Page 33 of That's Not a Thing

“I’m serious. You should take my apartment.”

“Thanks, but no,” he says. “I’m good at the old house for now.”

We stare at each other for a moment in silence.

“You look good,” he says, his eyes sweeping over me. “I’m glad things are working out for you.”

“You still haven’t answered me, really. Do you have people to help you when things get bad?”

“I’m cool. It’s all good.” He reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. I wonder if his movements are slower than they used to be or if he is moving slowly on purpose, prolonging our time together.

“I’ll walk you back to your building.”

I look up at him, unsure whether that’s okay. A late-night stroll together feels like it would cross a line that I didn’t know I had drawn. At the same time, I’ve always been anxious about being on the streets alone late at night, and he knows it.

“C’mon, it’s fine. Aaron wouldn’t want me sending you home alone. No funny business, I promise.”

Just like that, he jolts my mind to that night all those years ago when we first met, and he enticed me back to his room. It was so long ago, but in some ways, it was everything. I think he knows it, that he’s triggered the memory intentionally. I relent.

As we meander up Columbus toward Seventy-ninth Street, I wonder how many more times I will get to see him before the end. As if he’s read my mind, he starts speaking. “I have three more weeks left until I finish with this session of my program at the soup kitchen on Sundays. Will I see you there?”

“For sure,” I answer, nodding, as I gaze blankly up the avenue.

“I’m glad we’re back in touch,” he says quietly as we turn onto Seventy-ninth Street.

I glance over at him and see that his expression has changed—it’s more focused, intense. We reach the door of my building and slow to an awkward stop.

“Me too,” I respond as I turn to face him, drinking in the way he’s looking at me. It’s like he can’t look anywhere besides my face, like I’m still the most important person in the world to him. I feel the heat rising in my chest, like he and I are having a moment, and it’s wrong. So wrong. I don’t want to be that person—the cheater, the liar. As much as I want to wrap myself around him like a hundred-year-old vine, I won’t. I lean in and give him a lightning-fast peck on the cheek, chaste as can be.

“I’ve got to go,” I say, part apology, part command. I turn and dart into the building, leaving him to stare after me as I run away from a million possibilities.

Chapter Fifteen

March 2017

I’m riding up the escalator into the main lobby of the Kips Bay movie theater when I notice that my hands are sweating. Since when have I become someone who perspires from nerves? Maybe since I lied to my fiancé about where I spent my last evening, that’s when.

Aaron is waiting at the top of the escalator, tickets in one hand and an extra-large soda in the other. As I near him, I rub my palms against my thighs, a gesture that could easily signify warming myself from the cold evening air and doesn’t necessarily implicate me as the no-good, low-down, rotten liar that I am.

Aaron spent another hectic day at the hospital, two emergency surgeries complicating his usual Tuesday office visits. I, too, had a busier day than expected, having received multiple calls to discuss the Dole brief that I’m now involved in up to my earlobes. The chaos of the day means that we have communicated in only a couple of short texts since I saw Wesley last night. With partners like Ellen Short nitpicking about every word, I barely made it out of the office in time for this 9:00 p.m. movie. When I began law school, I never anticipated the hours I would spend agonizing over commas.

We quickly hustle into the dark theater, where previews are already rolling. As the movie starts and Hugh Jackman’s bearded face fills the screen, Aaron reaches for my fingers and places our joined hands on his lap. A new surge of guilt sweeps through me, alerting me that I most definitely have to tell him about the drink with Wesley last night. The man sitting beside me is going to be my husband, and I don’t want to build our future on a base of dishonesty. I have to come clean, take my lumps. Well, maybe not 100 percent clean, but I can lay out the facts, state what actually happened. I don’t have to get into all the internal dialogue I’ve been through. It wouldn’t benefit anyone for me to open that can of dog food.

When the movie ends, we walk to the dive bar across the street, arguing amicably about where the movie should fall in our ever-shifting ranking of superhero films. The smell of stale popcorn fills my nose as we enter the bar and make our way to a booth in the back. We each order beers, and we decide to split a plate of wings. That really means I will eat one wing and Aaron will gradually devour all the rest while repeatedly trying to convince me to have another. The yeasty beer will be enough for me as a late-night snack, filling me up like homemade bread.

“So, I have to confess something, and you’re not going to like it,” I say after the waitress puts our overly full glasses on the table.

“Okay,” Aaron says as he arranges his cell phone and pager on the table, his tone light as a cloud, as though nothing I say could actually upset him.

“After you went to bed last night, Wesley called me.” I push the words out in a rush. “I had been asking him a lot of questions about his diagnosis, and he asked me to meet him for a drink to discuss it.”

Now Aaron’s eyes are on me, his expression taut. “And?”

“And I met him at the piano bar on Seventy-sixth for one drink.”

Aaron continues to watch my face, waiting for me to say more. The TV behind him is showing some sort of martial arts match; the kicking and punching onscreen draws a whoop from a guy at a table behind us.

“I didn’t feel like I could say no.” I don’t add that I didn’twantto say no.