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“You’re too much like a robot.”
Regardless, I let the sting pass and the sapphire ink dry. Then I began to write again.
Before long, I’d filled up a few pages with all of the things I wanted in my dream man.
By the time I was done, I could feel my mind spinning with Grayson. He had a lot of these qualities, but not all of them.
That was a sign, right? I was getting over him. There were things I’d wished he had; cracks in our relationship with tiny pieces missing. And those translucent fragments hid against the walls of our foundation like little shards of glass, waiting for me to step on them and cut my feet.
Finally, I noticed a few paint chips missing from Grayson’s “perfect” portrait in my heart.
Silently, I praised Dr. Silk. Rather than make me feel awful and drowning in indecision, this exercise made me feel empowered. I couldn’t wait to discuss my list during our next appointment.
I re-read through my gold and sapphire lists, double-checking to make sure everything I wanted was written down. There was something missing, though. Some intangible quality about Grayson—no, therelationshipwith Grayson that I couldn’t put my finger on, but considered essential.
Then it came to me. When I was with Grayson, there were clearly-defined lines. Good and bad. Yes and no. Complicated, but no guessing. He was like a matrix with multiple inputs, but I understood his encrypted functions enough to know what the outputs would be. They always came out in a checkered pattern. Ones and zeroes. Black and white.
I loved that clear contrast.
But the list in front of me shone a whole new light on my ex-fiancé. Now that I thought about it—reallyconfronted it, there were a lot of things missing. Things here and there he would say or do that would leave me wondering if we were on the edge of something else. I didn’t have a word for it then because I was so in love, but looking back, I could see what was going on.
He cultivated my anticipation. He’d been laying the groundwork for a breakup for weeks, months, maybe evenyearsbefore I made that horrible mistake and he cut things off.
That relationship wasn’t a checkerboard; I’d mistaken the gilded grid of false hope for something strong and solid. In reality, I was a quivering, amorphous shape trying to merge with Grayson’s perfect world; the relationship was nothing more than a bastardized Venn Diagram. In the thin, gray sliver where our worlds overlapped, one delicate word stitched us together:
Obligation.
I frowned. I didn’t know if it was the act of making the list or what, but suddenly I felt squeamish.
Angry.
Betrayed.
And I didn’t know why.
A childhood memory bubbled to the surface: In the summer, Effie and I would play in the wooded area near the house, chasing butterflies and picking flowers. One time I peeled a thick log from the ground, discovering thousands of bright, shimmering insects scuttling from the light.
I’d dropped the log in panic, crushing them all.
That’s how I felt now, going through this analysis.
I felt the compulsion to write. I didn’t have time to make a list; I didn’t have time for boxes or numbering or making sure everything was well within the lines.
There was a black ball of imperfection welling up inside of me, and all I knew was that it needed to come out from the pen, otherwise it would leak from my eyes.
I needed to write about Grayson. I needed to write the truth of things before my mind hid it away again.
Disgrace sat cross-legged on a throne, eating popcorn as she watched me unload the sapphire ink from the pen.
I didn’t want to waste this expensive ink on a long-form essay. For something like this, I’d use my endless supply of black.
My fingers trembled as I loaded the stolen pen with liquid darkness.
All I knew was that once I started writing about him, I didn’t know if I could stop.
Tears began to leak from my eyes as I excavated my memory, pulling out ribbons of black venom. As the words poured out of my soul and onto the page, Disgrace didn’t insult or criticize me.
She just watched.
