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To be quite honest, I was also not much of a runner. Other people liked to say that running cleared their mind. Running did indeed clear my mind, but it replaced all those cleared thoughts with a drumbeat of I hate running I hate running. But maybe this time, when I really needed a clear head, things would be different.

They were not. Once I’d squeezed myself into the slightly too small exercise clothes I’d packed with me just in case and hauled myself out to Riverside Park, my feet hitting the pavement reminded me exactly how much I hated them hitting the pavement.

At least the scenery was beautiful. Bev had recommended I run on the path beside the river, which was crowded this early on a weekend but not too crowded, probably because it was even colder beside the water than not. I ran north, various sports-like installations and a busy highway on my right and the sparkling slate gray waters of the Hudson on my left. Bikers zoomed past me on the narrow path, many of them delivery guys lugging bags over their handlebars. The air was so cold it hurt my teeth going in and my lungs going out.

I ran—well, jogged—well, jogged slowly—for what felt like an hour or two, then turned that slow jog into a slow walk and checked my phone. It had been eleven minutes. I hate running. The thought of continuing filled me with dread, but it wasn’t like Bev would check my pedometer, right? I had technically gone for a run, and now I could walk back. Nobody could stop me.

As I’d run north, I’d passed what seemed to be an adult playground with rings, volleyball courts, a soccer field. Now that I’d slowed, I could hear ping-pongy noises from the courts beside me. Pickleball?

I was curious to see Seth and Benjamin play, but I didn’t want them to see me and, god forbid, try to make me play with them. I crept up beside the courts, my body hidden by a thick grove of shrubs, and squinted at the players. None were Seth or Benjamin. I stood for a moment, oddly transfixed by the repetitive movement of the ball—was it possible to get hypnotized like this?—and then turned to go.

But not before I heard a familiar voice. “You’re better than I remember you being.” It was Seth, speaking, presumably, to Benjamin. I turned back toward the courts, realizing now that there were benches set up alongside them for people to sit while, I guessed, they were in between games waiting to rotate back in. “I can’t believe we beat that guy with the toupee.”

Benjamin snorted. “He talks a big game, but his knees are too old for it. He should take his toupee back to the beginner courts.”

“Ouch,” Seth said, whistling.

“I say it as I see it,” Benjamin said. “So I’ll also say, when are you going to ask that girl to marry you? Your mother’s already started planning the wedding.”

I stopped, rigid, behind the shrubs so that they wouldn’t catch a flicker of movement out of the corners of their eyes. I should leave, I told myself. Listening to this conversation would be wrong. I was literally hiding behind shrubs, for heaven’s sake.

And yet I didn’t move.

Seth snorted identically to his father. “If Mom’s already started planning, shouldn’t she know when it is?”

“The date’s the one missing piece,” Benjamin said. “You’ve been dating for how many months?”

“Is there a standard for when you’re supposed to get married?”

“Well, you’re getting up there in age,” Benjamin said. “It’s one thing if you’re twenty-one or twenty-two. It’s another thing when you’re almost thirty. Have the two of you discussed it?”

“So you’re saying I need to make an honest woman out of her?” said Seth. “What year is this again?”

“You don’t have to get so defensive. You know this is nothing compared to the interrogation your mother will give you the next time you’re alone.”

“I know.” Seth was silent for a minute. I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him right now. It was one thing for me to lie with my presence. It was another thing for a son to straight-up lie to his father about marriage and give him false hope.

Though it was kind of funny that Benjamin thought I needed to be made an honest woman. If only he knew how honest I really was.

Seth finally said, “I’m not sure she feels the same way about me as I feel about her.”

Smart. Lay the seeds for our “breakup” now so that it wouldn’t come as a shock later. I tried to ignore how those seeds made my stomach kind of lurch.

“I doubt that,” said Benjamin. “I see the way the two of you look at each other. It’s clear there’s love there.”

I had to hold back a snort of my own. I certainly didn’t look at Seth like I loved him, because I didn’t love him. The mere idea of it was absurd.

Right?

I could imagine Seth’s mouth twitching in a wry smile, as aware of the irony as I was. The whole thing was hilarious. I wasn’t smiling, but that was just due to the ever-present resting bitch face.

But Seth sighed. It didn’t sound like he was smiling, either. “There’s love on my side,” he said. “The other night we kissed and I just…I fell so hard, and she pulled away.”

My stomach lurched unpleasantly. This is all part of the fake relationship, I told myself, but…was it? Because we had kissed the other night, and I had pulled away, and…

“She wouldn’t be here with you if she wasn’t all in,” Benjamin said. “Eight nights staying in a small apartment with you and your parents? Why would she have come otherwise?”

Seth was silent for what felt like a very long while. He wasn’t going to tell Benjamin the truth, was he? My stomach lurched again. I wasn’t sure which option I wanted less. Him going back to the lie would show that he had indeed just been fabricating something for his father, which should have made me happy, but instead the thought made me nauseous. And him telling the truth, meaning he’d been telling the truth about his feelings?