Page 37 of Sunday's Best

Logan kicks his shoes off and tosses his bags on the floor so I have to step over to make it past the entryway. It smells faintly stale, the way a house always does when it’s sat lifeless for a while. The truck’s headlights sweep through the living room window before disappearing.

The fridge door opens with the loud clang of glass jars being jostled. “Do we have any beer in here?”

“Um, not sure.” I set my bag on the bench next to the front door and step into the small living space, letting my fingers glide along the arm of the couch.

Seeing it now, through fresh eyes, it dawns on me that this house was never my home. The furniture is all his from before we started dating, photos of us are limited to what’s stuck to the fridge with magnets, and the only feminine touch I ever added was a candle on the coffee table. Most of what I own exists in the duffel bag and rolling suitcase by the front door. For the last year, my entire life with him could’ve easily been reduced to a few mismatched pieces of luggage.

A fire burns me from the inside out, and I open my mouth before I lose my nerve. “I need to talk to you about something.”

The truth presses against my abdomen in a rolling bout of nausea. I could tell him what I did, who I did it with, and how I don’t regret crossing a line that can’t be uncrossed.

But this didn’t start with falling for his brother.

Falling for his brother proved I’d already left.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I say.

He twists the cap off his beer and raises an eyebrow. “Can’t do what? The road? I told you that you’d hate it.”

“No.” My voice wobbles. “Us, Logan.”

A tear slips past my defenses and tumbles down my cheek. Love doesn’t exist in a single plane or in a straight line—that’s the weird thing about it. It exists in the rubble of betrayal and hurt and even, as I’m learning, in apathy. I’m not in love with Logan anymore, but even though I’m ready to let him go, my heart refuses to do it without a bit of pain.

He lets out a short breath from his nose. “What does that mean?”

“It means I’m done.” I sink into the couch and blot my under eyes with trembling fingers. “I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore.”

He stares at me like I’m speaking a language he’s never heard before. “You don’t get to decide that.”

Of course not. I don’t get to decide anything with him.

“I do. I just did.”

His tone sharpens. “Since when?”

“For a while,” I admit.

“And you didn’t think to mention it?” Tension ripples through his body. “We could’ve talked… worked things out.”

A heaviness boxes me in on all sides, and I consider whether he’s right—whether I should’ve spoken up about all my issues with our relationship. We could’ve talked, worked things out, and stayed in love.

More likely, he would’ve talked and I would’ve become even smaller. Quieter. And one day, maybe I wouldn’t have the courage to speak up at all.

Today can’t be that day.

“I don’t want to work anything out, Logan. I’m not asking you to fix things.”

“You don’t get to decide this without talking to me,” he argues.

“Yes, I do. It’s my choice.”

“This is about the cheating shit again, isn’t it?”

Uneasy silence stretches taut between us until the edges begin to fray like a reopened wound.

“Jesus Christ, Sunday. You’re never going to let that go are you?”

I’m genuinely unsure why I’m entertaining a conversation with someone who’s reduced the last year to a single incident he’s tired of hearing about.