“Look. We gave this a good run, but I think it’s better if we stay friends. Civil co-parents.”
“I’m sorry. I feel like I missed something between yesterday and today. What . . . is this about what I said last night? Did I freak you out?”
He grabs my hands and kisses my knuckles.
“If I did, I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t not tell you how I feel, Syd. You’re it for me, and with the direction our lives are going, I wanted you to know. I don’t expect you to say it back or do anything before you’re ready.”
I pull away from him and stand.
“What you said didn’t freak me out, but it did help me figure something out.”
His eyes search mine for an answer.
He isn’t going to like the one I give him.
My hands start to shake even more, and I do my best to breathe and control the tears. “It made me realize that you are great, Mark, but this was never more than sex for me. I don’t love you. I’m not in love with you.”
“No, you . . .” He stands quickly. “Feelings like this don’t go one way, Syd. I’m not a fool. This,” he points back and forth between us, “isn’t one-sided.”
“It is.” I move for the door quickly, but he’s faster.
“You can’t leave. We need to figure this out.”
“There isn’t anything to figure out.”
“There is so much to figure out!” he shouts, and I flinch. “Fuck, Syd. Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I can’t move across the country for someone I’m barely dating, and you shouldn’t stay because of that.”
“That’s one of many reasons I’m staying. And if it’s because we’re only dating and you’re afraid it won’t be more, it will. I swear it will. I want more.”
“I don’t.”
“But we are . . . were—hell, I don’t know what’s happening.”
“What’s happening is, we are nothing more than two people having a baby and you are going to move home at the end of the summer. We are going to make an arrangement that we both agree on when it comes to raising our daughter, and we are going to make this work. Apart. That’s all.”
I swing the door open and head for my car.
“Syd, wait!”
“You need to go home. Without me.”
I get in my car and back away calmly, but as soon as he’s out of sight, I pull over.
I sit in my car for a good thirty minutes and cry.
June hasn’t said a word since I got to her apartment. I was never intending to go to the library, but I needed a reason to leave that wasn’t suspicious. A lot of good that did me.
“Do you want some tea or a cookie? Or I could order Chinese food,” she asks as she turns onThe Officeon TV.
“Did I do the right thing?”
She shrugs. “I wish I had the answer for you, Sydney.”
