28
Lia’s studio apartment is nowhere near big enough for two adult women and one adult bulldog to cohabitate, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
When I arrived on Tuesday night, I framed the request as “crashing for a night or two,” when in reality I had no plan whatsoever. At the time, I shared only the bare bones of my situation with Andy: that we’re taking some space to think about what we want, and that it’s all my idea.
Now it’s Wednesday, and Lia’s out late at an influencer event. I’m already brushing my teeth and looking through the works in progress along her art table when Lia finally gets home.
The door opens to the merry call of, “Where’s my belly boy?”
Archie faithfully trots over, jowls flopping and tail wagging as he greets his mom. Lia crouches down to lavish him with affection. “Were you my bravest boy while I was gone? Did you have an excellent dog evening? Bravo, mio caro.” She scratches his butt and he does a little side-to-side dance.
“Huhh Luhh,” I say around my toothbrush.
“Hey, Soph. Ugh, I’m exhausted. I either need a drink or to go to bed right now.”
I pop back into the small bathroom to spit out my toothpaste before asking, “Did something happen at the event?”
Lia bends down to unzip her knee-high snakeskin boots. “I broke up with Rayna.”
“Oh no! I’m sorry. What happened?”
“It’s really okay,” Lia replies as she tosses her shoes aside, then hangs up her fluffy green coat. “If anything, I’m the bitch here.”
I take a seat on Lia’s bed and pat the spot next to me. “Tell me what happened.”
“This is going to sound terrible,” Lia says as she sits, “but Rayna was just too nice for me. Like, I felt like a bad person when I was with her. Sometimes I just want to talk shit and fuck around, and she was not here for it.”
She flops backwards onto the bed as she says, “I think I have to be with someone who’s kind of a dick. Is that bad?”
“Kind of,” I laugh. “But at least you know yourself, I guess. You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just beat.”
“Honestly I’m exhausted too. I’m happy to just call it a night.”
For the next few minutes, we bob and weave around each other as we change into pajamas, wash our faces—me in the kitchen, Lia in the bathroom—and let Archie out for one last potty break.
Since Lia’s apartment has zero space for a couch, she and I are sharing her double bed for the duration of my stay.
“Hear me out. What if we sleep like Charlie Bucket’s grandparents tonight?” I ask. “Like your head at my feet and vice versa. I feel like we might have a little more room that way.”
“Whatever you want, babe,” Lia says as she joins me on the mattress. “Are your feet smelly?”
“I guess you’ll be the judge of that.” I stick one out towards her, wiggling my toes in her face.
Lia slaps it away and we both laugh, then I grab my pillow and toss it to the foot of the bed.
I’m all tucked in by the time Lia turns off the light and crawls in on the opposite side.
Archie promptly hops on too, settling directly between our legs and taking up a full third of the available space—which we wouldn’t have any other way.
“Hey Soph?” Lia says through the dark.
“Yeah?”
“I have to ask. Are you ready to talk about the Andy thing yet?”
“I don’t know how much more there is to say. I just have a really bad feeling about my interview, and I think we need to grapple with the possibility that I don’t get into Ashmore.”
“Did Andy say anything about what he’s thinking?”
I stare straight up at the ceiling as I explain, “He said he would move to San Diego with me.”
“Really?” Lia sits upright, faint illumination from the streetlights striping her face through the blinds. “Wait, that’s fantastic. What’s the problem then?”
“The problem is that’s a really big decision,” I say, sitting up to mirror her. “And we’ve been on like two dates. I just worry he just said it because it seemed like what he was supposed to do, but not because it’s actually a good idea.”
Lia tilts her head, studying my expression in the low light. “What do you want? If grad school and moving and all of that weren’t a factor and it was just you and Andy, what would you want?”
“Him,” I reply without hesitation. “I want him. And I want him to want me.”
“Do you doubt that he does?”
Do I?
The answer is more complicated than I can explain in a single murmured secret of a weeknight sleepover.
Do I doubt he wants me? No. He told me he does and his actions suggest the same.
Do I even doubt he loves me? No, it’s not that either. But I love him like roots love the earth. I want him to surround me and nourish me and I know that if we’re pulled apart I’ll be the one to wilt.
“It’s not that I doubt him. But it’s one thing to want to be with someone—or even to love someone—and it’s another thing to give up everything else in your life to be with them. I thought I loved Elliot, but he wanted me to give up my education and career for him and it was a complete dealbreaker.
I can’t turn around and do the same thing to Andy, and ask him to give up his whole life for me on a dime.”
“You are doing the same thing to Andy, because you’re making the choice for him instead of listening to what he wants.”
That statement hits me like a blow. “Lia, that’s not—”
“Is there anything he could say that would make you accept he really wants to go with you?”
“Look,” I say petulantly, “I just think he jumped to a conclusion without really thinking about it. He would be leaving half of NASA behind. He’d be leaving his mom and his brother. His job is based here. And he loves Boston.”
“Andy doesn’t care about Boston, Sophie. He barely leaves the house.”
I flop back against my pillow with a loud sigh, too drained to keep up the fight.
“Can I be honest?”
“Yes.”
I lower my voice to just above a whisper. “I’m scared.”
Lia nudges my leg with hers under the covers. “Of what?”
“A lot of things. Of turning into my parents. Of making him move and then watching him realize down the line that I’m not enough. My mom was always miserable on the farm, Lia. She’s a city girl who needs constant stimulation. She knew that when she moved there, and so did my dad.
She never should’ve done it. Or she should’ve changed her mind before it was too late and she was stuck with a baby in a place that made her feel stifled and miserable. And my dad… when she left, he was never the same. I don’t want to become my dad.
I don’t want to make Andy move across the country and watch him end up feeling trapped. I don’t want him to resent me. I don’t want to keep on loving him so much for the rest of our lives and watch him drift away.”
Hearing the catch in my voice, Lia reaches forward and pulls me up to sit.
She keeps my hands cradled in hers as she says, “Falling in love is a risk. It always is. But you are not your parents. You’re not. Andy is your best friend. Your hot best friend who’s crazy about you.
If you trust him enough to let him take that risk with you—if you love yourself enough to let him—it could end up being the best thing you ever do. And of course there’s a chance it won’t work out, but there’s also a chance it will. And isn’t that amazing to think about?
There’s a chance you’re perfect for each other, and you could miss out on all that if you’re not brave enough to give it a real shot.”
My eyes squeeze shut. “I guess I just want to know that he’s thought of everything. All the risks and the commitment. Because I’m so in love with him, Lia, and we just went on our first date last weekend. If he came with me across the country,
and then a year from now or ten years from now he realized I was the wrong choice, I think it would kill me.”
Lia chews on this for a moment, then says, “I mean, yeah it’s kind of fast to decide to move across the country with someone after technically dating them for a week. But you’ve basically been dating him for eight years.”
I take a breath to rebut her, but she cuts me off.
“I know you’ve dated other people, and I know you hadn’t been physically intimate before now, but think about it. You two have been way closer than ‘just friends’ for a long time. And plenty of couples wait until marriage to have sex anyway. Sex aside, you’re building on a lot of history.”
It’s almost a good point. So close to a good point that I don’t know how to respond.
“Do you have a reason to think you won’t be compatible? Was… was the sex not good?”
Even in my present mood, that question brings an unbidden smile to my face.
“That!” she yells, pointing at my face. “What is that!”
“Oh my god, Lia, it was unbelievable. I literally didn’t let him leave the bed on Sunday.”
She cackles. “I want every single detail, but I also don’t because it’s Andy and that’s weird. You know what? I’m just going to pretend you’re talking about somebody else. Okay, proceed. Tell me everything.”
My face is hot in the darkness, but honestly, I want to talk about it. “He’s like, really big. Definitely the biggest I’ve ever been with.”
“How big? Wait, no, nevermind, I don’t want to know. Just keep talking.”
“And he really talks me through it. He’s always telling me how perfect I am and it feels so good and all that. Oh my god, I’m blushing so hard right now.” I flop back on the pillow, palms pressed to my cheeks.
“Sophie, you are certifiably insane if you let this man get away.”
“I know,” I say to the darkness. “I know.”
Lia hands me her phone.
“Why are you giving me this?”
“Just read it,” Lia says, gesturing at the screen. “I have no idea what compelled him to text this to me, but it seems like something you should see. To be loved is to be known, Soph.”
On the screen is a long text from Andy. Our ice skating bet.
Andy: Hey, I just wanted you to know my top 10 favorite things about Sophie.
10) She refuses to read nonfiction, but will read the densest, most opaque fiction you could ever imagine.
9) She has never once made a hot meal for herself, and when other people do it she acts like it’s a Herculean feat.
8) The way she rambles at a million miles an hour when she’s excited, or when she’s deflecting.
7) The mischievous half-smirk she does when she’s about to outsmart you.
6) She’s gorgeous. I felt like I had to put this in the bottom half in order to remain a feminist but I mean, come on. She’s so beautiful it drives me a little crazy.
5) The stupid bits she always comes up with. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meal with her where the food didn’t become a prop in some running gag. We could be staring at a wall watching paint dry and she would still find a way to entertain both of us.
4) She wears all of her emotions on her sleeve. Panic, calm, happiness, sadness. You always know where you stand with her. And seeing her go from panic to calm or sadness to happiness, and knowing you helped make it happen, is the best feeling in the world.
3) The assiduous way she pursues her dreams, even when people who should be her biggest support system try to get in her way. Her determination. Her dedication and drive.
2) Her warmth and optimism. Those sound like two different things, but in Sophie they’re one and the same. She finds the best in everything around her.
1) She is the only person in the world who makes me feel like I am okay, and there’s nothing wrong with me. She makes me feel loved and appreciated just for being myself, just by being herself. I hope someday I can make her feel that way too.