A Little Pig

Chapter 4: The Version He Told

I met Eli at his apartment the next evening because I wanted to look at him while I asked the next question.

His place was familiar in the way a favorite sweater was familiar. The crooked lamp beside the couch, the record player with the broken lid, the square of sunlight on the floor that appeared at four every afternoon. I had spent hundreds of nights there. I had a toothbrush in his bathroom and a jar of my coffee in his kitchen cabinet.

He had made tea. It sat untouched on the coffee table.

"I asked Simon," he said. "He denied it."

"He denied it to you?"

"He says he doesn't run the account."

"Did you ask him about the details?"

"I asked whether he had written about you. He said no."

"Did you ask why he knew about my mother?"

"He said you'd mentioned it around him."

"I didn't."

"Maybe you did at a dinner."

"I told you in my kitchen after you asked me what was wrong. You were the only person there."

"I said maybe. I'm not saying I know."

I set my laptop on the table and showed him the post. "This was published the next morning."

Eli read it. His jaw shifted. He looked at the screen longer than necessary.

"Did you tell Simon about that night?" I asked.

"I might have said I was worried about you."

"That's not what the post says."

"I didn't give him your medical information."

"My mother's medication isn't in the post. It says I'm 'unreliable when family trouble comes up.'"

"Maybe he was talking about something else."

I stared at him. "Do you believe that?"

He rubbed his forehead. "I don't know."

That answer hurt in a new way. The first day, I had wanted him to say he didn't know. Now I wanted him to be brave enough to say what he did know.

I closed the laptop. "How long have you been talking about me with him?"

"We've been friends since we were kids. We talk about everything."

"Everything includes me?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you tell him?"

"Normal things. That we argued. That you're busy. That you get frustrated with my work hours."

"What do you say when you're frustrated with me?"

He sat down on the couch. "I'm not sure how to answer without making it sound worse."

"Try anyway."

"I've said you can be intense. That you always want to get to the bottom of things. That you don't let a small disagreement stay small."

I had heard versions of those complaints before, usually when we were already fighting. They had not sounded like notes being passed to someone else.

"Did Simon say anything about the account?"

"He said you're reading meaning into every post."

"Did you tell him what I found?"

"I told him you were upset."

"So he knows I'm looking at the account."

"He might."

"Did you tell him I was applying for the grant?"

Eli looked down. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I was proud of you."

The answer was simple. It was also not an excuse.

"I don't need you to stop being proud," I said. "I need you to understand that he took private things and turned them into a public story about me. And you gave him access."

"I didn't know he was doing that."

"Maybe not at first."

His face changed.

I placed the laptop in my bag. "That was a question."

"I don't know what I knew."

"You knew he criticized me."

"He jokes. He's always joked."

"About me?"

"He jokes about everyone."

"Does he post about you a thousand times?"

Eli looked at the tea. "No."

A silence stretched between us. I could hear the refrigerator running in the kitchen.

"I didn't think it was like this," he said.

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't want to turn your relationship with Simon into an issue. He's been my best friend for twenty years."

"And I've been your girlfriend for four."

"I know."

"Do you?"

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "I don't want to lose either of you."

I looked at the man I loved and tried to see the difference between a request for time and a request to keep carrying the problem for him.

"I am not asking you to pick a side before you know what happened," I said. "I'm asking you not to call it harmless while you still don't know."

"I didn't call it harmless."

"You said he jokes. You said I'm reading meaning into it. You said you don't want it to be a trial."

"I'm trying to keep things from getting worse."

"For whom?"

He didn't answer.

I stood. He reached for my hand, then stopped before touching it.

"Can we give it a few days?" he asked. "Let me talk to him."

"I'll give you a few days to find out what you already know. I won't give you a few days to convince me it doesn't matter."

He nodded once.

I drove home alone. At a stoplight, I passed the diner where we had celebrated our second anniversary. I had given him a framed photograph of the harbor. He had given me a key to his apartment.

When I reached my own place, I took the key off my ring and set it on the kitchen table. I didn't throw it away. I didn't want to make a choice simply because I was hurting.

But I also didn't put it back on the ring.