“Did you try long distance?” I ask.
“For a year,” he says. “Worst year of my life.”
“It never works,” I agree.
“Every day feels like a breakup,” he says. “You’re constantly letting each other down, or holding each other back. When we finally ended things, my mom was pretty brokenhearted. She told me I was making all the same mistakes she did and I was going to end up alone if I didn’t figure out my priorities.”
“She just wanted you to come back,” I say. “And Amaya was the fastest path.”
“Maybe.” He lets out a breath, like he’s resigned himself to something. “We barely spoke for a few months, and then . . .” He hesitates. “I came home for the holidays, and I found out Amaya had been dating my cousin since a few weeks after we split. That’s what she wanted to clear the air about, the other night.”
I sit up on my forearms, surprised. “Wait. Your ex-fiancée dated your cousin? Shepherd?”
He nods. “My family basically agreed not to tell me, but I found out anyway, and we had another rough stretch after that.”
And there it is, another little piece of Charlie popped into place.
“There aren’t a ton of prospects here,” he goes on, “so I didn’t exactly blame them, but at the same time . . .”
“Fuck that?” I guess.
He runs a hand up the backside of his head, then tucks it there. “I don’t know, she deserves to be happy. Shepherd had a better chance of giving her that.”
“Why?” I ask. He looks at me, brow pinched, like he doesn’t understand the question. “Why does he have any better chance at making someone happy than you do?”
“Oh, come on, Stephens,” he says wryly. “You of all people know what I mean.”
“I definitely don’t,” I insist.
“Your archetypes,” he says. “The tropes. He’s the guy every woman falls for. The son my parents wanted, working full-time at the job my dad wanted me to have, all while making, like, fucking rocking chairs in his spare time. He even went to my top choice for school.”
“Cornell?” I say.
“Went there to play football,” Charlie says, “but he’s fucking smart too. You went out with him—you know what he’s like.”
“I did go out with him,” I say, “which is why I’m qualified to say, you’re wrong. I mean, not about him being smart. But the other thing, that he’s more qualified to make someone happy.”
His smile fades. He looks back to the sky. “Yeah, well,” he murmurs. “At least for Amaya, it made sense. During our breakup, one of the last things she said to me was, If we stay together, every single day for the rest of our lives is going to be the same. Wasn’t even the last time I heard that in a breakup speech.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, that’s why she wanted to meet up. To apologize for how things ended.”
I feel my cheeks coloring. “It’s cute of you to think that, Charlie,” I say. “But based on how she looks at you, I’m pretty sure all that sameness isn’t so unappealing to her anymore.”
“It wasn’t just that I was too boring for her. She also decided she wanted kids—or, I guess, admitted she did, and was just waiting for me to change my mind.”
I turn onto my side and face him. “You don’t?”
“I hated being a kid.” He folds his arm beneath his head and looks almost furtively in my direction. “I’d have no idea how to get someone else through it, and I definitely wouldn’t enjoy it. I like them, but I don’t want to be responsible for any.”
“Agreed,” I say. “I love my nieces more than anything on the planet, but every time Tala falls asleep in my lap, her dad gets all teary-eyed and is like, Doesn’t it just make you want to have some of your own, Nora? But when you have kids, they count on you. Forever. Any mistake you make, any failure—and if something happens to you . . .”
My throat twists.
“People like to remember childhood as all magic and no responsibilities, but that’s not really how it is. You have absolutely no control over your environment. It all comes down to the adults in your life, and . . . I don’t know. Every time Libby has a new kid, it’s like there’s this magic house in my heart that rearranges to make a new room for the baby.
“And it always hurts. It’s terrifying. One more person who needs you.”