“Uh, maybe. If I found the right person.”
It occurs to me that we’re having a conversation about marriage and life plans. I need to back off.
“Um. Is this weird?” I ask.
“Is what weird?”
“You know, talking about our feelings?”
“I don’t think so. It’s nice.”
“It’s kind of intense, actually,” I say.
“Well, you can hang up if you can’t handle the heat, Marks,” he says with a sharp laugh. “I know you sometimes have trouble finishing what you’ve started.”
Whoa.
That was needlessly barbed from anyone I’m trying to be nice to—let alone Seth.
“Excuse you,” I say, not hiding my offense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just a joke.”
But we both know it isn’t.
“Really? It sounded like a dig.”
“No, I was just referencing what you said at the reunion. That you’re scared of intimacy.”
“Wrong,” I shoot back. “If I recall, I said I was scared of losing you in high school, so I broke up with you to avoid being hurt. That’s not the same thing.”
“Are you sure?”
I don’t appreciate this Socratic method bullshit. If I wanted to be criticized, I’d have texted my dad back.
“Seth, I was talking about my behavior when I was a teenager. Are you really going to extrapolate that to who I am now, having interacted with me for about ten hours in the last fifteen years?”
Bizarrely, he doesn’t back down.
“Remember how I’m a divorce attorney? And I deal with breakups eighteen hours a day? You’re a type, Molly. You’re a bolter. You get scared of feelings and run away.”
I should hang up. This is not the light conversation I wanted to have with him.
“Do I have to pay you your hourly rate for this, counselor?” I ask.
There is a very, very long pause.
“I’m providing it pro bono because I like you,” he finally says. His voice has gone soft. Almost tender.
I feel unsteady. I don’t know what to do with this.
“You like me?” I repeat.
“So much, Molly.”
“You know, I’m not terribly likable,” I joke, because I don’t trust myself to follow where this is going. “You could be forgiven for saying no.”
“See, you’re doing it,” he says. “Deflecting. When the conversation gets earnest, you make a joke or some self-deprecating comment.”
I know he’s right, but I don’t want to admit it.
“Maybe I just do that with you.”
“I highly doubt it. You did it when we were teenagers. And it correlates with a personality type in a relationship. You probably check out when things scare you. Intimacy shuts you down.”
What am I supposed to say to this? He likes me “so much,” but he’s criticizing me for how I act in relationships?
“Why are you being like this?” I ask. “I offered to keep you company. I’m not looking for a psych diagnosis. Believe me, I have enough of those.”
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “It’s the lawyer in me, I guess. Can’t stop arguing. I’m being a dick.”
But that isn’t quite it. None of this comes off as mean. It comes off as too honest.
“You’re not being a dick,” I say. “You’re being awfully presumptuous about me though.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I want to get to know you better.”
Yeah, it’s time to end this.
