just a little…” he said. “You maybe knew just a fucking little, right?”

Her face was rolling to a boil again, on the verge of tears all over.

“No,” she said, shaking her head faintly. “The only thing I know is that I can’t figure any of this out without…I just can’t live my life without you, okay? I can’t not be with you.”

He looked at her, tears in his eyes now.

“How can that possibly be?” he said.

She inhaled like before. A fresh blade in the other lung. “What do you mean?”

“It’s very clear that you’ve got some shit to figure out.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with—”

“I just assumed,” he said, twisting a shirt in his hands. “After all this, after all the secrets, after everything you’ve just said you’re feeling—how could we possibly be okay?”

“Will, what are you talking about?” she said, moving toward him suddenly, reaching for him. “Of course this doesn’t mean that we aren’t—”

“Stop,” he said. “I just…I don’t know right now, just like you don’t know. What am I supposed to do with all this? All the fucking deception. Do you have any idea how horrifying it is to realize that the single person you think you know best in the world you don’t actually have a fucking clue about?”

“I hope you don’t mean that.”

“It’s true!”

“Imagine how it is for me?!” she said softly. “How much scarier it is for me?!”

“What do you want me to do, Whit?! You broke the rules. You didn’t tell me about it. And you obviously loved it. You obviously couldn’t get enough—and neither could she. It’s fucked you up. It’s changed you. You’re telling me you have no idea who you are or how you feel about any of this stuff. Everything has fucking changed. Everything.”

She stood up and grabbed him, grabbed his body but also picked up the arms that were hanging at his sides and slung them around her shoulders, forcing him to touch her, to wrap her up.

“Will, please,” she said.

“What do you expect?” he said.

“What do you mean, What do I expect?”

“We’re fucking broken,” he said. “We are forcing something like we’ve never had to force it before. There is something clearly not right in this relationship. This whole thing is obviously off the rails in ways we’ve never acknowledged, and it’s making us insane.”

“No,” she said, grabbing his face and shaking her head. “No. No no no no. Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that. I can’t not be with you, okay? Not a minute. You’re my family. You are my family…I can’t imagine living—let’s just finally do this, okay? Let’s tell our parents today. Let’s tell our friends. Let’s set a date. Let’s do it this week. Let’s do it right here before they close the courthouse tonight, okay? We survived. We made it. It’s time now.”

He shook his head. “No. No way. How can you say that with everything else you’re saying? With everything else you’re feeling? The fundamental things you’re talking about.”

She collapsed onto the edge of the bed. On her face was the dawning realization that she’d perhaps ruined everything. The delicate balance. The even score. The precarious framework of 1-2-3 and the fragile architecture of a seven-year relationship. She’d poisoned the order of things with her confession, and the implication was coursing through her veins.

“Please…” she said, sprawling over the comforter to meet his downcast eyes. “Will, please.”

He slipped her gaze and started throwing laundry into his bag again.

“We don’t have to do any more of this right now, okay?” he said. “Let’s just pack and get to the airport and get home. We have time to figure this out.”

“No,” she said, desperate. “I need you to tell me you understand what I’m saying. That nothing needs to change. That you understand and that we’re okay. I need to know, Will. I need to know right now that we’re going to be okay, or I’m gonna fucking die.”

“Look: I didn’t do anything. I’m not the fucking liar here. I’m not the one who’s changing the rules as she goes along. I’m the boring one—you said it yourself. With me, you know what you get. You’re the ground that’s shifting, Whit. None of this was my idea. None of it was my decision. You made the choices. You tell me what the new reality is, and I’ll decide on my own fucking timeline whether I want a part of it.”

“I can’t possibly…” she said, tears slipping from her eyes again. “If this ends, then what? What, Will? What am I? If this ends, you’re going to tell people, aren’t you? Somebody’s going to find out what happened. I can’t tell my friends about this. I can’t tell my parents. I can’t fucking tell my mom, Will!”

“We’re not with your mom right now. We’re packing our bags.”

“We don’t have to leave for hours! You don’t have to pack right now!”

“Maybe I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Maybe I can’t talk about this anymore without breaking a fucking window.”

“There’s nothing else,” she said. “Nothing. Nothing has changed. Nothing is broken.”

“Okay,” he said, stuffing, folding, stuffing.

“Nothing changes. Nobody besides you and me has to know a thing. We go home, we put it behind us, life is as it was. Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please believe me.”

“I don’t even know what you’re asking me to believe.”

“I’m the same as ever. I’m me. Everything is okay, okay?”

He moved to the other side of the bed to retrieve a pair of pants.

She could tell he was dismissing her, finished, deferring to the place beyond today. She could tell she’d lost him, and so she sat on the edge of the bed and started heaving again.

Which is when the music turned over from one old song to another.

“I’m so sick of these shit-ass speakers,” he said, walking out into the living room, searching for any better way to amplify the music. He pressed some buttons and banged some switches, but couldn’t get the sound system

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