Page 10 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

The smell of Keith’s shampoo on his pillows, that lingering scent of Keith’s cologne on the clothes that Eli stole. Early morning walks down to Amoeba Music where Keith would spend too much money on records and Eli would spend too much on Vinegar Syndrome Blu-rays. They’d get a coffee at the café nearby and walk the length of the Panhandle, stopping at the playground if it was empty and just swinging next to one another.

From the moment he laid eyes on Keith, Eli knew he was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Which was hilarious given that their relationship began with an argument.

It wasn’t anything dramatic— Eli and Patricia had accepted an invitation to one of their friends’ parties, and Eli just so happened to overhear Keith say Mad Max: Fury Road was “overrated and boring.”

Eli couldn’t keep his mouth shut and spent the following hour explaining how it’s a perfect movie from beginning to end: the acting, the directing, the sets and locations, the cinematography and color choices, the costuming, the action sequences and stunts.

Apparently, it only took three shots for Eli to decide that he had to defend George Miller with his life.

Keith just stood there, his mouth painted in this confused expression that transformed into a smile over the next sixty minutes, like he couldn’t believe this guy was lecturing him about a movie.

And when Eli was done, slightly out of breath and more than a little heated, Keith asked a simple question.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

He could feel it, at that very moment: Keith was the man he was destined to spend the rest of his life with. There was just a . . . a something about the moment, he couldn’t explain it, not even really to himself.

Keith defined it as best he could, though. When Eli woke up next to him in the mornings, Keith was still asleep, his eyes closed, soft snores slipping past his lips. Or on lazy Saturday afternoons when Eli made dinner while Keith did his crossword puzzles. Or those bus rides in the morning when Eli was still half asleep, laying his head on Keith’s shoulder and breathing in his citrus smell.

That was before things became . . . not bad, but indifferent. When Eli could feel that there was something gone from their relationship. What was worse was that it wasn’t a fight or an argument—no one burned dinner, their jobs didn’t interfere, no one cheated.

Nothing happened.

It was just the slow, gradual death of a relationship, neither one of them admitting that there was a problem until Keith mercifully ended things.

It was one thing to feel so deeply for someone that it hurt to think about them, to have feelings that were so impossible to explain. But to have had that love, to have felt the connection with another person, to have accepted what they had to offer and to give back what you had, only for them to decide that you were no longer worth it.

That bled worse than any wound.

And now there’s just this dull ache. A discomfort.

Eli despises how much his heart still lingers there with Keith, and he hates himself for just how much it still bothers him.

“How long does it take to get over a person?” Eli dares to ask.

“I think it’s supposed to be like double the length of the relationship,” Rose says, digging further into the chip bag, leaving her fingers coated in fine Cool Ranch dust.

Eli feels his stomach twist.

“Really?” Patricia sounds confused. “I thought it was half?”

“Is it?” Rose asks. “No, no, I think it’s double. So, what’s that, Eli? Fourteen years?”

“I meant for the two of you,” he clarifies. “Like how long did it take the two of you to get over your past relationships?”

“Two months, two weeks, and three days. It was a Friday; or, technically, a Saturday morning, one thirty a.m.”

Eli and Patricia both stare at her.

“You know it to the hour?” Patricia asks.

Rose nods. “It was ladies’ night at Kelly’s. I met this girl, we were talking. Turns out Alecia had cheated on her too, so we hooked up in the bathroom.”

Patricia nods her head in respect. “Huh . . . Was it good?”

“Not really,” Rose says. “I mean the sex was; we met up later that week too. But the floor was sticky. She was hot, though.” She steals Patricia’s beer. “But my example is an isolated incident. You can’t really predict when you’re over someone, Eli. You just kind of . . . get there.”

“But how?”