No. Unfair. I can’t lie to Alexander and then be mad at him for not knowing I’m lying. That’s not how it should work.
The thing that completely unnerves me happens when I’m walking to my locker and I see Justin and his new girlfriend, Sonata. I know they’re going out—nobody’s shown any hesitation in telling me this—but instead of trying to throw it in my face, Justin’s been careful to make sure I haven’t gotten anywhere near it. They’re hanging out by Sonata’s locker, and as soon as I round the corner and notice them, I expect him to sense me there, to pull back from her or maybe to look at me while he’s kissing her, to try to make me jealous. But instead I’m like a ghost hovering unseen. He says something and they both laugh at the joke. They look like they’re having a good time. And I wonder if that’s what I looked like when I was with him.
I walk past. I’m still expecting him to see me, but he doesn’t.
Even when I’m safe at my own locker, away from them, I’m wondering if they’re happy, and if it’s possible that Justin knows how to make things work when I so clearly don’t.
Between art and math, Alexander texts and asks me to come over for homework later. I’ve been putting him off so often that I know I have to do it. But the fact that it feels like an obligation makes it also feel ominous.
I’m starting to think Alexander and I need to have a talk, and as soon as I start thinking it, it grows inside me, like the conversation has its own soul and it’s crowding out everything else I could possibly be thinking about. I know Alexander is a good boyfriend, in the same way that Justin was a bad boyfriend and A isn’t a boyfriend at all. But just because he’s a good boyfriend, it doesn’t mean he has to be my boyfriend. Which is pretty obvious, but the two things (good boyfriend, my boyfriend) haven’t seemed separable until now, because I was living with them both at the same time.
After using being sick as an excuse, I’m feeling sick, thinking about what’s about to happen. Even if I’m in control of it, it’s feeling inevitable. I tell myself it doesn’t even have to do with A. It would have happened anyway. A just made me see it sooner.
I’m not sure I believe any of this.
The minute I see Alexander after school, I expect him to recognize the warning signs, to sense what’s coming. But instead he looks happy to see me, and kisses me hello like there will never be a goodbye.
His parents aren’t home, unsurprisingly. With Justin, this would have meant a quick lunge into sex. But with Alexander, it means a stop in the kitchen to get a snack, and then an afternoon that can be unfolded as it happens.
“Grape?” he says, offering me a bowl.
I take a stem, give him back the bowl.
“Look,” I say. “We need to talk.”
He pops a grape in his mouth. “Cool. Let’s talk.”
It doesn’t help that he’s so agreeable.
“I mean a real talk. The kind that hurts.”
He eats more grapes, then holds out the bowl to me again.
I shake my head. I haven’t even eaten the grapes I took.
“You can tell me anything,” he says.
“No,” I say. “That’s not true. You know that’s not true.”
“Rhiannon. What do you want to tell me?”
“This isn’t working.”
“What isn’t working?”
“This.” I gesture to the two of us.
He pops more grapes in his mouth. His calm is infuriating.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” I ask him. “Anything at all.”
“Here,” he responds. He takes the remaining grapes out of the bowl and hands it to me. “Take a look.”
I don’t understand until I look at the bottom of the bowl. There, painted in red, it says:
Rhiannon, I like you for more reasons than there are grapes in this bowl.
“Oh,” I say.
“It was supposed to be a surprise. So…surprise.”
I hold up the bowl.
“You made this?”
“Pottery class. Sundays.”
The decisive gesture would be to smash it on the floor. Then I’d release him. Then I’d never get him back.
I put it delicately on the kitchen counter.
“I don’t deserve it,” I tell him. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think it’s working, and that’s because my head is in one place and you’re in another. I know you don’t want to hear it—nobody does. But, Alexander—I need to stop being unfair to you.”
He comes over and puts his arms around me.
“You’re not being unfair to me,” he says. “Unfair to yourself, sometimes. But not unfair to me. I never wanted us to be one of those you-are-my-everything couples. I want us to be able to pull away when we want to pull away, and come back close when we want to come back close. I promise, there are going to be times when my head is elsewhere, too. I get that.”
“It’s not just that,” I argue. But then I can’t go any further—because what can I really tell him?
“You want to define things,” Alexander says. “We all do, to some extent. We want to know where we stand, where we’re going—as if feelings can be reduced to geography. We become obsessed with one another’s coordinates. But I don’t want to be like that, Rhiannon. And I don’t think you want to be like that, either. I don’t want a relationship to be a restriction of freedom—I want a relationship to be an enhancement of freedom. Which I know is a lot to lay down right now. I understand we don’t come close to knowing each other all the way yet. I know it’s early days. And I also know I’m your first relationship after everything went down with Justin—I know I’m in the shadow of that, in some way. But I’m serious when I say there are dozens of reasons I like you. I enjoy my life more when you’re in the room—and that’s as good a reason as any to be dating. Right?”
But there’s someone else—that’s what I should say to him. That would shut it down. Only…he’ll ask who it is.
I could lie. I could say it’s Nathan. I could make someone else up.
But the way he’s looking at me…it’s almost the way A looked at me when A was in Alexander’s body. There is something real there.
I’m starting to falter. I pull away from him. Face him squarely.
“I’m trying to break up with you!” I blurt out.