Page 69 of Vegas with my Ex’s Best Friends

I told him I understood.

I meant it more than I wanted to.

I've been doing the same thing since he left.

Different method, same result. Build a life small enough that losing it won't destroy you. Stay in Portland. A place you chose because nobody there knew Connor or Andrew or any of your history. You just hadn’t found another place to go. Take the freelance contracts, not the jobs with benefits and roots and things to grieve. Say yes to a free Vegas trip because at least it has an end date. At least you know when you're leaving.

He blew up everything we had at twenty-one because he was sure I'd eventually see what he was and go.

I look at him and I think: That's what scares me—how much of you makes sense to me.

His eyes open.

Slow, then focused, then on me. Not surprised. Like some part of him never stopped keeping track.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

Neither of us moves.

“You stayed,” I say.

“I told you I would.”

“People say things.”

“I know.”

He doesn't add anything to it. Doesn't build a case or soften it into an apology. He just lets it sit there, honest and plain, like he's already made peace with the fact that I don't have to believe him yet.

I look at the ceiling for a moment. Then back at him.

He's still watching me with those dark eyes. The ones I spent years learning and years trying to forget. I know his face so well it's like reading a language I thought I'd lost. The line of his jaw when he's thinking something through. The way his hands go still when he's being careful.

He is measuring every movement right now.

“I'm not going to pretend last night fixed anything,” I say.

“I know.”

“We talked. We said real things. That doesn't mean it just goes back to what it was.”

“There's no back to go to.” He shifts, sitting straighter. “Only now.”

I hate how much sense that makes.

I push up to sitting. My hair is a disaster and I don't bother with it. He's already seen most of the worst of me at this point, so.

“I keep waiting for the moment you change your mind,” I say.

The words come out before I've decided to say them. Too honest for this hour. Too honest, maybe, period.

He moves closer.

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“You keep saying that.”