The Intimacy Experiment (The Roommate #2) - Rosie Danan Page 0,111

in the same capacity,” he clarified, voice tight. “But I thought you deserved a full course, regardless of the circumstances. I wanted to do right by you, to the best of my ability.”

And to do right by Naomi, in finishing this wild endeavor he’d invited her to undertake.

“The last dating milestone we set out to cover in our syllabus was ‘how to break up,’ and normally I’d say I’m no expert in that subject, but I’ve recently gone through two simultaneous breakups. One with a job I thought I’d have for the rest of my career, and one with the woman I’d hoped to be with for the rest of my life. So, yeah”—he smiled a little—“I’ve got a lot of stuff to talk about, at least.”

The crowd broke into panicked whispers and heated gasps, the combined news of his departure from Beth Elohim and now his split with Naomi striking them all at once.

“You’d think my work as a rabbi would have prepared me for this kind of conversation.” Ethan kept going, because he knew if he stopped, he’d never finish. “Both types of oration are about tackling these huge, universally variable themes, trying to provide tangible advice on how to navigate them, in ways that don’t merely fall back on platitudes. It’s not easy. There are so many pieces of the human experience that can’t be explained, that fall outside the scope of our comprehension.”

Ethan had spent the past few days in reflection and meditation, trying to sort through his tangle of emotions.

He missed the synagogue every day. Missed his congregants, even the ones who didn’t understand or agree with the choices he made. They were trying to protect their beliefs, the same way he was. Even the members of the board who had voted to end the seminar series—even Jonathan, whose personal censure Ethan could still feel like a thumbprint on his heart—he could see how they had tried to navigate their uncertainty in ways they felt honored their community. They weren’t bad people. They just weren’t interested in the evolution—the intersections—of faith in the same way.

Choosing between the people he served at Beth Elohim and his relationship with Naomi felt like cleaving his soul in half, but no part of him could let her walk out of his life again.

“I don’t want to give the impression that any kind of ending—any breakup—is easy. You’re still losing something that matters to you. Still failing when you wanted to succeed. And it’s awful.”

It would take time for Ethan to process the loss of the work and the community he loved so much. Each morning he woke up and experienced the rejection, the shame of finding that he’d been naive in his optimism, all over again.

“A breakup is a crumbling of something you believed in. There’s always going to be collateral damage. Time and energy, sometimes years of your life, that you’ll never get back. And you deserve to mourn in whatever way makes sense to you.”

Perhaps someday he would find work at another synagogue, but right now he couldn’t imagine himself in a leadership position anywhere else.

Focus on these people. He could serve them in other ways. Helping them, even if it fell outside the bounds of the synagogue.

Focus on Naomi. On being the man she sees when she looks at you.

“Sometimes people break up, and afterward, they realize they made a mistake. And that can be terrifying too, in a different way.”

He scanned the mass of people in the bar, the mix of familiar faces and some he didn’t recognize, searching for red hair. Ethan had hoped that sending out an email announcing a last lecture might catch Naomi’s attention. Might show her that for him, what they’d started wasn’t over. But so far he saw no sign of her.

He wiped a hand across his forehead.

“If you’re anything like me, realizing your breakup was a mistake will probably terrify you, because things ended for a reason, and most likely the doubts and fears that pulled you apart are still there in some capacity. Often it seems easier to look for a clean slate, but sometimes the decision comes down to the simple fact that you look at your life and it’s just immediately so much worse than before—”

He stopped, emotion climbing out of his belly and into his windpipe, choking him. He missed Naomi so much his teeth hurt. Ethan didn’t know how to undo the events of the past few weeks; he only knew he had