by Amy Brent
“Like what?”
“Like taking off our clothes. Something small, right? But Kylie and I don’t do quickies. That’s not something we’ve ever done. But last night? It was hot, but it was a quickie. We didn’t bother to undress each other. And apparently, at some point, she got up in the middle of the night to shower.”
“Is that a bad thing? Most people clean up after sex, especially women,” he said.
“Not Kylie. That was our thing: falling asleep next to each other and waking up still smelling like the other. That was always our thing. But she got up last night apparently and washed down.”
“And that bothers you?”
“Yeah, it bothers me. It’s not like us. It’s changing. Everything is fucking changing, Sawyer.”
“Life has a tendency to do that.”
“I don’t want it to change.”
“Then don’t change. But don’t expect Kylie to follow that lead.”
“I don’t want to lose her, Sawyer.”
“Is that why you aren’t telling her the truth?” he asked.
“What?”
“Is your inability to see yourself without Kylie preventing you from telling her you really don’t want to move in with her?”
I sat back into the couch as a knock came at his door. Sawyer got up and retrieved our lunch, then tossed my sandwich into my lap. He set a soda down next to me before grabbing a pack of chips out of fucking nowhere, but I wasn’t hungry any longer.
“It’s obvious, man,” Sawyer said as he cracked open his soda. “You don’t want to move in with Kylie. That’s why you bristle. That’s why you get mad. What prompted you to tell her you wanted to move in?”
“A conversation with my dad,” I said mindlessly.
“What was that conversation about?”
“Not losing Kylie. Progressing forward. Shit like that.”
“So you didn’t agree to the move because you wanted it. You agreed to the move because you thought it was expected of you, and you knew it was what you had to do in order to not lose your girlfriend.”
I raked my hand through my hair as I stared out the window.
“Just tell her, Adam. I’m tired of watching you flounder like this. If you don’t like the changes in your life, then don’t go through with them. If you don’t want to get married and have kids, then don’t get married and have kids. But you can’t stay with a woman who wants all those things. You can’t be that selfish when it comes to her. She deserves to be happy too. Right now, the two of you are just making each other miserable.”
“She told me she loved me, Sawyer.”
“But it takes more than love to make a relationship work—even if that relationship isn’t sexual. Take us for instance.”
I whipped my head over to him and watched him take a bite of his sandwich.
“I love you,” Sawyer said once he swallowed. “You're my best friend. I’ve known you for years. But we have more than that. We have common likes, a common senses of humor. We have respect for each other and the lives we lead. I don’t give you shit for not having kids and you haven’t given me shit for always wanting them. We build each other up. We trust each other. There hasn’t been a step we’ve ever taken in our lives where the other wasn’t there to support us. Hell, you don’t want to get married but you fucking officiated my wedding, Adam.”
“I was happy to do it.”
“But you’re not happy to do it when it comes to moving in with Kylie. Or having kids. Or getting married. And that’s the kind of stuff she wants.”
“Why though? She’s so beautiful and so successful and she has so much going for her. Why would she want to ruin that with kids and sleepless nights and a piece of paper that takes years to dissolve and countless arguments before the two can go their separate ways?”
“Breaking down your parents’ divorce is a completely different section that would require you to pay me, but it does play a role in all this. You watched your mother take your father for everything he had. You watched how that broke him down inside. You’ve watched your father keep every woman at arm’s length since your mother did him wrong because he doesn’t want to get close to women. So part of you thinks that if you marry Kylie, it will eventually happen to you. Part of you thinks that if you marry Kylie and you become successful, she’ll leave with your money and dump you with children you never wanted in the first place.”
“She’s not that kind of woman. She could never do that.”
“But when you close your eyes and dream at night, what are your nightmares about?” he asked.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from proving him right.
“A relationship takes more than love, Adam. It takes work and compromise. It takes similar life paths and futures. It takes money, and respect, and gratitude, and grief. But most importantly, it takes similar values. You can’t press down on a quarter and expect a dollar to come shooting out, Adam. No matter how much pressure you put that quarter under, it will never turn itself into a dollar.”
I sighed as I slumped into Sawyer’s couch.
“You think Kylie’s putting pressure on you, but you’re putting pressure on her as well. She’s moving into a new apartment and she has no idea if she’s doing it alone or with her longtime boyfriend—all because you can’t control yourself and grow a set of balls to tell her that you really don’t want this.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“Be angry all you want. But I love you, Adam, so listen up. You’re acting like a child., and it’s time to act like a man. Change is coming whether you want it to or not. It’s the only thing we can bet on in this world. Either move in with Kylie and find the joy in it…or tell her you can’t and lose her. There are no other options.”
“Why does it all have to change?!” I exclaimed.
“Because people grow up, Adam.”
I tossed my sandwich onto the side table and stood.
“One last thing before you walk through that door,” Sawyer said.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re a runner. It’s what you do when you get nervous. You ran from your father when he tried to get you to attend business school so you could take over his company, and you ran from your mother when you figured out that all she wanted was your father’s money. You’re running from Kylie because she’s at a point in her life where she’s no longer a college student but a fully grown adult with a purpose to fulfill. You’re running from me because you know I’m right.”
“Is there a point in there?” I asked.
“You can run, Adam Tucker, but you can’t hide.”
“Thanks for the trite response. Glad I didn’t pay you for it.”
But even as I ripped open his door and strode out of his office, I knew he was right.
Kylie
In some ways, the argument Adam and I had had that morning was the worst one yet. No one had yelled and no one had really cussed, but it had solidified what lingered in the back of my mind. Adam didn’t want to move in with me. At the very least, he didn’t know what he wanted enough to sit down and have an honest conversation about it. And so many realities started popping up in my mind. For four years, we had run on the same basic schedule. I’d had the same basic layout of classes every semester in college, so we’d had the same breaks where we could meet up. We’d had the same date nights in the same sorts of places and he had ordered the same kind of thing every single time. Adam had a creative mind, but he was grounded in routine. And anything that threatened to change that routine always upended him.
Now that I was no longer in college, everything was upending.
I had no idea why I hadn’t seen it sooner. I guessed my anger had clouded my judgment. But looking down on everything, there was nothing I could do about it. My life was progressing and I was moving into adulthood. I was taking a job I wanted, getting an apartment I loved, making plans for my future. Adam was spontaneous in his romance and work but grounded and dependent on routine in his every
day world. I was the exact opposite. I was planned and meticulous in my romance and work but ever-changing in my everyday life.
At least I was now that I had graduated.
This morning’s fight was the worst fight we’d had to date not because of the yelling and what was said but because of the harsh truth it had revealed. And the fact of the matter was that there wasn’t any way to fix it, or change it back. No amount of sex or kissing or dates or apologies would ever bring back the couple we used to be. The worst part about all of it was that we couldn't even discuss it in between our arguments because all it would do was spiral us into yet another fight. Adam and I never fought. It was what I had loved about our relationship so much. But for the past two and half months, all we’d done was argue. We’d fought and picked apart what we’d said and threw it back in the other's face.
And I felt like it would only get worse as time progressed.
He was the one who had told me he wanted to do this, that he wanted us to move in together. He was the one who had woken me up to go apartment shopping. He was the one who had called his father to get a check for the security deposit and the first month’s rent. Now we were nine days out from the move and every single argument we’d had exposed a truth I still hadn’t admitted to myself.
I refused to admit it to myself because Adam needed to step up and tell me himself.
It wasn’t until I heard my office door close that I realized I was staring at my desk and getting absolutely no work done. I whipped my head up and looked at Ryan, and sighed as he took a step into the room. His eyes locked with mine as he came around my desk, cocking his hip up to sit on the edge of it.
“You’ve been staring at that same file since you came in an hour ago,” he said.
And the tears unleashed once again.
I felt another handkerchief settle into the palm of my hand as I bowed my head. The tears were silent this time, streaming down my face without a sound to be spoken of. It took too much energy to make noise. It took too much energy to cry properly. I bowed my head and allowed gravity to take the weight of the world and drain it through my eyes. I brought the handkerchief up and sighed, sniffling and trying to piece myself together in front of my damn boss.
“What did he do this time?” Ryan asked.
I snickered and shook my head.
“That very question tells me I’m leaning on you way too much about this,” I said.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t analyze my question. Just talk to me about what’s happening. Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t. No one can. Adam needs to grow up and he can’t. Or he won’t. Or he refuses to. I don’t really know, and part of me doesn’t care anymore. All I do know is that he doesn’t want to move in with me, but he’s not even man enough to say it. He just wants to yank my chain until I howl for mercy… So I’ll call it off and not him.”
“What. Happened?” he asked pointedly.
I looked up into Ryan’s eyes and found his comforting stare looking down on me. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, bringing his handkerchief to my face.
“Is this a new one?” I asked.
“Like I said, I have plenty in my office.”
“Are they all embroidered with your initials?” I asked.
“Of course. How else am I going to know which are mine?”
“Um, because they’ll be the only handkerchiefs within twenty miles of this place? Everyone else uses tissues.”
“Because everyone else likes to torture their noses.”
I giggled and shook my head as a smile crossed my cheeks.
“There we go. That’s a little better,” Ryan said.
The tone of his voice smoothed over my ears, causing me to close my eyes and revel in its warmth. Then I drew in a deep breath.
“Adam called and wanted to do dinner last night—after he ignored my calls all weekend—so we met up. We apologized without really talking, then smoothed things over with…”
I cleared my throat before I drew in another deep breath.
“I got it. Go on,” Ryan said.
“I couldn't sleep much because of this impending move and still not having a moving company booked, so I got up and took a shower. I resigned myself to a sleepless night and started getting some work done—looking through files, calling places and quoting them on moving prices and teams. Adam got up, asked me what I was doing, and the second it flew out of my mouth, it all spiraled again.”
“Did he yell at you again?”
“No. Nothing like that. I just told him I was booking it for myself and he got upset that we weren’t talking about it. Then I asked him if he wanted to talk about it and he said no.”
“What?”
“Right?” I asked. “It was this cyclic disagreement about absolutely nothing, and it routed back to the same thing: He didn’t want to book a mover and I did. And when he stormed out of my apartment after I told him I was moving into the apartment with or without him, it solidified what I’ve been afraid of for a while now.”
I closed my eyes and took in the silence before Ryan spoke.
“I’m going to have a talk with my son.”
“Please don’t do that. It’ll—”
“With all due respect, Kylie, this has nothing to do with the move. He’s mistreating you, manipulating you. I didn’t raise my son the way I did to watch him treat the woman in his life in this manner. Even if he weren't dating you, I’d still be stepping in. I don’t know where in the world this treatment is coming from after the two of you spent so long being happy, but I refuse to allow my son to treat a woman he says he loves the way he’s treating you any longer.”
I nodded my head, no longer having the energy to try to talk him out of it.
“I’m sorry my son is doing this to you. I thought I raised him better than this,” he said.
“This isn’t your fault. You aren’t to blame for his change in attitude over the past three months—or however long it’s been at this point.”
“A parent will always feel responsible, Kylie. When you have children of your own, you’ll understand that.”
“At the rate my life is going, I’ll never understand that.”
“Look at me.”
I shook my head before forcing my gaze up to his.
“Remember what I told you?”
My mind flashed back to our discussion over champagne on his couch.
“I do,” I said.
“I’m a man of my word. Always. I will never lie to you, Kylie. It isn’t in my nature. Which means I didn’t lie to you then. If you don’t have children with my son, you’ll find someone to have them with. A man who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated instead of the way my son is treating you.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
He slid from the side of my desk, and I stood to hand him his handkerchief back. He held his hand out again, prompting me to keep it, but then he did something I didn’t expect. He took a step toward me and folded his arms around me, unprompted. He didn’t hold them out and wait for me to come to him like last time. He simply draped them around me.
And I found myself falling into his embrace.
“You’re a strong woman,” Ryan said. “How you’ve been coping with this on your own is beyond me.”
“I’ve gone through nothing compared to what you’ve been through.”
“Pain isn’t scaled.”
I looked up into his eyes and found him craning his neck to stare at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Pain is relative to the person experiencing it. It’s a chemical reaction that takes place in the brain due to trauma. Someone who has lost their mother experiences the same type of grief as someone who loses their cat. It isn’t the experience that gauges the pain; it’s the extent of the chemical reaction. Yes, I went through a painful divorce—the worst breakup of my life. But you’re going through a painful moment with Adam, the most painful you’ve ever experienced with a man in your
life. It’s not the situation that dictates the pain; it’s the reaction the person has when comparing it to the life experiences they’ve already endured.”
I could’ve lost myself in his voice. I could’ve stood there another hour and listened to him talk. Something familiar deep inside me began to roll, and I pressed my cheek back to his chest to revel in his embrace one last time. The peace he afforded me whenever he held me was astounding. And I hadn’t figured out why yet. Maybe because he’d always been a guiding force in my life, someone I knew I could inherently trust or go to if I ever had an issue.
I felt safe in his arms, something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Adam
I stood in front of Kylie’s door with Sawyer’s words hanging over my head. It had been two days since I’d spoken with him, and I couldn’t get what he had said out of my mind. I didn’t know how long I had been standing there. I didn’t know how this conversation was going to progress. But after everything Kylie and I had been through over the past four years and after everything she had supported me in, the least I owed her was the truth.
So, I lifted my hand and knocked on her door.
She opened it promptly, and I found her inundated with boxes. Cardboard boxes were everywhere and little sticky notes were on her furniture. I saw the names of several donation places written on them, and I sighed. She looked up at me with a less-than-pleased look in her eyes, and part of me wondered if we could have this conversation on the porch.
Anything to not stare at those damn moving boxes.
“You knocked?” she asked.
“Could I come in?” I asked.
She stepped to the side and ushered me in before slamming the door behind me. I watched her move to the kitchen and continue pulling things out of her small cabinets. She wrapped items up in newspaper and set them down in a box she had on the counter. Plates and mugs and silverware, all wrapped up individually and meticulously, went in.
It was just like my Kylie.
“Do you even want to move in with me, Adam?”
Her voice ripped me from my trance, and I found her staring at me. Her fingers were no longer wrapping items and her arms were no longer lifting to pull things out of her cabinets. Her eyes were no longer angry and her stance was no longer rigid. She looked tired, worn, like she hadn’t slept in weeks.