Page 173 of The Night We Met

I’d known this living arrangement wasn’t going to be forever. I just thought by the time I needed to go, I’d be ready.

Something told me I would never be ready.

I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to unintelligible murmuring from the living room.

The copy of Cross Stitch that I got Chris was face-out on the bookshelf. The only book that was not chaotically discarded in a pile when I got here. There was a tiny white something sticking out of the bottom of it.

I got up to see what it was, thinking maybe I’d accidentally left the receipt in the pages. But it wasn’t the receipt. It was the napkin from the first day at the restaurant he took me to. The one where we’d rated the bread. His scores and my floral doodle around the edges.

He’d kept it.

I dropped back onto the end of the bed, staring at it in my hand.

He always knew.

It took me a year to get here, but Chris had seen it from the very first day.

I put my face into my hands. How did I not know him on sight? How did my heart not recognize his the moment I laid eyes on him, because I would recognize him now in the dark.

I had never wanted to change something so badly in my life. I was never going to stop regretting choosing wrong, and now everything was a mess. There was no way out and no way forward that wouldn’t destroy someone.

I heard the front door slam and Jesse’s car alarm chirp outside. I got up and peeked out the blinds and watched him get in and leave. When I went back to the living room, Chris was on the sofa with his head in his hands.

“Is everything okay?” I asked from the doorway.

He straightened. “Fine,” he said.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing—”

“Chris, can we make an agreement?” I said. “Right now. That we stop not saying the things out loud. I want to know the truth. Every time. If me staying here is a problem—”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t want to get in the way of your friendships.”

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” he said.