cmaceves

[cmaceves]

Patterns

Suggested Listening: PATTERNS by NASAYA & Sara Diamond, opinion by slenderbodies, Something Like This (Stripped) (ft. Feelds) by Ukiyo, Body and Mind by girl in red, Heart Shaped Box by Glass Animals, Why Do I Always Feel This Way? by Pale Honey,  affection by BETWEEN FRIENDS, Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift, Lonely Millionaire by Kacey Musgraves, Male Fantasy by Billie Eilish, Keep on Dancing by Oh Wonder, Bluebird (Acoustic) by Miranda Lambert

And if you learn one thing from me, I hope it’s that you don’t talk cheap - slenderbodies

Approximate Word Count: 14000

Authors Note:

In no way, shape, or form, did I intend to write this. At the end of an incredibly challenging summer, I looked back at the hundreds of pages I’d written in my notebook and realized that while most of it was a gloopy, indiscriminate mess, there was a vague outline that had started to form. I read through my earlier entries, dating back years in the past, and saw something emerge. With a little bit of carving, Patterns took shape. The purpose of memoir is to share perspectives and experience, and I saw some universal themes and underpinnings which could be relatable to others. The three parts, Before, Then, and Now are all very, very different. I see this as a piece about grief, loss, honesty, accountability, and finally, about acceptance and breaking habits, but unless read in its entirety, that will be difficult to see, so I request that if you read Before, you read Then and Now. I’ve written a lot of things over the years, but nearly none of it sees the light of day. Instead, they hide in long forgotten Google documents and smushed in between pages of scribbled experiment planning and poorly written equations I’ve developed. I didn't take the decision to expose this for others to read lightly - I spent months choosing which piece to share and revising it to maximize privacy while still maintaining the narrative of what I experienced. Ultimately, the decision to share this is backed by my sincere belief that in interpersonal relationships, no individual party owns the narrative of how things played out. This is mine.

All writing is my own. This essay is based on true events. It reflects my present recollections of experiences over time. Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed or removed, the time at which some events occurred has been modified, and some dialogue has been recreated.

Thank you to my beta readers, who have seen all the changes and trials the last seven years of my life have brought and have continued to support me. I love you all dearly. 

Before (April-July)

Truthfully, I’ve never really seen other people. I move through the world like a ghost, faces and voices slipping past me, blurring together in a distant haze. It’s like they don’t fully materialize until something snaps into focus, until the weight of their presence presses against my skin and I feel them - really feel them - stirring the air around me. Most times, it takes more than a glance or a handful of encounters for someone to register, for the fog to lift and for me to recognize them as real - as someone who could touch my life or shift the course of my thoughts. Until then, they’re just noise, a part of the background.

He didn’t register to me until the first time we all went out together after a game, about a month into our season. 

The place we picked was near the field and more of a restaurant than a bar, warmly lit with oversized wood tables and a good tap list. When I think about that night, I remember how happy we all were. Nearly everyone showed up, even Lucy, half-focused on her laptop in between bites of food. One drink turned into two, plates of food were scattered over the table. We were a newly minted team, glowing with potential and enjoying the high of early season victories. The atmosphere was light, easy, and full of possibility. Somehow, he ended up across from me. The tequila shots came out - someone's birthday, a quick toast, that familiar burn down the throat. That’s when he spoke, mentioning his own birthday was just around the corner. He finally began to slide into focus.

"I hate you,” I said, rolling my eyes when he mentioned he was about to turn 39. His face fell, but I followed up with a laugh: “How do you look so good?”

He threw his head back and started laughing, I was hooked. 

By the end of the night, I was calling him “Pecs" in this playful, mocking way that I claimed was meant to humble him - though we both knew it was just flirting. Later, after the drinks had settled and everyone went their separate ways, he pulled my number from the team chat and texted me, casually offering to cover my last round. I shot back a refusal, but he didn’t let up, sending a flirty response that had me smiling at my screen. Before I knew it, I was flirting right back, the banter between us picking up as easily as it had across the table.

A few weeks later, he asked if I was grabbing a drink before our game and if he could tag along. I was already meeting up with Priscilla, my close friend, so I told him to join us. The brewery we chose was a wild place - psychedelic art splashed across the walls, lights glowing, the warm air making everything feel electric. I felt energized, practically bouncing through the door with my brother’s oversized sweatshirt draped around me. I immediately clocked a little rubber platypus, sitting on the bar. I had a collection of them - friends were stealing them for me.

Priscilla showed up right after, and as soon as she sat down, I dove straight into a tirade, barely taking a breath. I was mid-rant, telling Priscilla that if she were a real friend, she'd steal the platypus for me to demonstrate her love and affection, when he walked through the door. Without missing a beat, I launched into an explanation - Priscilla clearly didn’t care about me because she refused to commit a minor crime on my behalf. He laughed, but I dropped it quickly as the conversation shifted, to deeper topics. I found myself drawn to the way he spoke about his family, and before I knew it, an hour had slipped away in easy conversation, and we departed for our game.

A week later, he sent me a reel - a mechanical keyboard, where every key was a little platypus that growled.

I’m a software engineer - I loved it, and I told him so.  

Just say the word, he responded. 

I didn’t reply. I had a date that night, one I was genuinely excited for, and we hardly knew each other. I didn’t take him seriously. 

Then, the date fell through. I’d been talking to this guy for months, this endless tug-of-war - him trying to get me into bed again, me trying to get him into a relationship. The push and pull was exhausting, and I finally had to admit we were on completely different wavelengths. So, I gave up, and took some space, but oddly enough my silence caught his attention. He reached out again, several times, inviting me to sub for his softball team, and I finally caved. After the game, we wound up at a bar, and then his car, talking late into the night. He asked me out, but two weeks later and only hours before our date, he flipped the script, telling me that while he was open to a relationship with the right person, something about us doesn’t feel right. 

Dating is hard. It’s a slow, relentless push and pull. People draw you in, then shove you away, over and over, dragging your hopes through the mud each time, and when someone asks you out, only to immediately change their mind, it’s hard not to believe there’s something inherently wrong with you. 

That thought clung to me the following week, swirling in my head like the watered-down margarita I kept stirring in the dim lighting of a Chili’s. Our softball team had gone out for food and drinks after our game, and I once again wound up sitting across from him. He asked what was wrong, and I just shrugged it off.

It had become common for us to message each other here and there after games, so later that night I shot him one. 

I think you're right, I do need that keyboard. It’ll boost my productivity.

Done, he replied.

Sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back against my bed, drenched in the sweat and grime of the softball field, I slapped a hand over my mouth. No way. Had he really bought me that keyboard? It couldn’t be real. I stared at my phone, grinning.

The next morning my mouth tasted like tequila, and I actually clicked the link to take me to the product website, and that’s when I realized the price of the keyboard was $200. Alarm shot through me - that was more money than I spent on groceries in a month. I reached out to him, letting him know it was a thoughtful gesture but asking him to cancel the order because of the cost.

He refused, and told me not to make it weird.

I asked about five times, repeatedly telling him in the most earnest and serious way possible, that I appreciated him and was looking forward to getting to know him better in the next season, but that I couldn’t accept such an expensive gift.

Just say thank you :)

I froze, staring at the screen, my pulse spiking. I asked about four friends for advice, fingers flying over my phone in a panic. How had things taken such a weird turn? Sure, I thought he was good-looking. And yeah, I was quickly becoming addicted to hearing his loud, unfiltered laugh. But taking an expensive gift from someone I barely knew, after just a month? No chance.

It wasn’t like men hadn’t tried to give me gifts or bought me things before. But I dodged them, always. First, because you never knew what strings were attached. Second, because I felt guilty. I would never take from a man what I wouldn’t want someone taking from one of my brothers. It was Lucy who finally cut through the noise and put it all in perspective.

“You and Pecs? I love that. He’s ten years older than you, and even though it’s a lot of money to you, it’s probably nothing to him. If a man wants you, they’re gonna come get you. He probably just is into you and is doing this as a gesture of commitment.”

It took a full day, but I finally replied to him.

Thank you!

I thought about my next move for a bit, took a breath, and then sent a second text. 

So do you buy all your friends keyboards, or should we go out next week?

He didn’t reply until the next morning, and when he did I nearly dropped my coffee cup.

Chrissssy!!! I would, but I’m seeing someone. Seriously though Chrissy, if the circumstances were different, I’d be on that date with you.

I immediately apologized, my face flushed with embarrassment that he couldn’t see. I’d never hit on someone in a relationship before, so I was completely thrown off. Why would he even get me that keyboard if he had a partner? We barely knew each other, and we’d never even hung out alone. The whole thing just didn’t make sense.

The fact that he’s in a relationship and bought you that is shady as hell, messaged Lucy, echoing the sentiment of other friends. I couldn’t argue; if I were his partner and he splurged on such a personal gift for a woman he hardly knew, I’d be furious. But what could I do? The keyboard was already bought, and he refused to return it. I also hadn’t known he was in a relationship. 

I baked him cookies to thank him for the keyboard, even though it hadn’t arrived yet. Texts flew back and forth after games - friendly on the surface, but with a lingering tension beneath. Sometimes he’d reach out, other times I would. The keyboard was his excuse, a reason to message me, giving me shipping updates and slipping into conversations that felt just a shade beyond playful, often drifting into flirtatiousness. I was caught in a storm of confusion, dizzy from the pull of something that felt dangerously close to crossing a line, yet I couldn’t seem to let it go.

He overpaid me for a team dinner by 25 bucks and I insisted on sending back the money, accusing him of being too generous and playfully claiming it was a character flaw.

How about this, I’ll work on not being too giving, but you have to occasionally let me do nice things for you.

I smiled at my phone - happy.

Deal.

One night, a small group of us went to get soft-serve after a game - I wasn’t hungry but I tagged along to hangout. In an oddly intimate gesture, he called me over from where I stood with Fred, and had me order his dessert for him.

“What flavor of ice-cream should I get?” he asked me earnestly.

“Well what flavor profiles do you like?” I queried back. I caved in a bit, feeling flattered he’d asked my opinion needlessly, and I didn’t want to order him something he didn’t like.

He gestured towards the employee who was waiting at the register, and said “Just get whatever you would order.”

I did, but I asked him at every stage if he wanted a different topping than what I would pick, trying to be mindful - not everyone liked what I did. When he finally went to pay, he turned back towards me. “Can I get you anything?”

I said no, I was full, and made my way back towards Fred who was standing with his arms crossed. Inside, I was melting.

“What was that all about?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“He wanted me to order for him,” I said with a disbelieving shrug.

Fredl just looked at me sideways and shook his head.

Despite the chaos of it all, I liked him, and that in itself was a problem. It was troubling how easily I was swayed by his behavior, even though everything about our situation was deeply problematic. He was effortlessly engaging, never overstepping or rushing things. His good natured attitude and the way he seamlessly joined in on my offbeat jokes made it hard to see his actions as anything but endearing. He was also genuinely kind to our teammates, which only clouded my judgment further. But as things began to escalate, the discomfort grew. I knew I needed to stop interacting with him, but the small moments between us - like picking his dessert - made me feel like a substitute girlfriend. I made a conscious choice. I was going to stop replying to him, and it was almost like he could sense it, because late the following Sunday night, he sent me three songs. 

Some tunes for you, since you clearly love music.

He had hit the nail on the head, I do love music - and I loved the songs he sent me. They weren’t just good; they were charged, and personal. The realization that he was attracted to me hit me like a shot of adrenaline. If I’d been spinning with confusion before, I was now stumbling drunk on it, lost in a fog of uncertainty and desire. I had been driving on the freeway when he messaged me, the glimmering lights from buildings glowing on the edges of my vision as I sped home from dinner in the dark, but I missed my exit, and then suddenly another three as the lyrics swam through the air of my car.

The next night, I met my friends at a brewery to celebrate a birthday. I arrived late, frustrated after losing a softball game, and slid up to the table which was already littered with empty glasses and plates. I ordered a beer and then let it all spill out - my frustration, my confusion, and how he’d pushed boundaries despite still being with someone else. The consensus from around the table was clear: I needed to cut him off.

Anger bubbled inside me. It felt infuriatingly unfair that I should be the one to ignore him. The more I’d come to like him, the more frustrating it was that he was making advances while in a relationship. I shoved down my fury, agreed with my friends, swallowed the dregs of my IPA in one bitter gulp, and stepped out into the night, weighed down by the situation. I needed a shower, preferably a cold one.

But as  I drove home, I did the exact opposite of what I had told my friends I would do. 

I was furious. 

I was enamored. 

I was selfish as fuck. 

I sent him three songs back.

What ensued was several weeks of us sending each other music every day, exchanging lyrics in place of actual words. The genre range was wide and the same artist rarely appeared twice. It was at this exact point in time, that I knew I was completely fucked when it came to him. If I’d liked him before, now I was absolutely captivated and the heat between us was undeniable. When he sent me 'Thinking Bout You' by Frank Ocean, I knew things were about to spill over.

I nearly suggested we go grab a beer, he said late one night, but I wasn’t sure how it would go over given the time. We were both awake and wound up after our game.

My Monday team goes out after the 9 p.m. games all the time, I replied.

We drifted into talking about what we were going to eat. I was freshly showered, making toast in my kitchen, and listening to the playlist of songs he had sent me.

Toast sounds good, I’ll copy you, he said, and we kept talking.

I felt like I was high on something as I leaned against the marble counter in my kitchen in the dead of night, licking jam off my finger while the music swirled around me. I pictured him in his apartment, fifteen minutes away, also standing barefoot in sweatpants, waiting for his own bread to darken. I drifted off that night with that image fresh in my head and without a single thought of his girlfriend in my head.

Just fuck already, retorted Priscilla when I told her what had happened. Making toast at the same time? Disgusting. Way more intimate than sex.

And strangely enough, it did feel that way.

***

Days later, our text conversation crossed into sexual promise, with nuances no longer hidden.

I apologized hours later, recognizing we’d crossed a line, especially knowing he had a girlfriend. He replied immediately and told me not to apologize, that he had also been trying to be neutral, but he didn’t want to blow his chance with me. He said his feelings towards me had made him realize he needed to break up with her, and that I shouldn’t be in the middle of it.

I never intended for this to happen, I said, I really didn’t know you had a partner when I asked you out. And it was the truth. I hadn’t joined our shared softball team, I hadn’t come into these conversations intending to ruin a relationship - what happened between us genuinely felt organic. From our playful teasing to our shared humor and chemistry. He had me eating out of the palm of his hand with how sweet he was, leaving the other men we played with to make crude jokes in my direction and refer to me as “one of the boys”. We both seemed to really love our siblings and his taste in music was fantastic. I had never felt the need to hide parts of myself from him, or pretend to be something I wasn’t. Around him and in the budding comradery of our softball team, I simply existed as I was.

I need to sort things out with her, but then I’d like to get to know you better. 

Sitting at a bonfire later that same night, I felt content with the outcome. As Fred and I drove our drunk friend home, I told him what had happened. He was quiet for a long time.

Finally he replied, “Chrissy, you deserve to be someone’s first choice.”

“He’s breaking up with his girlfriend for me,” I protested, “I think that does make me his first choice.” Fred simply looked at me. In the ensuing silence, I could hear what the weight of his look meant as we navigated the darkened side streets.

“I flew halfway across the world for Serena,” he reminded me. “You shouldn’t settle for someone who takes months to make up his mind, you should wait for someone absolutely crazy about you.”

I felt so inadequate in that moment - smelling like cheap beer, drunk in the passenger seat of a car, sand all over my body, in a sweatshirt that wasn’t mine. With texts on my phone, attention, and lust from a man that also wasn’t mine. I could feel the panic building in my chest and the pressure of tears behind my eyes, but I reigned it in. This moment wasn’t about me, we needed to get our friend up to his apartment safely. 

***

He kept sending me more music, and our sparing conversations drifted lazily through the week like soft background melodies. My car broke down, and without hesitation, he offered to help me figure out the cause. I smiled at his eagerness, though I turned him down. He asked again, then a third time, each offer more insistent, his willingness to help woven into every word. It was sweet - he was sweet - but I stood firm. I could handle this. Cars were just big computers, and I could fix computers. Still, I could feel the pull of something bigger between us, like we were stepping into our parts in the script of our future roles - him, doing his best to take care of me; and me, fiercely independent, but knowing that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t always have to be. He would offer to be there when I needed it, and I would support him too.

We had another game on Thursday, and when he arrived, something about his energy was changed. He touched me lightly on the top of my head as he greeted me on the field. After the game, we both lingered back, talking in front of the trunk of my car. I was a nervous wreck, forcing a smile and avoiding my sweat-drenched hair. Until that moment, I had never worried about how nasty and sweaty I got while playing.

“When are you free?” he asked, running one hand through his hair, “I want to take you out.”

“Hmmm,” I said, stalling to compose myself. It wasn’t what I expected to hear, given it had only been days since our conversation about his imminent breakup. “Saturday or Sunday both work for me.”

“Cool,” he said. “Sounds good. We’ll figure it out.”

We hugged goodnight and headed our separate ways. When I got home, he messaged me almost immediately.

I’ve never been so awkward asking a woman out in my life.

You did fine, I promise you I got the message, I replied, giggling to myself on the floor of my bedroom. 

You’re just being sweet. What day exactly is best for a date?

***

What I liked about our first date, was that he wouldn’t shut the fuck up.

I’d only ever seen him in the noisy shuffle of the team, warming up, on the sidelines, or at the bar. He was outgoing but always gave others the room to speak. Sitting across from me in the dim glow of a country bar we hadn’t planned to end up in, it felt like he couldn’t stop. His words tumbled out a mile a minute, stories about his childhood, the car he’d dreamed of, his coworker he couldn’t stand. I hung onto every word, unsure if it was his voice or the gin that had me light-headed. You know that feeling, when you should go home but don’t want to leave? That pull kept us there, long past when we should have left, lingering far too late for a Sunday night. 

We didn’t care.

He parked by the pool outside of my townhome, and before I could get a word out, he leaned over and kissed me. It happened so fast that I barely had time to react, but when it did register, I reacted. Heat in my cheeks, spreading everywhere to envelop us. The rough side of his cheek scraping my soft one, his hands in my hair. It took about five minutes for me to end up on top of him in the driver's seat, my short sun-dress doing a poor job of covering the thin black silk of my panties.

“You are so hot,” he said, over and over again, laughing and tilting his head backwards and grinning beneath me as if he couldn’t believe it was real. Softer kisses in between passionate ones, quiet laughs, and my sudden inability to verbalize. We spent two hours in his car, hitting a point of such physical intimacy it felt ridiculous not to move into the bedroom. 

“My bedroom’s right there,” I pointed out, looking up and nodding my head to where the building stood, less than 500 feet away. 

He shook his head, smiling beneath me. “I’m gonna make you wait.”

I groaned in annoyance. Until he’d kissed me, I hadn’t fully recognized how badly I’d wanted him, but now that we’d gotten started it felt all-consuming - I couldn’t get enough. Finally, I shifted my weight off of him and back into my own seat, releasing out a breath as my body finally began to calm back down. He leaned over and kissed me again and again as I rose to meet him. 

“Wait,” he gasped out, finally pulling back as things started to escalate again. “Wait.” We both sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, and sinking back into our own seats. “We need to have a more serious conversation.” He turned onto his side, on his laid back seat, as I did the same.

“Fine,” I said in mock annoyance. “Killjoy.” 

It wasn’t that I disagreed - there was no denying the mess tangled around us, what was growing between us hadn’t started in innocence. I had walked into the date with my mind buzzing with a million questions, every what-if circling like a storm. Yet, even before I’d picked up the brush to do my makeup, I knew the truth: I didn’t want this to be about her. I wanted it to be about us, whatever that meant. I just wanted to drown in the moment, leave the complications for later.

“So I broke up with my girlfriend for you,” he said, looking over at me.

“Did you though?” I responded, genuinely surprised. “I figured it was more along the lines of you were unhappy with her in some way, and then you met me and felt like I might be a better match.”

“No,” he shook his head vigorously. “Not at all. I was happy with her and putting effort into making it work. You’re the reason we broke up.”

I tilted my head, disbelief flooding my mind. If he had truly been happy, would my entrance into his life have swayed him at all? The question clawed at the edges of my thoughts. Could I really have disrupted something solid, something real? I went quiet, the weight of the unspoken hanging heavy between us. 

“It’s like this,” he said, turning further onto his side so was facing me squarely. “When you showed up, at first I thought ‘she’s pretty’, and then as I got to know you it became, ‘oh, she’s cool too’. Eventually it got to the point where I couldn’t stop thinking about the things I wanted to do to you. It became an issue, I was being awkward around you and never knew what to say.”

I had never once sensed that. “You asked me out a lot faster than I thought you would,” I confessed.

“I didn’t want to leave you waiting after we’d had that conversation,” he said. I’d been prepared to give him several weeks, but I appreciated that he had put thought into making me feel secure.

 “I actually broke up with her the day before I asked you out.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Do you need time to process it? I would never have expected you to ask me out that quickly.” 

He slowly shook his head. “No, actually, I’ve processed it.”

I know who I am in the aftermath of a breakup - disoriented and unraveling, a mess of thoughts and emotions that flood me for days. I wrestle with every feeling and replay every moment, trying to find some semblance of sense. The idea of him moving past the end of a serious relationship in just a few days felt impossible to grasp. It seemed too quick, too tidy, as if he’d skipped over the wreckage entirely. But I didn’t push - it didn’t seem like the correct time.  “Do you regret breaking up with her?”

“No, I don’t. I had to break up with her, I was flirting with you.”

Or he could have just stopped flirting with you, my mind hummed to me.

“Are you sad about your breakup?” I asked softly, running my hand down his arm. 

He sat forward a bit and looked down into the foot well. “I’m not sad,” he said slowly. “Not really. I’m sad that I hurt her. She fought back, and wanted to work it out, but I said no. I don’t like hurting her though. She’s a good person. But I’m a good person too, and so are you.” He was on a roll, practically talking to himself at this point, as if he was trying to convince himself of a point that I didn’t quite see. 

“Mmmm” I hummed, smiled and shook one hand back and forth. “Más o menos”. He looked up at me and chuckled. 

"Now’s your chance to ask me anything. What do you want to know?" he said, reaching over and brushing his fingers against my lip. My mind stumbled, thoughts slipping through my grasp like sand. It was late, and I’d been drinking, my focus dulled by the buzz, dim lighting, and his touch. I hadn’t expected to be put on the spot for all the questions I hadn’t even sorted out yet, the ones I wasn’t quite comfortable asking. More importantly, I was starting to think his answers might be skewed, the way he breezed through them, unconcerned, like this wasn’t the same person who just walked out of a relationship. He definitely should have been sad, right? And what did being a good or bad person have to do with anything? I searched his face for a crack, but there was nothing. I pushed aside my uncertainty; we’d both been through a rollercoaster in the past few weeks. I picked the safest question I could.

“The keyboard,” I said, meeting his eyes and smiling, “that was totally a move though, right?”

“No,” he said. “I was just being friendly.” 

My brows furrowed and my mouth slid upwards in disbelief. “That was just you being friendly?” I said, skeptically.

“Yeah,” he said, earnestly. 

I wasn't buying his response. “Okay,” I said slowly, “what about sending me that Frank Ocean song?”

“What about sending you the Frank Ocean song?” he echoed.

“That was totally a move,” I said, laughing and shaking a hand at him.

“That’s just a good song,” he defended.

“It’s a great song”, I agreed,  “but it’s also a slutty song.”

“It’s a slutty song?” 

“Yes!” I proclaimed, laughing in complete shock. “That’s a song people fuck to.”

“It’s a good song,” he repeated, and I stared at him incredulously. 

The silence in the car pressed down, thick and heavy. I turned away, staring at the dash, my mind racing to catch up with what was unfolding. He sensed it, knew something was off, but didn’t realize what. His hand found my face, gripping it gently and shaking it, trying to pull me out of whatever place I’d slipped into.

“What’s going on? What are you thinking?” he asked quietly, his voice too soft for the weight of the moment. Men asked me that a lot, like they could see the wheels turning behind my eyes but couldn’t quite follow the gears. He was no different. It rattled me that he didn’t see the line he crossed, or understand that what he did was wrong for someone who claimed to be committed. The words sat heavy on my tongue, refusing to form. I met his eyes, blinked once, and held the silence just a little longer.

“If this is going to work between us, we need to have open communication,” he implored me, as if he could sense somehow he’d begun to lose me in this conversation.

“What is it that you want then,” I said finally, “are you just here to fuck around?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head again. “I’m taking you seriously and I want to try and make things work with you. That’s why we’re not having sex tonight. I didn’t want you to think that I broke up with her just to sleep with you.”

“I never thought that,” I said, my voice steady but quieter than I expected. It was the truth. The thought had never crossed my mind.

“The fact that I can’t stop kissing you is a great sign,” he added reassuringly.

As I sat there, I replayed everything he’d done in my head - the way he’d taken time to get to know me, the small gestures, the late-night texts, and the carefully selected songs. He'd put in too much effort, invested too much attention for this to be just a game to him. I wasn’t naïve; I knew when a guy was just trying to get me into bed. But this felt different. He had crossed boundaries, blurred lines, but somehow I couldn’t believe it was as simple as him chasing some fleeting thrill. He had never once turned a conversation sexual. Until the music sharing, everything had been achingly sweet and playful.

“What is it that you need from me,” he said as he ran his thumb along my forehead, “to make this work?”

I took a deep breath. It was hard to get the words out. My voice shook a little, which I hated, but I was about to ask him for something I’d never asked a man for  before.

“I need you to show up consistently,” I said, my voice firm at first. “That’s all. Just do what you say you’re going to do, just be there.” He nodded slowly, looking over at me, sensing the vulnerability beginning to creep into my word. His brow furrowed.

"What are you scared of?" he asked softly.

The next part came out almost in a whisper. “People keep leaving me,” I said softly. “And I can’t go through that again.” Tears began to slip down my cheeks. I wiped them away with one hand, my other still held in his.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he started, “but I’m going to try.”

“I know,” I said. “One foot in front of the other,” I muttered to myself, several times, not making eye contact. 

“One foot in front of the other?” he teased, a smile in voice. “So what, we’re walking now?”

“We’re walking,” I said, laughing as I continued to wipe my face. “And the tears are actually a good sign.” And they were. I took them as an understanding that my body trusted him on some level, even in the moments my mind was acting up and picking apart his responses to me.

We hand-in-hand up to my place, and spent another twenty minutes making out on the porch. All tenderness faded into the background as he shoved me against the rough stucco of my townhome, and I yanked on his shirt needily. “You could come in,” I murmured against his mouth, while his hand found me through my panties. My lips were swollen, my hair was a fucking mess, and my dress was pushed so far up that any neighbor could easily have seen all of me.

He smiled and pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. “Next time.”

I opened the door, stepped across the threshold and turned around to say goodnight, only to have him yank me back onto the porch to keep making out. When we finally broke apart another five minutes later, both of us slightly out of breath, he gently guided me back inside the door with his hands.

“You’d better get in there and lock it,” he said, grinning.

I laughed, shaking my head, closed the door and clicked the lock into place.

***

He kept his word the next time I saw him. We were blackout drunk on tequila in the middle of the night, after a pool party. He carried me from the door of his apartment to his bed, and we tore into each other well into the morning, dozing off only to wake up and go at it again. In the haze of it all, he whispered wild, intimate things - things that felt like confessions. He said, "I love you" at least three times. He told me he wanted me to have his children, that I was made for him, that my body was his, that next time he wanted to use toys on me and that I didn’t need to worry about my roommates and noise in the future because I’d be at his place, being as loud as I wanted.

In the soft morning light, we dozed off tangled for hours. “Come here,” he murmured when he realized I was awake. “I want your skin on mine.” I snuggled into him, letting his arms envelop me, the warmth of his body pressing against mine. I loved the feel of him holding me, his arms securely wrapped around me. At one point, our faces were inches apart. My eyes were closed, but I wasn’t asleep. “I love you,” I heard him breathe, and my heart raced, but I kept my eyes shut, continuing to feign sleep.

I’d always been stingy with my "I love you's." Saying it felt too final, like handing over a piece of myself I may never get back. I didn’t want to give that part of me away, only to watch someone slip out of my life, taking those words and a part of me with them. I’d rather care without surrendering to the unknown that followed those words were spoken. I prided myself on being the type of person who meant what they said, and never spoke cheaply. It had only been two weeks. I wasn’t there yet, that type of trust took time. I waited thirty seconds, then blinked my eyes open. His eyes were shut, but his breathing wasn’t deep enough for him to be asleep. Slowly, I let myself rest and pushed my face deeper into his chest, breathing in as I let myself drift back off.

Later that morning, as the light seeped through the blinds became harder to ignore, we woke with our bodies still tangled together. He ran his fingers through my hair and whispered, “You’re so beautiful, and you’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever met.” I closed my eyes and let his words settle over me, breathing him in, savoring the quiet moment. The words lingered, soft and intimate, like a secret shared between the sheets.

Eventually I kissed him goodbye and departed, hungover but happy. I had no idea what was coming next.

***

I went straight from his place to the rock climbing gym to meet my climbing partner, Nelson.

"Late night?" he said, raising his eyebrows at me as I dumped my gym bag unceremoniously onto the ground.

I held up my forearm. “Well, I have a hickey on my arm, so I’d say yes.”

His mouth dropped open, and he started to laugh. I told him everything as I pulled my harness up around my waist, tightening the straps as needed.

"Chrissy," he said when I finished, "that's all insane."

“It is,” I agreed, smiling as I leaned against the wall.

“And you're okay with all of it? Everything he said?” he asked, still flabbergasted.

I waved my hand in the air. “Yeah, I think so. I mean, we were really drunk, so he gets a partial pass for that.”

“That’s absolutely crazy,” Nelson repeated, shaking her head as we headed towards the wall and started tying in.

I shrugged. “I’m not there yet, but I’m okay with him saying all of that because I see it. I see us working out in the long term, and I don’t want him to feel embarrassed about it.”

He shook his head at me with a grin, coated his hands in chalk, and started to climb.

***

The worst thing someone can do to me was send a “can we talk?” message and leave me hanging. That’s exactly what he did two days after we’d slept together. Every second twisted my nerves as I stared at my phone, mind racing to make sense of it. My heart raced, my thoughts ran wild, dissecting every recent interaction, replaying every word and glance, and trying to predict the moment that was looming ahead. 

The next day, I bought him a piece of tiramisu at the coffee shop where I worked. I calmed myself, convinced everything would be fine, he’d been really consistent with me. I told myself what I was feeling belonged to the men who had come before him, but not to him. 

When I found myself sitting in his car, parked on a small, quiet street near the beach, the stillness around us amplified the tension inside me. Every breath I took felt like it was building toward something inevitable. All the anxiety that had piled up the day before had suddenly returned and  was about to break open.

He finally spoke, his voice steady. “I think we should just be friends.” His words landed hard, and before I could fully absorb them, he added with a casual grin, “But it’ll be hard for me to keep my hands off you.”

I froze, my mind reeling as I tried to make sense of the contradiction. Friends, but not really. My body tensed as he kept talking, calm and sure of himself, like he had already made peace with his decision.

“I need headspace,” he said, as if it were a simple fact. “To figure things out.”

The clarity in his voice was like a slap. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t waver. He knew exactly what he wanted - or didn’t want. Meanwhile, I sat there trying to process the weight of it all. He was pushing me away, but leaving the door cracked open just enough, and I didn’t know whether to step through or slam it shut.

I did what I always do first, I negotiated. “We should go at a slower pace,” I told him. “Things have been going fast, and we both have a lot to process.” It was something I had planned on saying anyways - I had never anticipated our first time sleeping together would be when blackout drunk, and while I was okay with the confession of love, it definitely had happened too quickly. He began shaking his head almost as soon as I started talking. 

“No, I need to be on my own, I need my headspace.”

“I don’t understand,” I argued. “You said you broke up with your girlfriend for me, and now you’re just going to throw us away?”

“Chrissy, I know myself really well, and I know that I’m not in a place to be dating you right now. Look at the way I’ve been acting. That’s why I was so quiet the next morning.”

Truthfully, I hadn’t even registered that he’d been quieter than normal the morning after we’d slept together, I figured it had been a mixture of the hangover and exhaustion. Did that mean he’d been thinking about disposing of me, even as I was naked in his bed?

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.

“I’m entitled to my feelings,” he said.

I sat there shook my head, the silence stretching on.

“Do you remember saying ‘I love you’?” I finally asked him.

“Was I asleep?” he returned.

“I don’t know, I was pretending to be asleep so I wouldn’t have to respond,” I admitted, feeling a mix of embarrassment and defiance. But deep down, I also wasn’t buying for a second that he had been asleep either. I had grown up with a close friend who was a chronic sleep-talker, and from personal experience, I knew it never came out as just a single, clear, quiet sentence like his had. Sleep-talking was usually a jumble of slurred words, fragmented thoughts, and nonsensical phrases - never anything so purposeful or coherent. I pictured the way his words had slipped out, deliberate and unhesitating, each syllable landing with an eerie precision that didn’t fit the hazy randomness of sleep. It wasn’t just what he said, but how he said it - the softness of his voice, the way it lingered in the morning light between us. 

“What do you want me to do Chrissy, I was asleep,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, and shrugging off the responsibility of his words.

“It is so stupid,” I say, “that you would throw us out because you need headspace.”

“Well it’s the way that I feel, and I’m entitled to my feelings.”

“Maybe, but you breaking up with me now, instead of trying to work through your issues, and talking me through what you’re feeling, doesn’t make any sense. You broke up with your girlfriend for me, and now you won’t even try to make things work?”

“I’ve been awake for days thinking this through,” he said. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“You’re hurting me more by leaving now than you would if things didn’t work out in a few months,” I argued, my voice wavering as frustration and disbelief twisted together. The whole situation left me flummoxed, an ache of confusion spreading through my chest. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. To me, trying and failing was always better than not trying at all. And giving up on something barely two weeks in? That wasn’t trying - it was running away.

I felt blindsided, the kind of betrayal that stings not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s so careless. It was the kind of hurt that comes from someone pulling you close, letting you believe in the possibility of something good, only to yank it away as if it had never mattered at all. I searched his face, trying to find any trace of regret or doubt, but all I saw was a frustrating calmness, a detached certainty that left me feeling even more unmoored. He was choosing to leave before anything had a chance to take root, and that was something I just couldn’t understand.

“I’m sorry we’re in this situation.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t know, bad,” he said.

“I feel like I did something wrong, and this is my fault,” I whispered.

“It’s not, it’s not your fault,” he insisted, but I just couldn’t believe that. If that was true, why would he not try to work through things, or ask me to wait a few weeks?

We went in circles like that for an hour. I cried most of the time.

***

When I finally stumbled out of his car and slammed the door behind me and the safety of my townhome walls wrapped around me, my anger broke free, raw and seething. His touch had muted it all - his hand gripping my thigh, my face buried in his neck, the weight of his presence pinning down the storm inside me. I’d been tongue-tied and hollow, lost in the haze of him. But now, alone in my space, the words poured out of me through my phone, bitter and biting, everything I’d been choking on finally clawing its way to the surface.

It spilled out of me in frantic messages, I called him selfish, told him he’d led me on, and strung me along with promises he never meant to keep. You said you’d show up for me, I hurled at him, the words flying from my fingers faster than I could think of them. I told him there was no way we’d be friends, that I wanted him out of my life for good.

He fired back, insisting he was just being honest. Don’t say things you can’t take back, he warned, his words like a slap. It’s messed up and unfair for you to throw this at me. Then he added, with an audacity that stung, I know who you are, and this isn’t you. I’m going to ignore this. Chrissy this isn’t you.

But he was wrong - this was me, raw and exposed, no longer holding back the flood of everything I’d kept buried inside. I’d been through this before - time and time again, dealing with men who were careless, who took what they wanted and left me bruised in ways that didn’t show. But with him, it was supposed to be different. I had let myself believe in him, he had become the exception to my usual indifference. He’d left me for dead, stranded in the flaming destruction of what we’d almost had. The person I’d thought he was - the one who made grand gestures, who had sold me some version of a caring future, who had told me he would try to be there - was gone, replaced by someone cold who couldn’t even meet me halfway. 

He offered a half-hearted apology, saying it was unfortunate, referring to it yet again as an ‘situation’ we had found ourselves in. But I was furious. I needed him to own the mess he’d made, to admit that his choices had torn through me, but he refused to shoulder the blame. He was the one who’d walked away at the first flicker of uncertainty, not me. He quit before we even had a chance to try, and it left me raging against the empty space where his accountability should have been.

By the time he decided to call, I had started driving. “Chrissy,” he said, his voice laced with an edge of condescension, “are you losing control of your temper?” 

I felt him gauging my reaction, waiting to sift through the tone of my voice. I was speeding down the freeway now, tears streaming as I made my way to Kelly’s house, a mess of raw emotion. But in that moment, I forced myself to steady my breath and pull it together.

“No, this isn’t like that. This is actually the way I feel.”

“This is why I didn’t want to be intimate with you,” he snapped, “I didn’t want it to affect our intertwined lives.”

I hung up.

My breath started to heave in and out, and I swerved on the freeway. He had no idea that intimacy for me wasn’t about whether or not we’d had sex, it was about trust.

***

Later in the night, I sent him one more message. 

I can’t sleep. I don’t take back the sentiment of the things I said earlier, but I am really sorry you’re going through all of this. And I was.

I’m sorry you can’t sleep, and sorry in general, he replied.

I didn't sleep for a single minute that night.

I never gave him the piece of tiramisu I had bought him, it would rot on my counter for weeks before I finally threw it away.

***

I quit our softball team. The thought of seeing him week after week and pretending nothing had happened felt insurmountable. When I finally broke the silence to tell him I was done playing, he wanted to "talk it out," to patch things up, as if words could fix the gaping void he'd left in me. The weight of what he’d done still churned my gut, making me nauseous some days, lightheaded on others. I told him I needed space, just to find solid ground again.

Meanwhile, I buried myself in anything I could get my hands on - books, articles, posts about forgiveness - searching for a way forward, some sign that I might be able to not just survive this, but to eventually return to normal. But his apology clung to me like a snake coiled in my mind, hissing, reminding me of all the ones before him. It felt hollow, distant, like he hadn’t even come close to grasping the damage he’d caused. I wrestled with whether to open that door again, knowing his words might crash down on the fragile progress I’d fought for. But still, I reached out, asked him why he kept apologizing for “the situation.” What did that even mean?

His response came quickly, but I was wrapped up in a storm of Friday morning meetings, and it took me over an hour to open. When I did, I wished I hadn’t. Instead of answering my question, he accused me of twisting the story to the softball community, said he’d heard things through the grapevine, and claimed people were treating him differently because of me.

Leave me alone, you’re not the kind of person I want in my life.

I apologized immediately. I told him, yes, I’d spoken to people - but they were my friends, people who had held me through the worst of the confusion and the pain. I hadn’t meant to wound him. I hadn’t expected the story to spiral beyond them, and if it had, I regretted it. I told him I didn’t stand for anyone mistreating him and that if it came to it, I’d set the story straight.

He never responded.

Then

The shock clung to me.

Everyone had something to say to me, some piece of advice or theory that was seemingly conflicting.

“Honestly Chrissy, he’s the worst of the softball boys yet,” said my best friend.

“He probably never bought you that keyboard,” said Priscilla, “he was probably just trying to sleep with you.”

“He’s a bad dude,” said another friend. “Players like that, they just like to sleep with new women, even if they have it good with the old one.”

“I once had a guy eat me out on my period, and then dump me,” said Sheila consolingly.

“Seriously Chrissy, you need to stay away from this guy. He sounds really manipulative, like he could really fuck up your life. Block him,” added Corey.

“The ‘I love you’ thing is a classic fuckboy move,” said Joe. “I used to do it too, it’s manipulative because it paints a picture for the women of what it could be like.”

“Sounds like he’s just reaping the social consequences of his own actions,” said Felicity.

“I can say with certainty, that he would never want you again after you went nuclear on him,” said a mutual.

“I think that he really liked you, and that you were the one, Chrissy, but something else happened that we’re not aware of,” claimed another.

But days slipped into weeks, and weeks slipped into months, and I never heard from him again. I saw him in passing at least once a week, but we never spoke or made eye contact, brushing past each other in claustrophobic silence.

***

I drowned myself in a well of self-hatred.

Over and over again, I saw myself typing in a fury, calling him selfish, hurting him in a moment of absolute anger when he likely just needed understanding. I imagined him in his own car, head against the steering wheel, heart leaping out of his chest, a mess of anxiety, self-loathing, and anger - just like me but unable to cry and without a friend’s porch to throw himself down on, unannounced and hemorrhaging emotion. 

My back found the white brick of the satellite track building standing adjacent to the field for the first time in nearly a year, as I slid down and down and down, unable to control my own breathing, eyes shut and tears rolling as I whispered, “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault” as if by repeating it I could convince myself of its validity. 

But like he’d warned condescendingly to me, I couldn’t take back the things I’d said. 

I heard it in the back of my mind in the lab, at the grocery store, and on the field - this was my fault, the version of me who had flung words through cyberspace wasn’t enough for him. That’s why he didn’t come back. If I had been good enough - better, sweeter, more patient - he’d have returned, tried to fix things. I’d be back in his arms, back in his bed, and he would still be looking at me in dazed wonder.

***

The world distorted around me like a kaleidoscope, and I no longer trusted my own vision.

I put scene after scene under a magnifying glass, attempting to find some answer for why he’d done what he’d done. Eventually I came to the sinking realization that I had no idea what was going through this man’s mind, that every assumption I’d made had been built on sand. He became a warped figure in my memory, flickering between the charming, attentive person I thought I knew and the cold stranger who left me adrift. I couldn’t tell which version of him was real or if either of them had ever existed, and every time I tried to peer into his state of mind my reflections of him twisted further from reality. I questioned myself relentlessly - how could I have been so incredibly, stupendously wrong? How did I let myself get pulled into his orbit without ever seeing the cracks? I listened to the 40 or-so songs he’d sent me on repeat, trying to find some echo of reason within them. When friends would ask me in the months to come why I had such a hard time letting go of him, the songs he sent me were my first defense. “You can fake a lot of things,” I would argue with the people who only had my best interests at heart, “but not those songs. You can’t fake knowing, understanding, and sharing that music.”

I choked down meal replacement shakes on the days I felt the queasiest, trying to fill the cavernous place inside me. I was haunted by the echo of his absence and the undeniable truth that I had believed in something that was never real. And now, all that was left was the sting of his indifference, the empty space where his commitment should have been, and the bitter taste of my own misplaced trust. Narrowing my eyes and snapping at friends, I wouldn’t believe even the simplest observation made by others, frantic in my disbelief yet desperate for a single glimpse of clarity. My trust had never been particularly strong to begin with, but now my grasp on reality felt tenuous at best.

***

I spiraled out, trapped by the tragedy of unfulfilled promise.

It consumed me. Sheets tangled around my legs as I tossed and turned late into the night. I wrote, and I wrote, and I ranted, and I wrote but still I couldn’t seem to let go of what gripped me. I hated myself, I hated him, I hated both of us, but the vision I had of our potential still taunted me. I saw myself making him pancakes in his kitchen, him taking me to his favorite Thai place, and me introducing him to my version of Tiki golf. In this version of reality, we listened to music together on the floor; we played softball together. We talked about politics late into the night, made out in the hot tub, and dozed off on the couch on the weekends. He used toys on me in bed, and I learned about his experiences growing up in the middle of nowhere. It took a long time, but we got to the part where I could actually say ‘I love you’ back. The idea of what could have been was suffocating, I would wake up crying in the morning, my body filled with a hollow, empty feeling that I had both had and lost something infinite. It was real, it could have been real, I swore to myself twelve times a day.

***

I dragged myself through the motions. 

I worked, even if I worked from home. I went to softball. I did my dishes. I kept my social engagements, clinging to the last tenuous bit of control I had over my life. From experience, I knew that the second I stopped going through the motions, when I began to skip work and working out, was the second I was in danger of losing myself. Days bled together, and I was unable to muster even an ounce of joy.

People must have murmured about us in the weeks that crawled by, but if they did, their voices never touched me. I existed in that space, but only barely - my body moving through time while I floated somewhere distant, severed from the world around me, lost in myself. Even if their whispers had reached my ears, they would’ve washed over me like air. Their words held no weight, just empty sounds swirling in the void. I had already given up believing in anything others said.

***

I scrambled to take responsibility, desperate to know I was capable of doing better.

I just feel like I still don’t know what I’m responsible for in all the back and forth of this mess, I texted Priscilla late one night.

This isn’t your fault, she said for about the millionth time. Why do you keep taking responsibility?

I think it’s important, I say, to understand what you did so you don’t make the same mistakes twice.

If you want to take responsibility for something, said Priscilla, take responsibility for the fact that even after all this you still don’t seem to think he’s a bad person.

That one stung a bit, but it stung like the truth.

In the weeks that followed, I couldn’t stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend. I hoped that she had no idea what had really ended her relationship - that she was blissfully unaware, spared from the weight of it all. And I hoped she was handling it better than I was, because the thought of her suffering like I was, unraveling in quiet corners, felt unbearable. 

***

I finally did one thing more than just go through the motions.

For academics who are often booked from morning until night with meetings, courses, reading papers, and whatever small blocks of actual work fit in between, attending seminars and talks are like working out or cleaning your bathroom - difficult to convince yourself to do, but rarely regretted.

“Network like a Pro!” the flier proclaimed in my inbox. 

The woman who stepped up to speak was the antithesis of the typical scientist. Clad in a vibrant green monochrome suit, she radiated an infectious energy. Her bright demeanor was impossible to ignore, and at first, I was doubtful. 

Her talk centered around our relationship with the unknown. She argued that networking, often a source of dread, stemmed from our fear of the unfamiliar. Who enjoys walking into a room full of strangers and striking up conversations? Yet, she pointed out, our reluctance was more about the stories we spun in our heads than the actual situation. In an environment meant for making connections, if we approached someone, introduced ourselves, and shared our passions, what was the worst that could happen?

As I listened, I wondered if this energetic, middle-aged woman had insights worth considering. Was my inability to leave my grief behind rooted in a fear of the future, clinging to the comfort of my pain in some twisted way? At the core, was I truly that fragile and apprehensive?

And yet, Networking Lady wasn't wrong - not about people in general, and certainly not about me. I was terrified of networking events, much like a stereotypical scientist who shows up for free food and then retreats to a corner with a laptop and headphones. Even the thought of engaging in generic small talk made me recoil, as if even the smallest hint of vulnerability was too much to bear.

I can feel the chip on my shoulder and my blatant snark like an invisible shield, coating me from the tip of my ponytail to the toes of my cleats everytime I step out of my car. I can sense my own resistance when someone I barely know waves at me, or tries to make eye contact, as if the act of lowering that invisible shield in acknowledgement for even a second might cost me something I could never get back. It takes a lot for anyone to break through that fog, to pierce the numbness I wear like a second skin. 

And now, even though I saw him for who he truly was - careless at best - I couldn’t shut that door. I couldn’t retreat back into my usual detachment. That familiarity of indifference wouldn’t settle back in; he’d cut through it too cleanly, leaving a gash that refused to close, leaving me wanting a future that I had never really considered for myself before.  

In those weeks I had become comfortable with that strange, sinusoidal grief. I hated him, and I worried about him. Some might call it empathy, but that wasn’t what held me prisoner. It wasn’t some soft-hearted understanding that kept me bound to some version of him which likely didn’t exist; it was something darker, something that festered in the pit of my stomach. I’d become accustomed to this strange, sickening cycle of grief and anger, playing out like a loop I couldn’t break. It became easier to cling to something that was familiar and painful to me, rather than face the idea that I would somehow have to learn to shrug off my layer of sarcasm again for someone else. Rather than claw my way out of the depths and face the fact that someone else might come along again, and someone else might not. 

***

I finally went back to therapy. 

In the first session, I settled into a leather chair in the cozy, slanted-ceiling room at the top of the faculty club house. Beyond the window, the Pacific Ocean stretched out, while potted plants dotted the floor. After getting through some general discussion about the progress of my doctorate and focus in the workplace, I told the terse Eastern European woman appointed by the University about him. 

“I just don’t understand why he did this,” I said to her at the end of it.

“Well you only knew him a few months,” she replied.

“Yeah,” I agreed, “hardly any time at all. But I actually believed him. Everyone agreed he was such a great guy. He put a lot of effort in with me in the beginning, and he broke up with his girlfriend for me.” My voice was thick now, telling the story didn’t bother me as much as having to admit that I’d believed him.

“It sounds as if you’re learning about the nature of men.” 

I blinked at her.

“I want you to practice gratitude this week,” she continued, unphased by my silence, “I want you to be grateful this man is no longer in your life and able to manipulate you.”

A long pause ensued.

“I have a feeling he’s with someone else,” I confessed.

“He probably is,” she said back calmly. “And he probably will find himself unable to keep this new relationship. You said he was with his girlfriend for how long?”

“Five months is my best estimate,” I answer.

“Exactly,” she replied. “If he had been serious about having a relationship, and was ready for commitment, he would have either stayed with her, or with you. It sounds like from what you know, both of you would have filled that role. This kind of man, it’s a pattern for him. He jumps from one woman to the next, because for him, it’s all about novelty, and sex.”  

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.

She just looked at me solemnly, saying nothing back.

But to me it was. The problem was that I was an academic scientist through and through. I had spent most of my adult life exploring things deeply and intimately. I’d spent years looking at mass spectrometry scans, learning the intricacies of what makes certain compounds fragment, and learning to compile and debug complex pieces of code. To me, the same people were rarely uninteresting because newer things bloomed over time, and hidden pieces would be uncovered. I was still excavating pieces of my own personality, still learning what drove me, what my habits were, and how to become a better version of myself. And sex? Sex got better after the first time, not boring. 

“I didn’t mean that what you said was stupid,” I corrected, “I just don’t understand why he would do this.”

My therapist shook her head solemnly at me. “You are a bright young lady,” she said. “When we were discussing your doctorate, you told me exactly what you’re doing, and why. You’re balancing two laboratories and you have clear goals for the future. There is no need to hold on to this, you can have a romantic partner again in future, one who will be stable enough to give you what you need.”

You can. Not you will. 

There was a possibility I wouldn’t. Admittedly, Mother Russia wasn’t proving to be the most comforting therapist I’d ever had, but still the semantics of what she’d said would dig into my head for days.

“And what can you tell me about your own patterns?” she asked after allowing her words to sink in. 

“My patterns?” I queried back.

“Your romantic partner patterns. What have the ones before him been like? Your boyfriends?”

I froze. 

I thought about the string of men I’d dated over the years - they were burned into my memory. I remembered what I had told him in his car on the night of our first date, my voice shaky with the truth - people kept leaving me. It wasn’t some exaggeration; it was my reality, every word of it cutting deeper than I’d ever let on. I had never been with a man who didn’t make me feel like I was somehow less. 

And the realization hit me like a gut punch, knocking the wind out of me. I was someone who poured effort into every inch of my life, who always fought to be a better version of myself. But when it came to these men, I had always ended up on the losing side, tangled in their lies, and left to pick up the shattered pieces of my own self-worth. It was infuriating and humiliating, like some sick joke I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I tried.

I always try, I’m a trier. I try to be the roommate who cleaned up without being asked, the friend who always picked up the phone, the sister who showed up to every family event with food. I apologized and talked it out when I felt like I’d crossed lines with the people in my life, and I always aired my grievances and gave people a chance to correct themselves. I gave people the benefit of the doubt, and rarely allowed public perception to sway my opinions. On the field, I gave everything I had, dragging my aching body through every game, no matter how sore or exhausted I was. I clocked in extra hours at the lab on weekends, chasing results which never seemed to come, but I didn’t quit. I fought for my students, making sure they got the resources and recognition they deserved. I volunteered for classes no one else would teach, because I felt an ethical push to share expertise. I tracked my weight, meal-prepped like it was a religion, and squeezed in weightlifting sessions and runs outside of softball games - always pushing. It never felt like enough, but I never stopped.

I had a voice, and I used it. I spoke up in meetings, asked questions, fought for what I needed, and when someone asked for my opinion, I gave it straight, no hesitation, no holding back. But somehow, it never seemed to matter. I kept finding myself with men who were far more interested in how I looked than in anything I had to say. They slithered into my DMs with smooth lines and empty compliments. They paraded me around in front of their friends, and then left my messages unread for days. They were the type to call me beautiful, but their actions were hollow, their interest fleeting, and soon enough, I’d find myself discarded, dumped without warning, wondering if they’d ever really seen me at all.

And the worst part is, I fucking let them.

They blur together, into an ambiguous form, oozing up the glass walls of the sphere I hold them in within me. They storm out of my apartment in anger, they argue with the waitstaff, they have the nerve to tell me I’m prettier than they thought I’d be, they grip my thigh tightly in the back seats of Ubers and under tables in bars. Their hands wrap around my throat, but my words never reach their ears. 

When I think about that night we had drunken sex, months ago, I think about how I tried to slow him down, how I knew how badly we needed to have a serious conversation first and said so, pushing on his chest gently. I think about how in hindsight, him telling me it could wait, picking me up, and carrying me into his bedroom wasn’t hot: it was simply a way to get what he wanted. How every scrap of what I’d misconstrued as genuine effort, might very well have been just to get what he’d wanted.

He morphs, twists, and then melts down, his image melding into the other’s who preceded him in my mind. He’s exactly the same, but now the sphere that’s held that dark, viscous liquid has shattered, spilling out everywhere, unable to be contained, the damage no longer locked away and quarantined in some forgotten place.

“They’ve been like him,” I confessed to her, quietly “they’ve all been exactly like him.” 

“You’ll be back in a few weeks. We’ll talk about them,” she ordered.

I just nodded, my voice stuck in my throat. 

“It’s time you learn how to let all of them go, so this doesn’t happen again. Next time,” she said, her voice going soft for the first  time in our hour-long session, “you will do this slowly, and build trust more gradually.” She paused for a long moment.

“You are learning,” she repeated to me, “and it’s good that you learn this now.”

I nodded again, and the unspent tears finally began to fall. 

Now

I let my thoughts drift into the future.

I think about all the moments waiting on the horizon, those that I know are coming, that I can already feel in the pulse of my days. I see myself at lunch with the visiting Nobel Laureate next week, our words weaving between bites of something fancy, and I feel that thrill of brushing up against greatness. I think of me and my high school friends, packed tight in a tent under the cold desert sky, trying to spook each other in the pitch black, our giggles bouncing off the emptiness like it did when we were kids. I see my family gathered in my brother’s new backyard, the smell of grilling meat in the air, and the glow of string lights flickering above us as we toast to new beginnings. My Monday softball team goes on to win the season, and we celebrate with the over-the-top gala we’ve been discussing for seasons. I take so much comfort and pride in the long-lasting relationships and community I’ve built gradually with them.

I picture myself wandering through London’s narrow streets in autumn, the air sharp and cold against my cheeks. I see myself in Cambridge, sitting quietly in the cemetery with a scone in hand, the way my mentor did when she was a doctoral student here, feeling a strange kind of connection. I’m at the Red Lion Pub, and though my advisor is in Japan, my fellow graduate student is beside me; we’re deep into pints and conversations about genomics and viruses with professors whose papers we’ve read dozens of times. I’m in New Orleans in December, powdered sugar dusting my face as I take that first bite of a beignet, savoring the sweetness. Later we’ll wander through the jazz quarter, hearing something beautiful and new. I can feel the soft fabric of my nicest button-down, the one I’ll wear when I stand before my committee in late winter, the first of my cohort to advance to candidacy, my heart pounding with pride and nerves.

I see my bratty little puppy growing into her long legs, a full-size dog now, and my roommate and I continuing to guess her breed over coffee in our kitchen, the mystery of it making us laugh. In February my best friend and I are standing awe-struck in the aquarium in Atlanta, gazing at the whale sharks. We search for hot chicken like it’s our religion, and discuss our favorite books over cocktails. Now it’s next summer, and I’m in Nigeria, the sun bearing down on me as I teach bioinformatics, the days thick with heat. I won’t be able to run there, but I see myself on the sidelines of the courtyard where the men’s group plays softball every evening, convincing them to let me join, even if they hesitate at first. I feel the rhythm of it all, each future moment waiting to fold into my life, like pages in a story that’s still being written.

I watch my friends continue to evolve and change, each navigating their own trials and triumphs, resilient alongside me in this shared journey. Some exchange vows with their partners, some buy houses and have children, and others cross the finish line of professional school, their dreams finally recognized. And here I am, an aunt now, delighting in the laughter of a beautiful child out in Texas, her future bright with the promise of unscored goals.

In fleeting moments, I even catch glimpses of him. I see him in his glasses, a rare picture of relaxation given how busy we both are, balancing a glass of red wine on his hip, one hand on my knee, and the other holding a book as we quietly read together. Tomorrow I have to be in New York for a board meeting, and several days later I’ll be in Texas for my niece’s first birthday, but for now it’s just the two of us.

There are huge gaps in what I see of course. But now, instead of finding a tidal wave of fear in these gaps, I’m finding comfort in the number of possibilities ahead of me. 

***

The following week, when I step into the concrete courtyard by the ocean for the networking event, there's a pause - a moment when the noise swirls around me, and I feel suspended between what I’ve left behind and what lies ahead. My heart beats a little faster, tension creeping into my shoulders. It’s subtle, but it’s there - I’m still questioning myself.

But I keep walking.

I remind myself that it’s not about some grand declaration or perfect moment. My future will be built and my patterns will be broken by the small choices I make, like this one - putting one foot in front of the other, stepping into the unknown. For a second, I let go of the past, not because it’s easy, but because that story doesn’t belong in this space.

I’m here for me, it has nothing to do with them.

The voices around me blend into a low musical hum, but I’m no longer afraid. It’s just one room, one event, but in stepping into it, I feel a shift. It’s not gone, and I don’t think it ever truly will be. But at this moment, it feels lighter.

Epilogue 

After months of silence, he does reach back out to me, and unsurprisingly it’s about the keyboard. He says it’s finally come in the mail, and offers to give it to me. I refuse to take it. That keyboard - that stupid fucking keyboard - it was always somehow so central to everything. It came up in nearly every conversation, it pulled me back time and time again, leaving me unable to see things clearly because of how concrete it was. (My therapist and I will go on to discuss the keyboard quite a bit - how it was out of the realm of social normalcy, and how ultimately it wasn’t a sign of commitment and affection, he likely buys many women things to see who will be receptive to him.) 

When he offers me the keyboard, I remember something clearly from a much earlier point in time. I remember the day after he’d bought it for me, when I was in a panic about whether or not I should accept it. I lamented to a friend that he hadn’t really “understood the assignment”. The assignment had been to steal a rubber platypus, not to buy something with a platypus on it. After processing everything, I still can’t bring myself to hate him, but I now see the keyboard as a symbol of how incredibly wrong everything was.

Sitting at my desk at the University, I spin my chair gently from side to side, and glance at the line of the rubber platypuses dotting the right corner. Each one is from a friend, someone who has been a constant in a way he never could be. They’re from people who are actively choosing to live their lives alongside mine. We compete with and against each other on the field week after week, recommend books and music to each other, phone each other at weird times, play board games together, spend our weeknights eating spicy chicken and drinking beer amidst calming lo-fi music, cook and bake for each other, and have moments of uncontrollable bent over laughter at the oddest times, and in the oddest places. It’s been months now, and while the pain of what happened still unceremoniously yanks me under from time to time, I’m grateful that whenever I glance up from my screen throughout the day, what sits in front of me isn’t a reminder of him, but of the people who can and will show up. I pull my baseball cap a little lower, slouch down in my computer chair, and resubmerge myself into my code. Honestly, I’m so grateful.