“Well it’s not like we can have a wedding anytime soon.” She laughed weakly, and my hands began to shake.
“Sorry if I’m reading into this too much,” I said. “But … Do you want to break up?”
She was quiet for a long time. “I don’t know, Seth. Things have been off for a while. I know you’ve felt it too.”
My instinct was to preserve her feelings by lying, to insist things are amazing and we are madly in love. But that wouldn’t have been fair.
We’ve been overdue for a difficult conversation.
It was brave of her to start it. I’m not sure I ever would have.
“I know,” I admitted quietly. “I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic, or if it’s us.”
“I do love you,” she said, her voice closer to her normal register. “But we might have rushed into all this too quickly. It’s only been ten months since we met.”
She’s right. I was so excited to have the bachelor phase of my life be over. I was so eager to settle down.
I still want all of that. A marriage, a family. But I can’t shake the feeling that this relationship is wrong.
That she’s not my soul mate.
“I get it,” I said, squeezing her hand. “It’s been fast, and the circumstances took a turn. It’s been really hard on us both.”
“In a way the pandemic might be a blessing,” she said. “If it weren’t for Covid, we’d have rushed into planning a wedding, and gotten swept up in the excitement, and maybe wouldn’t have had time to really be together.”
It hurts me that being together is what made her feelings for me cool. Even if it’s mutual, it’s heartbreaking.
“Let’s take some time,” I said. “You’ll go back to your place, we’ll get some space. See what happens.”
She was quiet for a while, gathering her thoughts. “Will that just drag out a breakup?”
I sighed. “Maybe.”
“I just … God this is so hard. I wish this wasn’t happening.” She wiped away a tear.
I pulled her into my arms.
“Me too.”
And then we made love—more tenderly than we have since we got engaged.
I think we both knew—know—that it’s the last time.
That was last night.
I’m still processing as I wake up to the smell of her vegan, gluten-free banana muffins. She’s in the kitchen, in her workout clothes, making fresh green juice.
“Hi, handsome,” she says.
For a moment, I wonder if I hallucinated last night. If it was just my subconscious working through a problem my conscious mind refused to acknowledge was real.
Then I notice the suitcases by the door.
Jesus. She’s leaving today?
“I reserved a U-Haul to pick up at nine,” she says. She holds out a juice. It smells like cucumber and parsley.
I gape at her.
“You reserved a U-Haul in the middle of the night?”
“Yesterday,” she says, looking at the juicer rather than at me. “Before we talked.”
What do you say to that?
“Ah,” is all I manage.
“I should be able to get everything packed up by the end of the day,” she says. “Get out of your hair.”
I go very still. “You’re not in my hair, Sarah.”
“That’s not what I meant. Sorry, I just don’t know how to act.” She puts both of her palms on the kitchen island, leans forward. “Are you mad?”
“No. This is all just very sudden.”
She nods. “I want to rip off the Band-Aid, you know?”
I suppose she’s right. A few more days of cohabitation is not going to change the fact that another one of my relationships has failed.
