Call It What You Want

Prologue Sloane

December 2018

The sun pours through the small window in my bedroom as I roll over and snooze the 6 a.m. alarm. Most New Yorkers are already wide-awake, grabbing their oat milk lattes and avocado toast, while my head is pounding from a few too many glasses of wine and three hours of sleep. In an instant, the memories of last night’s events flood back, and I feel the agony coursing through my veins all over again.

The pain still lingers. I remember how much it hurt just to look at him. Ethan had always been the one to make me feel safe, but last night was different. It was as though he’d taken a knife and repeatedly plunged it into my chest. Each time I looked at him, the wound was reopened, the pain as fresh and raw as the first time. It was like death by a thousand cuts.

He cut me off midsentence. “I can’t do this anymore, Sloane. I think this needs to end.”

I was holding a glass of my favorite cabernet, and within seconds, it was out of my hand and on the floor. Instinctually, I quickly bent down to pick up the pieces. I hate messes, and I would rather have focused on anything but this conversation right now. I looked down at my hands to see that my right palm was gushing blood. Why can’t I feel it? Why can’t I feel anything? I watched as he pulled out his phone to call us an Uber. He was moving so quickly, but in my world, it was like time had stopped.

I stared at him as he frantically moved around my kitchen, grabbing anything we might need for the emergency room, and I wondered where the guy I met in college went—the guy in the worn-out Yankees T-shirt with a soft smile and trusting eyes. I never would have thought I could have hated him, and yet I couldn’t even look at him. I never wanted to see him again, but at the same time, I didn’t want him to leave. Ever. I’d loved him for over two years. How could he have ended two years with four words?

I can’t do this.

The words were on replay in my head as if they’re a new Taylor Swift album that I was trying to memorize every chorus of. I think the worst part was realizing that somewhere deep down, I knew it the entire time. I knew he wouldn’t be able to get where I wanted him to. I just hoped that I was wrong.

No, we never dated. He’s not an ex-boyfriend. He’s an ex-almost. Maybe that’s all we’d ever be—an incomplete sentence or a book that someone put down halfway through and never picked back up, finished without an ending.