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I slowly made my way down to Bri. With her back to me, and the Hudson spread out before her, she could have stepped out of a Turner painting. She didn’t say anything until I had maneuvered my way to her, stepping carefully over fallen trunks and avoiding muddy swamps.
“Let’s go back.” For a moment my heart jumped, thinking she meant home. “To the apartment,” she corrected, as though she could read my thoughts. “It’s getting too cold.”
* * *
I woke in the middle of the night to the rhythmic beating of the rain, the constant drops pounding away above and beside me. Light streaked under my door. I slipped out of bed, wrapping one of my blankets around my shoulders, and followed it to the living room. The dim ceiling lamp cast a pale circle around the center of the room. A moth beat its large wings against the bulb, over and over, flying into it in an endless quest for light and death.
Bri sat at the table, staring at the ring.
“What am I doing?” She twisted the ring over, the diamonds tossing light against the walls. The reflections scattered eerily across the dark corners. Ghostlike. I flipped two more of the lights on. Without them, the huge windows let in too much darkness, like the night itself had crept into the room.
“Maybe you should go back. Talk to Malcolm.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I’ll hurt him too much. Better he doesn’t have to hear a no. I could just...slip away.” She watched the rain streaking down the glass, at the distorted moon beyond. “I could go to Paris now. Finish my dissertation from abroad.”
I sat down across from her. “Yes,” I agreed. “You could.”
She held the ring, hovering, in front of her finger. From below thick lashes, she glanced up at me. “I haven’t tried it on yet.”
“Go ahead,” I said, as though she needed my permission.
Bri bit her lip, her hands wavering. Then she closed her eyes and slid the ring on, settling it firmly on her finger. Once there, she let out a deep sigh, as though all the tension had left her body. She regarded her hand wistfully. “It looks right, doesn’t it?”
I wouldn’t edge her one way or the other, but I did say, “It’s beautiful.”
She ran her finger over it, and when she spoke, I could barely hear her. “I love him so much.” Her eyes were bright with tears. “It’s funny. How good we get at torturing the people we love the most.”
I bit my lip.
She smiled sadly. “I don’t even need to see him to know everything he would say to me. To know how he’d look at me.”
“Did you say no because you don’t want to marry him, or because you don’t want all those other complications?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice cracked. “I think I said no because I was scared.”
When I went back to my room, I picked up my phone.
* * *
The next morning, Briana and I used the last of the eggs and milk to make pancakes. We ate them, watching the rain. Every time Bri moved her left hand, she threw light around the room. I wondered if she had slept with the ring on.
“Tell me about Ryan now. What happened with you two?”
I sighed. “It just—didn’t work. I guess we were both too judgmental and unable to let the other in. I think that’s always been our problem.”
She swirled a piece through the maple syrup, unimpressed. “Can’t you fix that? If it’s not ideological, or something hurtful—if it’s just making judgments, you can apologize and work past it.”
I shrugged. That required one of us being willing to apologize.
“Rach.” Briana reached out and touched my arm. “Do you love him?”
I stilled. I had always imagined being in love as some grand, sweeping epic. A prince on a white horse. Dashing. Kind and intelligent and caring. “I love how he makes me feel.” Like I was more than just another struggling post-grad in New York. With Ryan, I felt intelligent, witty, charming. I felt adventurous and beautiful and thrilling.
I felt like I was a heroine.
I missed him when we weren’t together. I wanted to share each silly thought that passed through my mind, and hear him laugh. I would be happy to spend each night at his place, and to walk around in his jersey, making French toast and talking about nothing and everything.
But love... Wasn’t that reserved for the Byronic hero of my daydreams, the serious, poetic soul?
