Boyfriend #11
Kevin Hyde, age twenty-seven
Oh but how Jane loved him. Sure, he wore an unnecessary tie to work, and “weekend casual” meant khaki slacks, but who’s perfect?
She’d once made a list of “must-have attributes in future husband,” and Kevin had most of them, like financial security, a lovely singing voice, and a welcoming family.
She could imagine herself a part of it for the rest of her life, on a group chat with his sisters planning Mother’s Day gifts for their mom and meal planning for weekends at the family cabin.
In retrospect, he’d had some kind of Darcy appeal about him from the very beginning, just in his mannerisms, his cool indifference, his falling for Jane despite the fact that he hadn’t wanted a serious girlfriend.
And he was so good for her. He took an interest in her self-improvement and urged her to stop reading novels and engage with more nonfiction.
He declared her painting supplies messy and too expensive.
“Besides, you’re not actually going to be an artist, Jane.
Be realistic.” In an attempt to be a good girlfriend, she painted less and less, barely noticing when she stopped making art entirely.
But Kevin was just so great! He serenaded her on his guitar. They did the Sunday crossword together. He loved his mom. He loved Jane. Until he told her over a street kebab that maybe he never really had.
“It’s just gotten too hard, hasn’t it? I mean, are you still having fun?”
Once, in high school science, Jane’s teacher had dipped an orange in liquid nitrogen and then thrown it on the floor, cracking it like glass.
That’s the only way she knew to describe the physical sensation in her chest—cold and shattered.
She tried to play it cool, to say, “Yeah, it’s fizzling out, isn’t it?
Well, let’s still be friends.” She tried, but she ended up pleading, her nose running, making promises, splaying out her emotions in a desperate way that would haunt her long after she’d forgotten Kevin’s smell.
They’d been together for twenty-three months.
She’d gone wedding-dress browsing on the sly.
The apartment had been his, so she spent a month living on Molly’s couch, curled up and consuming ice cream by the pint.
At last, Emma-esque, she burned Kevin mementos one by one in her wok lid.
But she never got back her art supplies.