“You’re telling me you haven’t had one serious relationship since you graduated from college?”
“Not a single one,” he says. He doesn’t seem proud of the fact, nor disappointed by it. All I can hear is,“I don’t want to get emotionally invested with someone.”
And that should not matter to me one bit. Except that I feel like my heart is being pinched by some invisible hand.
Why am I disappointed in his answer? I know he’s not emotionally available. He never was.
All the more reason that we absolutely cannot hook up again. I refuse to become attached to someone who can’t return that attachment.
“I have to admit, I find that odd,” I say, trying to hide my real feelings in my drink. I’m taking slow sips so as not to get a brain freeze, but frequent ones, so as not to show my hand.
“Why?” he asks.
“Not to boost my own ego or anything, but it’s sort of giving‘I compare everyone to Abby and no one is measuring up so I’m not committing’vibes.”
I’m half-teasing, and his smirk matches my own, like he’s in on the joke. I’m about to press him on the point, but he’s saved by the waiter, who takes his order for another margarita and assures us that our food is on the way.
When he turns back to me, his face reveals nothing. “My turn,” he says. “Since we’re on the topic of relationships, what happened with your ex-fiancé?”
Miles dips into the chips and guac, more relaxed now that it’s my turn to answer.
“Todd was a nice guy. He was just…looking for something else,” I say. Even after all this time, I still feel humiliated by our breakup, but I tell Miles what happened anyway. That Todd sat me down on a random Wednesday and said he wanted to talk to me.
“I can’t tell if you even want to marry me or at this point if you’re just going along with it because that’s what you always do,”Todd had said.
“If I didn’t want to marry you, I wouldn’t. I would tell you.”
“See, I don’t believe you. Just last week, we went for Ethiopian food, which you said you were fine with, but you didn’t eat anything when we got there. We spent last Christmas with my entire family and you didn’t talk to anyone but my parents and sister the whole time. You didn’t tell me until after we left that you were uncomfortable. I chose an all-inclusive resort for our vacation because I knew you would just go along with every suggestion I had for a trip around Europe and I don’t want that. I want a partner, not dead weight.”
“I asked him if that’s what he thought I was. Dead weight. He insisted he didn’t mean it like that, but broke up with me a week later.”
I keep my eyes on my lap, where I clasp my hands so tightly together that my fingers go white.
“What a dick,” Miles says.
I lift my eyes to his. “No, no, Todd wasn’t…he’s not a bad guy.”
“You’re too nice, Abby. The kindest thing I could possibly say about him is that he’s a fucking idiot for letting you go. I would know.”
My lips twitch, a smile threatening. Hazel expressed a lot of the same sentiments, but she has to; she’s my best friend.
Six months away from the breakup, it doesn’t sting like it used to. Todd’s words don’t lacerate my heart anymore, and even telling Miles now, it feels like I’m telling a story that belongs to someone else.
It was hard, adjusting to a life without Todd, but things have been looking up for me. I wouldn’t take him back, even if he asked me—not because he was a bad guy; he just wasn’t the one for me. And I like the person I’m becoming without him.
“Do you want to get married?” Miles asks.
“Hey, it’s my turn.”
He holds up his hands in surrender.
“But I’m going to steal your question,” I say.
He fakes shock. “Hold on a second, that’s not in the rules.”
“There are no rules. Not that we established.”
“Yeah, okay, fair. Proceed.”
