This was . . . this was terrible.
I swallowed around the rocks in my throat and was once more croaking my replies, “You don’t say.”
For some reason, a very specific teenage memory was summoned. My mother had invited me to lunch at a swanky hotel near my summer camp and I was excited. But when I arrived, she wasn’t alone. She introduced me to a man, and when she left to use the lady’s room, he told me that he was one of her lovers.
One of her lovers.
One of them.
I didn’t believe him, but I’d been twelve at the time. But when I told my mother what he’d said, she confirmed it.
“Monogamy isn’t for musicians, honey,” she said. Her voice had been gentle, her expression compassionate. “I love your father, and he loves me. Love isn’t supposed to be confining, it’s about allowing the space for the other to fly. We both have many partners who feed our creativity in different ways. The soul of an artist is too needy. Once person could never be enough.”
I knew this. This was fact. And Lisa also knew this, which was why—when Tyler hadn’t been faithful to her—no one was surprised.
Presently, Allyn lifted her phone in the air above her, as though searching for a signal. “If you were on any social media at all, you would know this. Or watched TV other than those Turkish shows with the hot guys. Or listened to the song lists I send you. I’ve been following Redburn for seven months, before they released the studio album. I think their next single releases this week—their fifth—let me see . . .”
I was having too many thoughts. Too many. Way too many.
However, the logical path forward decided to do me a solid and reveal itself, a miraculous unveiling of crystal-clear obviousness. If I thought about it rather than bemoaning it, I wasn’t surprised by Abram’s success, just like I wasn’t surprised by my ignorance of it.
“Shoot. I have no connection here and I didn’t download the album.” She frowned at her phone. “You should turn on the radio every so often, or check out the top ten once a month.”
Allyn was right. I didn’t listen to the radio. I didn’t visit coffee shops. I didn’t watch TV. I wasn’t on social media and I didn’t care to be. I no longer read articles written about me. Ever. Other than semi-stalking Abram’s sister Marie’s bylines and articles, I didn’t read much other than scientific journals.
Popular culture was a world I’d purposefully and systematically eschewed.
It didn’t matter if Abram knew who I was. It didn’t matter if he’d figured everything out. It didn’t even matter if he hated me. He was a wildly successful musician, living on the same planet as me, but now existing within a world firmly removed from mine.
The last two and a half years had been like waiting in a line with no guaranteed destination. It had been a line for the sake of lining up, for the sake of having a spot to stand. Then, abruptly and randomly, I was now at the front of the line. Standing in place and waiting were no longer options.
Abram and I, we were two circles in a Venn diagram that would never overlap.
We were two asteroids on opposite sides of the solar system, ensnared by Jupiter’s gravity, destined to orbit the asteroid belt in the same direction, but never together.
We were two magnets with the same polarity.
Conclusion: If he didn’t know about my deception, I would tell him the truth. It was the right thing to do. It was time. First, I’d call Lisa and inform her of my decision. And if he already knew, okay. That was fine.