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“Thank God,” I say, laughing a little, though it’s not exactly funny.
“Congratulations again. About the workshop.”
“Thanks.”
“And you’ve been feeling okay?”
“For the most part.” Which is true.
“Good.”
More silence.
The wind plays with Peter’s hair, and I shiver when the breeze hits my arms. Another gray-skied June.
He scuffs his shoe in the dirt. “Is this—what we did—is it the kind of thing we can never come back from? The kind of thing that ruins people like us?”
“I’ve sort of been hoping not.” I let my shoulders sag. “What actually happened. The, um, act itself. It wasn’t terrible for you, was it?”
He flushes. Laughs. “In the moment, no. Definitely not terrible.”
I laugh too, nervously. “I’m glad my first time was with you. I think I would have always wondered, always wished it had been you. You don’t—you don’t wish we hadn’t?”
“No. No. It was . . . nice. Being that close to you.” He’s entirely red now, focused on fiddling with the bracelet on his wrist.
“Good,” I say, exhaling deeper than I expected to.
“It wasn’t just sex, though. That . . . changed us, I mean.”
“No. It wasn’t. It was a lot of things.”
“You were completely right about this friendship revolving around me,” he says, “and that was not fair at all.”
I nod. “And I can’t do that anymore.”
“I get it. You shouldn’t have to.”
He drags his hand through the leaves of a nearby tree, and I remember a time when we were convinced the sound of the wind rustling through the branches was actually the trees communicating with each other. This spot—this entire city—has too many memories.
“It’s strange,” I start. “I—I don’t know what our friendship looks like if I’m not always giving in to you. And that’s really hard to admit.”
He tugs some pine needles off the tree, lets them flutter to the ground. His e
yes are wide, deep, sad. “I’m so sorry, Soph.”
Bravery compels me forward. I am not done yet. “I’ve always been kind of defined by you. And for a while that seemed good—like, I was so in love with you that it didn’t matter. But I have to figure out who I am on my own. And now that I’m about to really go out and do that, with the workshop . . . God. I am so fucking nervous.” Anxiety turns my breaths shaky. “There will be so many new people, so many strangers . . .”
“They’ll get to know you,” he says, and it strikes me that in the past, whenever he reassured me, he’d touch me, even in some small way. “And once they do, they’ll love you. And your big brain, too.”
My heart swells at that old joke. Maybe I thought we were past jokes now, that whatever our new relationship is, inside jokes couldn’t be part of it. Hearing one again is bittersweet.
We stand there in silence for a while. Our silences never used to be like this. Silences between real friends are supposed to be comfortable. My dad told me that once, that that’s how you know your friendship is true: You can be quiet together. But this one is charged, not peaceful. Like even a cough or a breath could disturb it.
“I’m always going to be grateful,” he says, puncturing the quiet between us. “You know that, right? I could say thank you a million times and it wouldn’t be enough. I could utter it once a minute every day for the rest of my life, and it wouldn’t be enough.”
“I—I know.” I sigh. “And I want you to know that you don’t owe me anything. This was my choice. And I’ve never regretted it.”
There’s so much space between us, our bodies unsure how to navigate this distance. We are crossed arms and shifted weight, elbow scratches and hand-wringing. “I really wanted to love you in that way at the same time you did,” he says. “I hope you can believe that.”
