The Unhoneymooners(75)

David must see some reaction in my face because he kisses the top of my head and says, “I’ve got you, honey,” and I nearly break down in his arms because whether it’s luck or generations of effort and attention ensuring it, I have a truly amazing family.

It’s only noon by the time I’m back home, and it’s depressing to register that I should be halfway into my second workday at Hamilton, meeting new colleagues, setting up accounts. But I admit there is a tiny glimmer in the back of my thoughts—it isn’t relief, not exactly, but it’s not altogether different from relief, either. It’s that I’ve accepted that it happened—I messed up, I was fired because of it—and that I’m actually okay with it. That, thanks to my family, I have a job that can carry me as long as I need it to, and for the first time in my life I can take the time to figure out what I want to do.

As soon as I finished grad school, I did a short postdoc and then immediately entered the pharmaceutical industry, working as the liaison between the research scientists and medical doctors. I loved being able to translate the science to more clinical language, but I’ve never had a job that felt like joy, either. Talking to Ethan about what he did made me feel like Dilbert in comparison, and why should I spend my entire life doing something that doesn’t light me on fire like that?

This fresh reminder of Ethan makes me groan, and although I know he’s at work, I pull out my phone and send him a quick text.

I’ll be home tonight if you want to come over.

He replies within a few minutes.

I’ll be there around seven.

I know he isn’t the most emotionally effusive guy, but the tone of his last three texts sends me into a weird panic spiral, like it’s going to take more than a conversation to fix whatever is going on with us, even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I have no idea what his perspective is on any of this. Of course I hope that he believes me, and that he apologizes for last night, but a tight lead ball in my stomach warns me that it might not go that way.

Looking at my watch, I see that I have seven hours until Ethan gets here. I clean, I grocery shop, I nap, I memorize the Camelia menu, I stress-bake . . . and it only eats up five hours.

Time is inching along. This day is going to last a decade.

I can’t call Ami and ramble about any of this, because I’m sure she’s still not speaking to me. How long is she going to keep this up? Is it possible that she’ll believe Dane indefinitely, and I’ll have to eat my words even though—again—I haven’t done anything wrong here?

I put the menu down on my coffee table and sprawl on the carpet. The possibility that this rift between me and Ami could become permanent makes me light-headed. It would probably be a good idea for me to hang out with someone for distraction, but Diego, Natalia, and Jules are all at work, Mom will only worry if she knows what’s going on, and calling anyone else in my family will just result in fifteen people showing up on my doorstep with sympathy dinner later when Ethan and I are trying to hash things out.

Thankfully he doesn’t make me wait. He comes over right at seven, holding takeout from Tibet Kitchen that smells so much more appealing than the pizza I’d ordered for us to share.

“Hey,” he says, and gives a little smile. He ducks, like he’s going to kiss my lips, but then makes a detour at the last second, landing on my cheek instead.

My heart drops.

I step back, letting him in, and it suddenly feels too warm in my apartment; everything seems too small. I look everywhere but at his face, because I know if I look at him and get the sense that things between us really aren’t okay, I’m not going to be able to keep myself together for the conversation we need to have.

It’s so weird. He follows me into the kitchen, we make up plates of food, and then we sit on the floor in the living room, on opposite sides of the coffee table, facing each other. The silence feels like a huge bubble around me. For the past week, Ethan has practically lived here. Now it feels like we’re strangers all over again.

He pokes at his rice. “You’ve barely looked at me since I got here.”

The response to this dries up in my throat: Because you kissed my cheek when you walked in. You didn’t pull me against you, or get lost in a long kiss with me. I feel like I barely had you, and now you’re already gone.

So instead of answering aloud, I look up at him for the first time and try to smile. He registers the failed effort, and it clearly makes him sad. An ache builds and expands in my throat until I’m honestly not sure I’ll be able to get words around it. I hate this somber dynamic more than I hate the fact that we’re fighting.

“This is so weird,” I say. “It would be so much easier to be snarky with each other.”

He nods, poking at his food. “I don’t have the energy to be snarky.”

“Me either.” I really just want to crawl across the floor and into his lap and have him tease me about my bra being too small or how I couldn’t stay away from him long enough to finish my dinner, but it’s like Dane and his fratty face are just parked here in between us, keeping us from being normal.

“I talked to Dane last night,” he says right then, adding, “late. I went over there late.”

Ami didn’t mention this. Did she even know that Ethan stopped by last night?

“And?” I say quietly. I have no appetite and basically just push a piece of beef around the plate.