We’ve been trying. Phil and I have really been trying to work on this relationship. We’ve had several conversations at this point. In-depth, hours-long talks about whether our relationship is worth saving. I told him the truth: I just don’t know if I love him. I feel comfortable and safe, but in the way that I might with a friend. I don’t enjoy sex with him. I never have. Phil convinced me that since sex isn’t the main part of a romantic relationship, we can grow closer first and let sex become something we both enjoy with more connection. But sex with Phillip still feels dry—slow, disconnected. My thoughts wander, and the few times I’ve managed to really get into it, it’s always because I began to imagine being with other men I’ve known. Not Logan. Never Logan. That’d feel like a betrayal to both Phil and myself.
Phil argued that relationships are about dedication more than anything else. “Of course our relationship won’t work if we give up at the first sign of trouble,” he’d said.
I’m still not sure. Phil likes things to be done in a particular way. He loves to show perfect, smiling photos of us on Instagram, and he gets angry whenever he makes a mistake. I’ve imagined, over the years, reaching a place where I feel complete freedom. I’m not there yet, but I think I’m getting closer to becoming the sort of person who can laugh and sing and say what’s really on my mind, without caring about what anyone else will think. I deserve to live fiercely with the kind of energy that feels like a celebration of life, without an ounce of shame for myself. Phillip, though—sometimes when he looks at me in the quiet moments, I feel judgment in his gaze, like he wants to box me in and turn me into someone he believes I should be. I don’t feel free with Phillip. I’m not sure that I ever will.
Phil doesn’t look at me. I can practically feel the jealousy rolling off him in waves. “Why are you still thinking about Logan?” he asks.
“I think,” I say, hesitantly—I want to say the truth, but I also don’t want to hurt him—“that I’m having a difficult time letting him go without knowing what happened. It’s like he disappeared off the face of the earth.”
I’ve tried searching for him on social media—got a few hits that he was seen in different cities, photos of him taken. But the search results have slowed down in the past couple of years. It’s like everyone’s forgotten about Logan and moved on.
“Isn’t that better?” Phil asks. “He always treated you like crap, didn’t he?”
“It’s not like I’m trying to run back to him. I just want to know what happened. How he’s doing. I cared about him. It’s all right to care about him, isn’t it?”
Phil sighs. A pot begins to overboil. He gets up and walks to the stove, stirring. “Would you do the same for me?”
Maybe this is what frustrates me about Phillip more than anything else. His constant need for validation, for me to say that I care about him. I want him to feel secure and safe and comfortable, too—everyone deserves that—but I can’t reassure him when I know in my heart that this isn’t going to work. I haven’t been happy. He knows that, but he still asks these questions, waiting for the moment I’ll change my mind.
I dated several men after Logan, but this is the first relationship since him. Phillip and I ending up together was positioned as the Hollywood ending I deserved. Everyone began to refer to us as the golden couple. From the outside, we look perfect and happy and in love.
But I’m tired of roles now. I’m tired of acting as someone else, giving up my own happiness and peace for the comfort of everyone around me. I’m being offered more roles than ever before, but…I don’t even know if acting is my dream anymore. I accomplished what I set out to do: I became a major actor in Hollywood. Now what? That’s ironic. I’d thought I changed this part of myself years ago, this part that likes to hide the truth. I didn’t realize that I also needed to upend my entire life and start again, too.
I’m hurting Phillip by staying in this dance with him. I’ve tried to break up, and he always asks me to hang on, but I have enough agency that I can be firm. I know that this isn’t what I want.
“We should break up, Phil.”
He turns around, eyes wide, mid stir. He frowns and goes back to stirring again. “I thought we’d decided to keep giving this a try.”
“Be honest,” I tell him. “Do you want to stay with me because you love me, or because you’re worried about what the world thinks of our relationship?”
Phil seems to consider, but I think we’re both aware of the real answer. He nods. “I’ll admit, the thought has crossed my mind. There wouldn’t be a good response to either of us if we broke up.”
“You don’t make me happy,” I tell him, “and I’m not making you happy, either.”
He scratches his brow.
“I don’t think I’ve been happy for a while, now, actually,” I say.
“Since Logan, you mean?”
“No, I mean—I had this dream of making it in Hollywood, and now that I have…”
He frowns at me, confused. “Are you quitting acting?”
I’ve always loved acting. Maybe acting isn’t the issue—just the industry, the spotlight. I never wanted the fame. “No. I don’t think so. Maybe I just need to take a look at everything. At my life. At myself.”
Phil turns off the stove. “I’ve loved you for some time, Matt. It wasn’t only about the response we would receive. I really believed you could learn to fall in love with me.”
“It isn’t always that simple.”
“Right. I know that now.”
We’re silent as he puts pasta on the plates. I take them to the table and we sit together. The quiet is more comfortable than it’s been in a while. That’s saying something.
“I can start planning to move out,” Phil says.
I’m relieved he isn’t fighting me this time. “It isn’t a rush.”
His voice has some anger. “I’d rather leave as quickly as possible.”
I pick up my water. “Do you think you’ll stay in LA, or go back to London?”
“Likely London. I haven’t been receiving much work here anyway. Apparently I still need to work on my American accent a bit more.”
“I still care about you as a friend. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. I care about you, too, Mattie.”
I don’t think he means it in the way that I do. We go back to eating in silence.
*
Phillip leaves within a month. He was very serious about getting away from me quickly. I can’t be upset at that. He deserves the space he needs. Being in the apartment alone after I was living with a partner for so many months is unexpectedly lonely, so I decide to fly down to Atlanta. Emma is still at Sarah Lawrence, finishing up her last year, so I get my mom to myself for a while.
I’d offered to buy her and my dad a new house, but my mom waved me off. “We’re comfortable. This is where we’ve been for over thirty years. We don’t need your fancy lifestyle, Mattie.”
Thing is, I don’t know if I need it, either. I have more money than I know what to do with. No one in the world needs millions of dollars, especially in a city like LA where so many people are suffering. I feel disgusting when I drive to my million-dollar apartment, past people who can’t find a place to sleep in the streets. Maybe that’s been a part of me needing to get out, to leave, to clear my head. I don’t want to become one of those celebrities who lies to myself, thinking that I need a pair of shoes for hundreds of thousands of dollars, when that money could go to helping other human beings eat. I don’t know. The culture, the politics of fame—everything about the city makes me desperate to escape these days.