. I want toknowyou. And yeah, sex is a part of that for me.” He looks at me for a moment. “Really, in all honesty. Do you even l—”
“Don’t you dare,” I interrupt him, holding up a hand. “Don’t youdareask if I even love you.” I’m furious; I’m actually outraged. But I’m also worried that he’s right. After all, at what point do I need to admit out loud that this isn’t about waiting for some hypothetical perfect moment? At what point do I need to admit that this is just about... me?
“Look,” Ian says, sounding so calm and logical it makes me want to fling myself on the floor and throw a tantrum, “we’re both tired. The last couple of days have been wild. And you haven’t really been yourself all week.”
That surprises me. “What do you mean, I haven’t been myself?”
Ian shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “It’s just been little things, you know? Like a vibe I’ve been getting. But ever since London you’ve just seemed kind of... off.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. The truth is I know exactly what he’s talking about; what Idon’tknow is how to explain to him that those so-called little things—jumping out of an airplane, wearing a bright-red dress, sticking up for Sabrina Hudson even if it was weird and awkward—were the closest I’ve felt to myself in a year.
Neither one of us says anything for a moment. I stare miserably down at my hands. Earlier today I thought there was a chance Ian could be into the real me, that it was just a matter of being brave enough to introduce him to her. But suddenly I’m not so sure.
“Okay,” I tell him finally; it feels like all of the energy has been drained out of me, like someone’s pulled a plug somewhere. “I’m calling it.”
Ian startles. “Callingwhat?” he asks, alarmed.
“This fight,” I amend quickly. “I’m calling this fight.” I tuck my hair behind my ears, trying to figure out how to fix this. “Look,” I say finally, sitting down on the very edge of the mattress. “Can we just... lie here and not talk about any of this for a while? And can we just agree that that’s all it’s going to be?”
Ian looks at me warily. After a long moment he nods.
I can’t sleep at all that night, lying awake in the darkness listening to Ian’s deep, even breathing. Finally I slip out from under the covers, careful not to disturb him, and pad as quietly as I can down the narrow, creaking stairs. I’m going to get a drink of water, maybe sit with my feet in the cool blue pool for a while, but when I turn the corner into the kitchen there’s Gabe sitting on the counter, beer in one hand and his phone in the other.
“Jesus Christ,” I swear, holding both my hands up. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Gabe shrugs. “Sorry,” he says, in a voice like he’s not, really. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Yeah,” I say, exhaling, my heart still chattering nervously away. “Me either.”
We stay where we are for a moment, looking at each other. I can feel my pulse ticking in my neck. I know I should go back upstairs—the only thing that could turn this night into more of a disaster would be another brawl with Gabe—but sleep seems more foreign and unfamiliar than any country we’ve been to so far. “You hungry?” I hear myself ask.
Gabe looks surprised at that. “Sure.”
I open the cupboards. It’s definitely a vacation-house kitchen, full of random half-empty bottles of balsamic vinegar and not so big on staples, but after a couple of minutes I’ve scrounged mostly everything I need to make pancakes. “Impressive,” Gabe says, eyeing the supplies I’ve lined up on the island.
I shake my head. “This is nothing,” I tell him, using a coffee cup to scoop flour into a mixing bowl. “My roommate cooked an entire Thanksgiving dinner on the two-burner stove in the common room of our dorm. She’s an actual wizard.”
Gabe grins. “You really like it up there, huh?” he asks. “Boston?”
“I do.” I thought it was just that I liked the person I was there, shiny new Molly, but now that I’ve been away I realize that’s not totally true. I love the city itself: the tour guidesriding the T in their silly tricorn hats and the bros in their Bruins jerseys and the trees bursting into bloom along Marlborough Street on Marathon Monday. I’m so lucky I get to go back there. Somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, it became my home. “You should come visit sometime.” Then I hear myself. “Not—” I break off. “I just mean—”
