“Are you sure? I can just go with you.”
“Yeah, no, I’ll drop you off. I’m sure my dad needs help getting a new water heater to the house and installing it. You’re just going to be bored waiting around for me.”
I agree to go back to my apartment and wait for him. We don’t get to finish our conversation, and I wonder if he’s relieved by our interruption. I don’t want to say it was intentional, but hedoesn’t bring it up on our short drive, and I’m too nervous to do it myself. Instead, he takes me back home where I’m left to mull over this realization that James and I really don’t have a grasp on our future. We’re getting caught up in cute shoes and stuffed animals instead. I’m falling into this snare of giddy feelings without even thinking about the consequences. I feel so stupid.
We can’t move in together. We barely met over the past summer. I have a can of soup in my pantry older than our relationship. A tube of sunblock in my medicine cabinet I’m more familiar with. A fucking roll of Scotch Magic Tape I know more about sitting in a junk drawer in my kitchen. How the hell am I supposed to share a space with a man I’ve known for less time than the numerous inanimate objects in my apartment?
I’m spending some time prepping for the week ahead in my pajamas with a rerun ofLaw & Order: Special Victims Uniton when I hear a light knock on my door. With the way everything was tossed into the air, my thoughts have turned all murky and cluttered. I don’t even realize it’s dark outside, and when I trudge to my door and open it in a distracted haze, I’m surprised to see James on the other side.
“We’ll move in together.”
“What?” I scoff in shock.
“We’ll move in together,” he repeats. “I can move here, or we can find a place with more room if that’s what you want.”
He didn’t forget about it. He came here to hash it out, to get us out of this weird limbo stage that’s been leaving me confused and scared. Because this isn’t some temporary predicament he’s planning to wait his way out of. We’re going to figure things out.
“James, we’ve known each other for like…five, six months. We can’t move in together.” I look at him, and I start searching for facial cues. Any hint or inkling that he’s saying these things just to say them. Because, somewhere in his decent, virtuous mind, he thinks this is what he’s supposed to do, regardless ofwhat he wants. I don’t want that. I don’t think either of us wants that.
“Why not? We’re going to have a baby. Shouldn’t we bring it home to a place that’s ours?”
“I don’t think that’s a reason to move in together.” I walk away from the door and he follows me inside.
“Of course it is.”
“We aren’t ready to move in together,” I argue. “Couples who have been together for years aren’t ready to move in together. What makes you think we are?”
“We aren’t other couples.”
I start to grasp at straws. “What if you leave the toilet seat up, and I can’t stand it? Or I don’t recap the toothpaste after I use it, and it pisses you off? Or you hate that I have like, five alarms when I wake up in the morning.”
“You don’t have five alarms to wake you up in the morning,” he points out. Of course, I forgot he’s already privy to my usual morning rituals, including the fact that I like to play music while getting ready.
“Okay, but what if you found something else equally annoying,” I say, still scrounging for reasons, excuses for things to stay the way they are with absolutely no grounds or basis. All because this level of change scares me.
“Then I’ll deal with it,” he states, as if it’s just that simple. He leans down to kiss me. It’s so simple, the way he reassures me, smothering all the mean, hostile doubt that treads deep in my gut. “We’ll tell everyone at Christmas, and I’ll move in here.”
I can’t say there’s a clear-cut approach to my decision-making process. I don’t have a pros and cons list. There’s no Word document on my laptop with all the research I’ve done on the horrors of cohabitation that could deter me from moving in with my boyfriend. All I have is my heart and my gut. Both ofwhich are a lot weaker than I thought they were. Especially when love is thrown into the mix.
I finally fold. “It’s that easy, huh?”
He nods. “It is.”
“You don’t think you’ll change your mind?”
“No.” He doesn’t need to explain why. Not when that single-syllable word is so arrant and confident.
“Okay,” I say, my voice wobbly.
He pulls me into his arms, tugging me closer with his hands running reassuring strokes along my spine. I sink into his chest when he asks, “Can I get a goldfish?”
“You want to get a goldfish?” I ask, grinning into his shoulder.
“Yeah,” he murmurs against my hair. “And one of those little two-gallon aquariums with colorful pebbles.”
“Did Tommy not let you get one?”
“He has a surprisingly strict no pets policy.”
