somehow. I just . . . have no idea how that looks.
He seems to read my mood as he lowers himself onto the bench beside me, sliding his arm along the back. “Hey, you. Everything okay?”
The impulse to hug him is nearly debilitating. “Yeah, just . . . long day.”
He laughs at this, reaching with his hand to wrap a gentle fist around my ponytail and tug. “And it’s only noon.”
“I met with Dad’s old financial adviser.”
With his other hand, he reaches up, scratching his eyebrow. “Yeah? How’d that go?”
“She wants me to sell one of the houses.”
Elliot falls silent, digesting this. “How does that feel to you?”
“Not great.” I look up at him. “But, I know she’s right. I don’t live in either of them. It’s just that I don’t want to get rid of either of them, either.”
“They both carry a lot of memories. Good and bad.”
Like that, he cuts right through everything. Even since the first time he asked about my mom, he’s gently relentless.
I pull a leg up and turn to face him. We’re so close, and even though we’re outside, in a public park, there’s no one around us and it feels so intimate. His eyes are more green than brown today; he’s a little stubbly, like he didn’t shave this morning. I slide my hand between my knees to keep from reaching out and cupping his jaw.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Elliot’s eyes dip briefly to my mouth and then back again. “Always.”
“Do you think I keep things bottled up?”
Straightening, he looks around, as if he needs a witness. “Is this a serious question?”
I push him playfully, and he feigns injury. “Sabrina suggested I have a habit of keeping people at arm’s length.”
“Well,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “you always talked to me, but I had the sense you didn’t really do that with anyone else. So maybe that’s still true?”
A car drives past, and its diesel engine chugs loudly around the parking loop, pulling our attention momentarily away from each other and out to the grass-lined lot. The faint noises of animal life trickle to us from the Little Farm, just up the gravel road.
When I don’t respond, he continues. “I mean, maybe I’m biased by our current circumstances, but I feel like maybe you don’t really . . . talk about stuff. And I might be pushing my luck here, but I get the feeling that Sean is that way, too.”
I choose to ignore that part, wanting to avoid the Sean conversation with Elliot entirely. I know now what I have to do, but I owe Sean enough to discuss it with him first. “I used to talk to Dad,” I say, sidestepping like a pro. “Not like I did with you, maybe, but about school. And Mom.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about now,” he says. “You were always pretty insular, but do you have anyone? Other than Sabrina?”
“I have you.” After an awkward beat, I add, “I mean . . . now I do.” Another pause. “Again.”
His expression straightens and Elliot picks up a twig from the ground, resting his elbows on his knees and spinning the stick between his fingers and thumb. Fidgeting.
I know—
I know—
I know what’s coming.
“Macy?” He looks over his shoulder at me. “Do you love Sean?”
I knew it was coming, yeah, but the weight of his question still propels me up off the bench and two paces away.
“I’ve seen you in love,” he says gently, not standing. “It doesn’t look like you’re in love with him.”
I don’t answer, but he reads me anyway.
“I don’t get it,” he growls. “Why are you with him?”
I turn back around to catch his expression, brow furrowed, mouth tight with emotion. It takes a few breaths for me to put the words together in a way that doesn’t feel supremely melodramatic.
“Because,” I tell him, “we have the totally fucked-up agreement of emotionally messed-up people—that was unspoken, I guess, until recently—that we only give each other a fraction of ourselves. Losing him would never wreck me.” I shake my head and look down at my shoe, toeing the dirt. I feel my epiphany from earlier about a robust, shared life starting to fade as Elliot pokes at my self-preservation instincts. I hate that Sabrina was right. I hate that retreating to my cocoon is my first reflex. “I realize how cowardly that sounds, but I don’t think I could take losing someone I love again.”