26
I’m a panicker by nature. I can admit that about myself.
Every year during finals I swore up and down that I would have to drop out because I’d failed all my exams, ruined my career before it began, brought shame on my family name, et cetera.
And every year it was actually fine. So I get it, I have a history of overreacting. But this is not one of those times.
“Well, that’s it,” I exclaim as I burst through the apartment door. “I screwed up. I completely screwed it up. It truly and genuinely could not have gone worse.”
I throw my purse and coat on the floor, kick my shoes off haphazardly, and head straight for the fridge.
There’s half a bottle of white wine in the door that I pop open, tossing the cork over my shoulder towards the kitchen sink.
“Don’t mind me, I’m just going to drink this straight from the bottle and wait for death to come.”
From his vantage point in the corner armchair, I can tell Andy doesn’t believe me. His expression is completely unbothered, and frankly it’s a little annoying!
“What happened?” he asks, standing and coming over to wrap his arms around me.
“Andy, I’m not joking. I can tell you think I’m exaggerating and I’m not. I did a bad job.” I spin out of his arms like a petulant child, but he’s too mature to take the bait.
“It’s okay. Bring your bottle to the couch and come tell me about it.”
I stomp over to the couch, plop down as hard as I can, and take a big swig from the bottle.
“What happened?” he asks again, taking the seat next to me.
“God, it’s so stupid. I can’t look at you while I tell this story.”
“Here,” he says, pulling our bodies together so that he’s leaning against the arm of the couch and I’m nestled between his legs.
I take a deep breath, then start to explain.
“You know how I told you I wasn’t sure what to expect really?”
He nods into my hair. “Well, it ended up being a panel of three, which wasn’t that surprising, that seems like a pretty standard scenario. One was the professor I want to work with, one was a department administrator, and one was—get this—Jeff.”
“Jeff? That old jerk from the museum board?”
“Yeah, well apparently he’s a busybody old jerk because he’s on the Ashmore board too.”
“Fuck that guy,” Andy says automatically, squeezing me a little tighter.
I take another swig of wine, then continue. “When I saw him in the room I was a little panicked, but I tried really hard to remind myself that he actually likes me. I just don’t like him. But I felt pretty confident I could pretend during the interview and it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Andy’s thumb starts tracing a figure-eight along my ribs, calming and anchoring.
“I thought maybe he would ask me a question about why I made this career choice or something comparably asinine, but I was prepared for that kind of question anyway, so I figured I could handle it. But he didn’t ask any questions. Like at all.
What he did instead was at the very start of the interview, after I was in the room but before anyone had started asking questions, he turns to the panel and says, ‘I think this one’s wasted her potential, but you’ll probably love her.’”
Andy noticeably tenses behind me. “He said that? Verbatim?”
“Verbatim. And intentionally loud enough for me to hear.”
“What the fuck.”
“And then he didn’t say a single other thing the entire hour. And every question that was asked felt like… like I knew the answer a minute ago. I knew it yesterday. But here and now, with him in front of me calling me ‘wasted potential’ I have no idea what the answer is.”
Emotion wells up in my voice, and I quiet to a whisper.
“I really screwed it up, Andy. I’m sorry.”
Andy places a kiss behind my ear, squeezing me tighter. “I’m really sorry, Soph. I… I wish there was something I could do to change it.”
“Me too.” I let a tear fall, but I don’t wipe it away. I don’t want Andy to realize I’m crying yet.
When the tear has dried on my cheek, Andy offers to cook whatever I want for dinner.
I don’t have the energy to choose, so he just makes something “simple”—pasta and veggies—and it’s delicious, but there’s a heaviness in the air as we eat.
I feel like such a failure. Everything was so good, and all I had to do was this one thing and I just couldn’t get it right.
And now what? Where do we even go from here?
“What are you thinking about, Soph?”
I poke at my meal without looking up.
“Andy, is this crazy?”
“What?”
“Us.”
He immediately puts down his fork and comes around to the seat next to me, grabbing both my hands in his. “What are you talking about?”
“I know last night you said you would move to California with me, but I feel like you haven’t really had time to think it through. I don’t want you to make that choice lightly.” My eyes are watery as I try to avoid his.
“Hey, we don’t have to figure it all out now, right?” He reaches up to touch my cheek. “It’ll take time for Ashmore to make a decision, and then we can take it from there.”
“One week. They said they’d tell me in one week.”
“Okay.”
“Andy.” I look up at him now, gently removing his hand from my face. “I can tell you’re holding onto hope for Ashmore and I wish you wouldn’t. I think we have to confront the very real possibility that I am leaving Boston.”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” he says simply.
“It doesn’t matter to you?”
“No.”
“Well, it matters to me!” My voice rises as I do, standing from my chair to cross away from him. “I don’t want to mess up our whole lives so I can do some random program.”
Andy follows me into the living room. “It’s not some random program. Don’t let Elliot’s bullshit live in your head. This is important.”
He means it to be comforting, but the reminder of Elliot feels like a slap to the face. Elliot wasn’t willing to move with me after three years together. It’s crazy to ask it of Andy now.
I sit on the couch, shaking my head. “I can’t make you move to San Diego.”
He follows again, kneeling on the floor before my seat. “I want to move, Soph. I don’t know how I can be clearer about that.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to be with you.”
His dark brown eyes bore into mine as he says words I’ve wanted to hear for so long. But I’m worried it’s not enough. He wants to be with me, but I’m in love with him. And I’m so tired of always being the one who loves more.
“I want to be with you too.” My lip quivers as I fight for control.
“So much. But that’s the problem. We’ve been together for four days and I already feel like you could shatter me. And—” I brace myself to put my cards on the table.
It’s now or never. “—and I love you. Not just as a friend. I love you, all the way. I love you and I’m moving across the country in six months. And what? You’re going to come with me? You’re going to pack up your whole life here and move just to be with me?”
“Yes,” he says simply, frozen in place.
“What if… what if it’s not worth it? What if you end up resenting me?” Tears are falling now and I can’t stop them.
“I wouldn’t resent you.” He reaches for my hands but I pull them back. He looks so crestfallen that my heart breaks a bit more.
“Look, Andy, I want you to come with me. Of course I do. I want to be completely selfish and take you wherever I go. I just… can’t let myself do that to you.” My voice breaks. “But I can’t give up this dream either.”
“I would never ask you to give up your dreams for me,” he insists.
“But you want me to ask it of you. You want me to ask you to give up your whole life.”
Andy has no response.
“I would hate myself if you changed everything for me and I wasn’t worth it.”
“You are worth any...” He stumbles again, trying and failing to express his train of thought, and for the first time in our lives I see tears welling in his eyes now.
“Okay, Andy, okay.” I meet him on the floor, kneeling as I take his face in my hands.
Then I kiss him, because I don’t know how else to make this better.
“I believe you. And I’m so… I don’t have the words to express how much it means to me that you would move with me. But I have to make this choice for myself. And if we’re together—if it’s a choice between doing the program and making you move,
or passing on the program and letting you keep your life here—I’m not going to go. It would feel too selfish, no matter what you say, and I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do it. Do you understand?”
He pulls me into a hug, cradling my cheek against his chest where we kneel. “We can’t undo it, Soph. Maybe we should have waited another month and started things when everything was more sure, but what’s done is done, and I want to be with you. Please, don’t end this.”
“I’m not ending this,” I insist, wetting the cotton of his shirt.
“I think I just need a little space to decide what I want to do about grad school, and then when I’ve decided we can take it from there, okay? I just don’t think it’s healthy for either of us to make a choice like this under so much pressure. I need time to think about my career path,
and you need time to think about all the things you’d be sacrificing if you moved. Okay?”
I feel him take a deep breath, then loosen his hold on me. “And then what?”
“I guess… either we’ll decide to be together, or we’ll go back to how things were.”
“Back to how things were?”
“Yeah, if… if we have to. Whatever we have to do. I don’t want this to ruin our friendship.”
His hands leave my body, a look of disbelief on his face. “It’s already ruined, Sophie. Don’t you get that?” His voice rises as emotion gets the better of him. “We can’t go back. We can’t pretend this never happened and just be friends. It doesn’t work like that”
He tries to reach for me again but I flinch away, stung by his words. Andy swipes a hand down his face. “That’s not… Soph, that’s not what I meant.”
I stand and back away from him. “Just stop. Please.”
“You have to know what I mean though, Soph,” he pleads, following after me. “You’re telling me you can really keep living here and pretend we’ve never dated? Never had sex? You want to be my friend and date other guys and forget about this? That’s what you mean when you say you love me?”
With that, time stops. Of all the fights we’ve ever had, all the petty squabbles and ideological disagreements that have come with almost ten years of friendship, Andy has never hurt me so much as with those last ten words.
It’s bad enough that I love him more than I should—that I’ve told him I’m in love with him, multiple times in multiple ways, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it back.
But for him to throw it in my face, for him to twist my love to win this fight… It's a door closing.
I’m sure my face broadcasts every emotion I’m feeling—hurt, disbelief, then ultimately withdrawal—as I say, “We both need to think about things, okay?”
“Sophie.” He tries to touch me again, but I twist away.
“Andy, please stop.”
He freezes. I know he knows he messed up, but that’s just not enough right now.
“I’m going to stay at Lia’s for a while,” I say, affectless voice belied by the tears that won’t stop falling.
He nods. I grab my purse off the table, collect a few items from my room, and pull on my coat.
And that’s all. The door clicks closed and there’s nothing but silence.