I had to consider that for a moment. “You know, I’ve been given numerous tidbits of wisdom from professors and colleagues over the years. But I think the best advice I’ve ever been given was from Nora. She told me to own it.”
“Own what?”
Having sex with you in the copy room. “She was referring to a specific incident, but really, she meant own everything. My choices. Myself. Who I am.”
He grinned. “That is good advice.”
We paused to get a snack. Corban was like a bottomless pit after not eating for a day. Then we settled back onto the bed to continue.
The next several questions were thought-provoking without being uncomfortable. We talked about recurring dreams and discovered we both tended to dream about missing a college final exam when we were stressed. We’d also both read much of the relevant literature on such dreams.
Finding our way back to the questionnaire after the dream discussion, we answered several more. Then we came to question twenty-two.
“Tell your partner about a mistake you made that you’ll never make again,” Corban read.
“Marrying the wrong man,” I said without thinking.
My mouth snapped shut. Oh no. I shouldn’t have said that. This wasn’t a topic I enjoyed discussing.
“You were married?”
I took a deep breath. “Yes. We got married when we were still in grad school. It didn’t last very long.”
“What happened?”
“We both applied for a job in London. It was a long shot, but an exciting opportunity. He got the job, and I didn’t. We decided there were too many benefits to his career for him to turn it down, and we could make a long-distance relationship work. After all, we were both so busy, we hardly saw each other. It wouldn’t be terribly different from how we were already living. So he went.”
“And long-distance didn’t work.”
“No. Actually, I thought it was working at first. I’d been right, it wasn’t so different from when we’d been living under the same roof. Which probably tells you everything you need to know about our brief marriage.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
I shook my head. “I thought it was because we were so similar. Neither of us was overly emotional or sentimental. Both very independent and focused on our careers. It turns out that what I’d perceived as a lack of sentimentality was actually a lack of him being in love with me.”
Corban’s hand twitched, like he was going to reach out and touch mine. But he didn’t.
“He’d been gone three months when he called to say he wanted a divorce. He said he’d never really been in love with me and he knew that now because he’d met someone else. His feelings for her were so strong, he was having a hard time refraining from committing adultery. I hadn’t realized the man was capable of strong feelings of any kind, romantic or otherwise. We never even fought.”
“Really? Never?”
“Not once, and we were married for a year before he moved to London.” I looked down at my hands in my lap. “It was for the best. He’d been gone three months and I hardly missed him. So we quietly divorced.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was, and it wasn’t. It was just some paperwork. We didn’t have any children or shared assets. But…” I paused. This part was harder to share. But somehow I felt safe enough with Corban to share it. “The hard part was that divorce felt like such a failure. I’d been so wrong about him. I should have known better.”
I hated admitting that. Hated having been so wrong.
He shrugged. “Sometimes you can’t see things for what they are until you get on the other side of them.”
I nodded. “And I suppose I wasn’t in love with him either. I was sad when things ended, but it didn’t take me very long to move on. I’ve had other break-ups that were worse than the end of my marriage.”
He raised his eyebrows, like he wanted to ask about them.
“Don’t ask. Your turn. What’s a mistake you’ve made that you’ll never make again?”
He hesitated, once again wearing his thinking face. I hoped he wasn’t going to say having sex with his coworker in the copy room.
“My mistake is one I don’t want to make again, but sometimes that’s easier said than done.”
I bit my lower lip, waiting for him to continue.
“I was working on the algorithm for the dating app and everything was coming together. We’d started market testing it on a small scale and it worked better than my team and I had expected. I’d been developing the questionnaire at the same time, plus taking psychology classes and diving into all the research I could find on attraction and relationship development. I liked the data stuff, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wasn’t excited about finding ways to match people using a phone app, even if it was more accurate than anything else out there. I wanted to dig deeper. Focus on the humanity behind the data.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No, and that was my mistake. I had a conversation with my parents about it and I let them sway me into staying at my job. I didn’t trust my instincts. Ultimately, it worked out fine. I did leave my job, obviously. I’m here now. But at the time, it was kind of a blow to my confidence.”
“I’m glad you did eventually trust your instincts.”
He met my eyes. “Me too.”
Feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, I shifted the laptop to read the next question.
They didn’t get easier.
Before beginning, I’d understood the logic of the questionnaire in an academic sense. But I hadn’t realized how it would feel to experience it. Especially how it would feel to experience it with Corban.
The thought-provoking questions drew out answers from deep inside. His responses fed my openness, as if my subconscious sensed his vulnerability and sought to match it. It was like spinning down a whirlpool. The more questions we answered, the more we shared. The more we shared, the deeper our responses became. The deeper our responses became, the easier it was to continue, and the more I felt something very unexpected.
Connection.
Understanding.
Familiarity.
I couldn’t fight the strange desire to continue. And as we answered the last few questions, I realized there was something to this. Something brilliant and deep and real.
But his questionnaire was not going to make me fall in love.
23
Hazel
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” ~ Bertrand Russell
The Seattle air felt cool after nearly a week in Florida. Not that I’d gotten out much. Other than a couple of early morning runs on the beach, I’d mostly been in the hotel.
With Corban. But I didn’t want to think about that right now.
The parking lot across from Brody’s Brewhouse was nearly full, and I’d already seen several people out for a walk or jog, taking advantage of the clear day. Standing next to my car, I stretched my quadriceps while I waited for Nora and Sophie to arrive. Everly hadn’t yet returned from her honeymoon, but the rest of us were sticking to our half-marathon training schedule. We’d increased our mileage and all of us, even Nora, had been getting in solo runs during the week.