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“I can’t promise I won’t cry.”
“He’ll be back, Olliepus.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he came to the party last night. I’m pretty sure not just any doorman would do that for a guy he likes to fuck.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll come back here.”
“He called you baby.”
“Talk is cheap.”
“And you fucking melted when he did it. Who could resist that?”
I hang my head, cover my face with my hands, and release a frustrated shout. “Fine. But I need something way stronger than wine.”
37
DREW
I’m not going home. Don’t get me wrong, I’m getting the fuck out of uptown, but for as much as Olivier claimed he wanted me to take care of all my unfinished business, he hasn’t given me any time to do it. Not that I’ve complained. And not that I have any reason to honor any promises I made him after what he just said to me, but this is something I need to do for myself.
And for Jericho.
It’s Sunday night, so I can only hope she’s home. I didn’t think to call first, still out of my mind with anger and hurt. The anger is a thin layer masking the hurt, and I manage to cling to it for the majority of the train ride to the East Village, but as I’m stepping out onto the cold, relatively quiet street, the hurt breaks through with a vengeance.
I do think Olivier is sorry for what he said. It’s the fact that he said it at all. And it’s not like in the entire time I’ve known him he’s always treated me as an equal or this is some big news—it’s the fact that after last night, the fact of who I once was to him shouldn’t have mattered anymore. It shouldn’t have come up again.
He made me feel cheap. Like I was the one for rent. And all his insistence on this ridiculous marriage on top of it? His foolish belief that it’s going to solve any of his problems? It boggles the mind. And I doubt the thin bond we do have will hold now that I know where his real priorities lie.
I’ve been kidding myself, I guess. Reading too much into his kiss. Into the way he looks at me. It would take a lot for me to get past how he treated me tonight, and I don’t think he has it in him to give me what I need.
But none of that means I should go running back to Jericho. Our relationship is the proverbial dead horse we just keep beating to see if, on the off chance, it’s still breathing. Unfortunately, it isn’t. And tonight, I heartily regret that, because it was my depression, my lack of effort, that killed it in the first place.
She’s been kind not to leave me. To give me space. To hand over the reins and let me lead, because I don’t think she’s a natural follower, which is all the more reason to ditch me.
Part of me hopes she’s already found it. That she’s seeing someone else—or at least has someone waiting the wings, but I know her pretty well after all this time, and if anything, after we make this ending official, she’s more likely to take a break from dating than she is to jump headfirst into a new relationship.
She’s way smarter than I am.
Jericho lives in a third-floor walk-up over a bodega on the corner of 2nd & 12th. I have a key to the street door and her apartment, but I use the intercom tonight. I wait with an impending sense of doom for her to answer, and when she doesn’t, I buzz her apartment one more time. That’s when the latch opens, and all I feel is relief.
I take the stairs two at a time, irritated with myself that I’ve made her wait this long for a decent explanation about why I haven’t reached out since last weekend. She hasn’t either, though, and that’s how I know she knows it’s over, too. It’d be simple enough to leave it at that, a mutual ghosting, but having grown up with four sisters, I’ve learned it’s basically the eighth deadly sin—to leave a relationship on read.
Jericho seems surprised to see me when she opens the door wearing white joggers, black leg warmers, and a baby-pink midriff top. Her hair is in a wrap and her face is plain, her natural beauty on full display. Once the initial shock wears off, she manages a disappointed expression, doesn’t speak, and lets me in.
“Thanks,” I mumble as I walk past her into the familiar, postage stamp studio. The living room and bedroom are one and the same. The kitchen is a small nook off to the left. The bathroom is probably the one space in the apartment that’s a standard size with a full tub. And yet, I’ve always liked it here. She gets great morning light and keeps plants alive like magic. Plus, there’s Jericho herself with her calming presence. Her confidence, as much as her beauty, is what drew me to her in the first place.
The good times come back to me first. The nights we stayed out until four a.m. Walking. Talking. Holding hands and kissing under awnings in the rain. We spent a few weekends at her aunt’s summer home in Martha’s Vineyard and traveled to parties in the Hamptons thrown by higher-ups at her publishing house. She’s been the life support keeping my dream of making it in New York alive. But in the end, she couldn’t save it.
“I’m sorry.”
I frown at her unexpected words. I haven’t even taken my coat off yet, and that’s definitely my line. “Why should you be sorry?”
“I’ve had some time to think about last weekend, and no matter how much your friend rubbed me the wrong way, I shouldn’t have acted like that. If I’m honest, I was upset with you, and I took it out on him. I wasn’t being up front with you, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Can we sit?”
