Still Friends

Chapter 3: What I Thought He Promised

I had been in love with Jonah for nine months when we signed the lease in Ashport.

We were friends first. That mattered to me, and I thought it mattered to him. We'd grown up on the same block, survived the same miserable middle school, and sat together in the Tideglass kitchen after my father died. We had shared a car, a cheap apartment, and the specific kind of silence that didn't demand filling.

When Jonah kissed me at twenty-six, I laughed in his face.

Then I apologized, and he kissed me again.

For a while, being together felt like a thing we'd finally named, not a new thing we'd invented. We knew each other's habits already. I knew he hated fluorescent lights and loved baseball on the radio. He knew I forgot to eat when I was working and needed to walk around the block before I could talk about something difficult.

The move to Ashport had started as my idea. I'd been offered a position restoring historic theaters, and I wanted to take it. Jonah's mother had been doing well, the restaurant had a reliable manager, and he'd told me he was tired of being the person who always said maybe next year.

"Let's go," he'd said, on the back steps of the Tideglass. "We can make it work."

I believed him.

He helped me choose an apartment over a bakery on a street with no sidewalks. We applied together, though only my name ended up on the lease because his credit was tangled in a loan he'd taken out for the restaurant. I paid the deposit. I arranged the moving truck. I gave notice at the job I'd held for four years.

On the night I carried the last box to the truck, Jonah told me he wasn't coming.

He said his mother had been struggling more than he'd admitted. He said the restaurant was still depending on him. He said he'd been thinking about it for weeks but didn't want to add pressure while I was arranging everything.

He said he was sorry.

I asked why he had let me pay the deposit.

"I thought I could figure it out," he said.

"Before or after I gave notice?"

"I didn't know how to tell you."

"You could have tried."

"I was trying to make it work."

"You were trying to make me leave alone."

He had looked down at the curb. "I know."

That was the night I ended it. Not because he had chosen his mother or the restaurant. I could understand that. I ended it because he'd let me build my next life around a promise he'd already started taking back.

I drove to Glenhaven that morning and checked into a room above a florist. The woman at the front desk recognized my name from the message I'd left with her. She gave me a key and pointed out the coffee machine in the hall.

I put my suitcase on the bed and called Jonah.

He answered after the first ring. "Did you make it?"

"Not yet. I'm at the inn."

"Okay."

"I want to ask you something."

"Sure."

"Did you tell your mother we broke up?"

Silence.

"Jonah?"

"I told her we were having a hard time."

"That's not the same."

"I know."

"Did you tell her I ended it?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I kept thinking maybe you'd change your mind."

I closed my eyes. "So you let her think we were taking a break."

"I didn't say that."

"You let her think what she wanted."

"I guess I did."

I sat on the edge of the bed. I could hear traffic on the street below, wet tires hissing over pavement. "You keep treating what I said as if it's a temporary obstacle. I didn't end it to make you prove you loved me. I ended it because I couldn't trust your word."

"I know."

"Then why didn't you tell her?"

"I didn't want it to be final."

"It was final when I said it."

He took a breath. "You're right."

There it was again: right words arriving after the harm had already done its work.

"I'm not calling to start a fight," I said.

"I know."

"I'm calling because I don't want you telling your mother I'm cruel for leaving, or telling anyone I just need time."

"I haven't said that."

"Good. Don't."

"I won't."

I rubbed the corner of the receipt in my pocket. "I'm not asking you to pay me back. I'm asking you not to rewrite what happened."

"I won't."

"Okay."

I didn't hang up right away. Neither did he.

At last he said, "Do you still want to be friends?"

I looked at the suitcase, then at the old framed photograph in the box on the floor.

"I don't know," I said.

"That's fair."

"It might not be fair to either of us."

"I know."

I almost laughed. "You don't have to agree with every sentence I say."

"I'm trying to listen."

"Try something different."

He went quiet.

I ended the call a moment later. It was the first thing I'd done that day that felt like mine.