Chapter One #3
“Sacrificing your social life?” Harry raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
He almost looked disgusted. “Listen, I told you what I think. Sometimes I don’t think you realize this, but your decisions impact me.
My life. It seems like you haven’t thought this through at all.
I just . . . ugh, I don’t know. I just didn’t envision us here, at this point.
” He gestured to their one-bedroom apartment, which was nicely decorated, but wasn’t the three-bed, 1,000-square-foot apartment he wanted.
Something they could have easily afforded if she had remained a product manager.
“Okay, that’s not fair. When I took the job at Terra, you said you were on board for what that’d mean financially. I was going to take a pay cut to try to — oh, I don’t know — avoid feeling like I was going to ‘optimize revenue’ like a drone until I died.”
“Is that what you think I do?” Harry shot back.
Cierra sat in silence while Harry stood up, making his way to the window overlooking a tree-lined street in Chelsea.
His time spent on the couch showed on the back of his creased sweater.
He stood by the window, grasping one of his shoulders with his hand.
“I thought you’d be more excited by my decision. I . . . I’ve kind of already made it,” Cierra said, now worried. “I figured we’d been fighting about it for so long. Maybe this could help us reset?”
Cierra hadn’t just left after her shift and headed to the subway.
Before grabbing her parka from the coat rack, she swung by Jesse’s office.
She didn’t need an extra twenty-four hours to realize this wasn’t the life she wanted for herself.
Jesse had told her it was late, that she shouldn’t be making a decision like this so hastily, but he couldn’t convince her any differently.
How could Cierra have known Harry would be so against her quitting?
As Harry put the pieces together, he shook his head in bewilderment, and a grin appeared on his face. But not the kind you ever wanted to see.
“You’re kidding me,” he said flatly.
She bit the left corner of her lip, alarmed at how badly this was going. Why couldn’t he see that this was the better option for her? For them?
“You already quit?!”
“Harry, think—”
“Think what, Cee? How did you think I would react to you quitting your job without even consulting me?”
“But just think about it—”
“Oh my god! You still don’t get it, do you? You know what,”—he held up his hands—“I can’t even have this conversation right now. I’m going to bed.”
After he slammed the door to their bedroom, Cierra took another sip of her Diet Coke and slouched back on the couch. The documentary was still on, showing a pair of magnificent pearl-feathered cranes migrating toward the south together.
“Must be nice,” she muttered to herself, and shut the TV off.
The sounds of cars and small groups of people chatting on their morning walks drifted through Cierra’s bedroom window.
It was a sunny winter morning, and she had slept in later than usual.
With the unexpected day off, she settled on the idea of grabbing a coffee and bagels with Harry.
That usually helped solve whatever issue they were facing — it was hard to stay angry over a bacon, egg, and cheese.
Good food didn’t always have to be served on a two hundred dollar oval white plate.
But when she turned to her left in bed, all she saw was crumpled sheets, long since overturned.
Cierra tossed on an old robe, threw her fuzzy curls into a messy bun, and emerged to see Harry fully dressed, sitting at the kitchen bar.
A single, slightly stained, to-go latte cup was sitting in front of him on the white granite counter, letting her know that coffee and bagels were not in the cards for her today.
Silence had replaced the usual sounds of his slow Saturday mornings, like history podcasts or funk music.
In fact, she wasn’t sure she could figure out his expression at all in that moment.
The closest thing she could think of was what a doctor looks like before telling someone they’ve never met before that they only have a few months to live.
“Morning, babe,” she said, trying to sound chipper, like this was any other morning and he hadn’t just gone out for breakfast without her. And she hadn’t just quit her job with zero warning. “Did you go for a walk?”
“Yeah,” Harry replied. His demeanor was eerily stoic, devoid of any emotion.
Cierra was realizing just how much the quitting situation bothered him, and she began fiddling with her hair, rapidly brainstorming ways to appease him.
Over the years, they had learned how to manage most of their disagreements.
But Cierra could tell she had crossed a previously impermeable line in Harry’s brain.
She was trying to figure out her angle, how best to calm him down.
The drone comment . . . that wasn’t great, she thought to herself.
“I don’t want this anymore, Cee,” Harry said softly, almost in a whisper.
Cierra stood dumbfounded. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying.
“Harry, if this is about the job . . . I can get the job back. What do you mean?”
He looked at her with pitying eyes. “You know what I’m saying, Cierra.
” Cierra. He hadn’t called her that in .
. . well, he never called her that. “I don’t think this relationship is for me anymore.
For us. I think we should break up.” The way he said it came too easily for someone she had been with for the past six years.
He spoke with a disturbingly practiced ease.
Maybe he had been practicing when he got coffee earlier that morning. Cierra envisioned him walking up and down their street, mouthing words to himself, reciting the lines that were going to crash into her life like a wrecking ball.
She was in shock. There was no way he could break up with her.
“Harry, no. No, you’re overreacting. I should have asked you about it beforehand, sure, but it was to help me — help us.
You don’t actually want to break up. How can a decision like this—” Her voice caught, as the gravity of what was happening came crashing down and tears welled in her eyes.
That damned audition, she thought. He was far too calm.
“Unless . . . you’ve been thinking about this? ”
Harry looked down at his coffee cup. “I’ve been thinking about it .
. . I mean, I haven’t been actively thinking about it every day or anything .
. .” He shook his head. “Cierra, my heart just isn’t in this anymore, even before you missed the anniversary and everything.
Honestly, can you really say you haven’t felt the same? ”
“Don’t you dare turn this on me. Don’t even try. You never got over me switching careers and ruining whatever picture-perfect vision you had of us being some basic couple who goes skiing twice a year. And now, when I’m finally doing something about it — you decide you don’t want me anymore?”
“Cierra! It’s not like that. I still care about you, but .
. . something is just missing. If wanting free time and nice things and a bigger apartment makes me basic, then I don’t care.
And you know what? You quit because you felt like it — it sure as shit wasn’t for me.
” He placed his hands in his lap, calming himself.
“You know, sometimes, I think back to when we met. How you were just getting over that guy you dated in college.”
“Colton,” she muttered with a shiver.
“Right,” Harry said, her visceral reaction all these years later confirming his suspicions. “Sometimes I wonder if you were just into me because, I don’t know . . .”
“What?” Cierra said, alarmed by his suggestion. “No, no, it wasn’t like that.”
Instead of responding, Harry hung his head low. He began rubbing his palms and staring into his hands as if he were staring into a time machine.
“Remember that ring appointment we had a year back?” he asked.
Cierra remembered. They had finally booked an appointment to look at engagement rings, but had to cancel. She was called in at the last minute for a dinner shift.
“Don’t you think it says something that neither of us ever mentioned rescheduling?”
“I mean, maybe? So what if we were taking our time? It never seemed like a priority for us . . . we . . .” Her tears and shallow breathing were making it difficult for words to come out.
“Wait, is this why you haven’t proposed?
Because you’ve been secretly deciding if you wanted to dump me instead? ”
“Jesus, Cee . . . I’m not dumping you.” Cierra made a face at his comment, and he replied, “I think we want different things out of life. Are you still in love with me?”
“Am I in love with you?” That hit Cierra like a blow to the chest. “Of course I love you. We’ve been together—”
“Ah, ah — no. I asked, are you in love with me?” Harry repeated.
Cierra paused, and after a few silent seconds went by, he muttered, “That’s what I thought.”
“All right, so we’re in a lull. We’ve been together for a long time . . . it’s normal. We’ll get through this. Just please, please, don’t do this.” But deep down, Cierra knew she was way past bargaining. Deeper down, maybe, that he was partially right.
“Cierra. Cee . . .” He shook his head, and this time his voice broke.
“I’m done. And I think this is the best decision for the both of us.
I’ve already talked to James, and I can stay with him and Amber for a bit.
Since our lease is up at the end of next month anyways, you can have the place until then. ”
Cierra watched as Harry rose out of the seat to retrieve a packed duffel bag by the door.
Wow.
As the latch clicked and the door closed, Cierra stood alone and dumbfounded in their apartment. With no job, no bagel, and no relationship, she collapsed onto the couch and sobbed for the rest of the afternoon.