A conversation I’m still not ready to have.
“Shouldn’t you get that?” he asks, and when I look up, he’s staring at my screen.
“She’s—” I start to make up an excuse, but what I land on is “I’d really rather not.”
He watches as I hit Ignore and type a text telling her I’m out and will call later.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks softly.
“I doubt you want to hear my family drama.”
“I’m starting to think I want to hear everything about you,” he says, and I’m shaken by his overwhelming sincerity. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. I’ll even go first.”
“Family issues are definitelynota pre-lobster topic.”
“They an over-lobster topic?”
The conversation on the way to dinner and after we take our seats flows with an ease that is unnerving, though not surprising. Whatissurprising is how sweet and earnest Alex is, eager energy radiating off him. So different from the man I once knew.
After we place our orders, I decide,Fuck it.
“I have a hypothetical question for you. A scenario.”
“I love these. Go.” He makes a big show of relaxing his shoulders and closing his eyes like he’s getting in thezone. I roll my eyes, but it’s ineffective since he can’t see me.
“It’s one hundred percent hypothetical. It isn’t real,” I reiterate with a glance at the ceiling, just in case my caseworker is listening.
“I have heard the wordhypotheticalbefore, yes,” he says with a smirk.
“Let’s say you lived your life, and you did it wrong.”
Frowning, he opens his eyes. “How can you live your lifewrong?Is there a rule book I’m missing? If so, I’d love to take a peek. What school of philosophy are we working out of?”
“No, just—you made some mistakes.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Sure. But yours were… bigger, I guess.”
“How big we talkin’? Murder? Did I end up in jail?”
“Not that big.” Lord, if he isn’t the most frustrating man I have ever interacted with. “Just—you didn’t like your life, okay? You were… you were unhappy.”
“Byunhappy, do you meandepressed?”
I pause and consider. Now that he’s put a name to it, I realize I shouldprobably get a prescription for the antidepressants I’d been on for years when I died.
“Yes. You were depressed—but it was more than brain chemistry. You had antidepressants, but that didn’t solve the sadness. You made a lot of wrong choices.”
“Damn. That’s bleak.”
Bleak. Hearing my life reduced to that single cold, sharp word, I have the brief urge to defend myself. To argue that actually, maybe, there’s more to life than happiness. There’s success and satisfaction and ambition. Sure, I might not have been big-picture happy, but that doesn’t mean there was zero joy.
I turn that sentiment around in my head, but I can’t quite get it to come out of my mouth. My lifewassad. Trying to defend it would just make it sadder.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is. But you weren’t actively unhappy. You just weren’t activelyhappy. Most days, you would have said you felt fine, and it wouldn’t have been a lie, but when you tally up years of days that are just fine, it apparently adds up to… not fine. Whatever. Anyway, then you die!”
“You make that sound like a good thing.”
