Ian’s asleep in the master bedroom when I get up there, French TV flickering blue in the darkness and a paperback splayed open on the mattress beside him; I root around in the sheets until I find the remote, clicking it off and plunging the room into deep, velvety silence. He rolls over on the mattress, blinking awake. “Hey,” he murmurs. He looks younger than usual in the slice of white moonlight sneaking through the linen curtains, his face smooth and unguarded. “How was it?”
I swallow. It feels like I’ve lived a whole year in the last twelve hours. It feels like I’ve lived an entire life. “It was good,” I tell him finally for lack of a better answer, climbing under the covers beside him. “It was a really good day.”
Ian smiles sleepily. “I’m glad.”
“Me too,” I say, laying a gentle hand on his back. In the morning I’m going to set about fixing. Tonight, I’m going to let him rest. “Go back to sleep.”
Day8
I wake with a start the next morning, the knowledge of something undone humming like a power grid deep inside in my bones. When I look over Ian is still asleep beside me, limbs sprawled in all different directions and his face creased from a kink in the pillow. I slide out of bed as quietly as I can.
The house is calm and quiet, morning sun spilled in yellow-white puddles on the honey-warm hardwood floor. Gabe and Sadie are already gone, their water glasses rinsed on the drainboard and their sheets in a heap on top of the washing machine in the alcove off the kitchen. I catch sight of a note beside the coffeemaker in Sadie’s handwriting:Didn’t want to wake you up to say good-bye! Thanks SO MUCH for everything.
I pick up my phone, click the icon for my travel app. We’re supposed to fly back to Boston this afternoon; I’m supposedto spend the week before school starts with Ian in his Fenway apartment, watching old movies and reading in the park and eating late-night dollar slices from the pizza place downstairs. We were going to ride to the end of the Orange Line and go to the Arboretum. We were going to go to the beach.
Instead I switch my ticket to a flight to New York, so I can’t chicken out at the last second. I text my mom to let her know I’ve changed my plans. I make two careful cups of coffee in the fancy machine, adding milk and half a sugar to Ian’s the way I know he likes it. Then I gather my courage and climb the stairs to the second floor.
“Hi,” I say, sitting down on the edge of the mattress and setting the cups on the nightstand. It occurs to me, with a flicker of dark hilarity, that I’ve never actually broken up with somebody before. Every other romantic relationship of my life has imploded in the middle of a screaming fight about my own infidelity, my own failures, my own wrongness; this feels oddly civilized even as I think I’d do anything in the world to avoid it. I wonder if I might actually prefer the other way. “I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.”
Ian blinks awake. “Good morning to you too,” he says sleepily. He sits up, scritching a hand through his bedhead. “What’s wrong?”
“I think we have to break up,” I blurt.
For a second Ian just looks at me, confused and bleary. Then he frowns. “What?” he says. “Why?”
I open my mouth, then close it again, weirdly embarrassed. God, I should have at least waited until he was up and dressed. Already I’m doing this all wrong. “I’m sorry,” I say, biting my lip the moment it starts to tremble. It doesn’t seem fair to cry.
“Is this because of the other night?” Ian asks. He’s leaning forward, periodically jamming the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbing vigorously. I didn’t even let him pee first. “I was a dick the other night, Molly, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have given you a hard time like that.”
“No, it’s not about the other night,” I tell him, voice as steady as I can manage. “Or maybe it is, but not the way you think. I mean, yes, the other night was kind of fucked up. But we could have figured it out, I think, or maybe it wouldn’t even have been an issue to begin with if everything else between you and me felt...” I trail off, and then finally I admit it. “Right.”
“Right?” Ian repeats, his face sharpening suddenly with hurt and surprise. “I mean, I guess I didn’t realize it felt wrong to you this entire time.”
I shake my head quickly. “No, it’s not that, I just—” I break off. “Don’t you think it says something that neither one of us felt like we could be completely honest with each other?” I ask him. “Like, that we got this far into it before we started telling the truth?”
“Itried, Molly.” Ian’s kind eyes flash then, all anger and frustration. “Don’t you think I tried? I’ve spent the last eightmonths doing everything I can think of to try and get you to open up to me, and even after the other day I know there’s still stuff about yourself you’re never going to talk about. And I don’t know how to be the kind of person you can tell.”
“You’re right,” I tell him honestly. “And that’s on me.”
Ian shakes his head. “But I don’t—why?”
I want to give him a neat, tidy answer. But all I’ve got left is the truth. “I just—when we met last year, I was trying so hard to re-create myself, you know? And you liking me—liking this new version of me, even if it wasn’t always who I actually was—was, like, proof that it was working. I didn’t want to wreck that.” I bite my lip. “I honestly thought eventually it would start to feel normal and natural and like something I didn’t constantly have to calculate for. But somehow it never totally did.”
Ian frowns. “So being my girlfriend—that wasfake?”
“No,” I tell him immediately, reaching my hand out and curling my fingers around his wrist, squeezing. “Not at all. I really care about you, Ian. I’ve loved being your girlfriend. Iwantedto be your girlfriend. I just mean I think there was a part of me that felt like if you knew everything about me, warts and all, you’d run away like your hair was on fire.”
Ian pulls away. “You keep saying that,” he points out, sounding frustrated. “But when did I ever make you think I wouldn’t like your warts?”
I hesitate at that, not sure how to answer. After all, he hasa point. But if I’ve learned anything this week, it’s that I’ve been holding on to the past a lot more tightly than I realized. Living in total opposition to something is just a different way of not getting over it.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “You never gave me a reason to think the person I used to be was so terrible. But I guess a lot of other people did.” I glance down, remembering, then—finally,finally—letting it go. “I’m really sorry, Ian.”
“I still don’t get why this is something we have to break up over,” he insists, stubborn. “Like, let’s be up-front with each other from now on, that’s all. Let’s see how it goes. There’s no reason to just throw our whole relationship away.”
I waver for a moment, letting myself picture it: going back to Boston and papering over everything that’s happened, convincing ourselves that what we have together is enough. It’s tempting, that much is undeniable. But in my gut I know it wouldn’t be fair to either one of us. “I think maybe it’s too late for that,” I tell him quietly.
Ian gazes at me for another long moment. Finally he sighs. “Yeah, Molly,” he says, shaking his sandy head sadly. “I guess it is.”
