“No! No. That’s not it at all!” I said, knowing that it wasn’t entirely the truth, knowing exactly what face my mother would pull if I told her about him—What does he do? Oh. What about his parents? Ay. “I just . . .”
I took in a deep breath. How did I tell Ricky the real truth: that my moments alone had been revelational? That they had forced me to recall the three and a half years between Sean and Frederick, and realize that they had been joyful? That I could count the number of times that I had cried in that time on one hand? I had felt like I needed romantic love to feel whole, but the truth was that every man I let into my heart took a chunk of it with him, made me feel less when I should have felt more. And Ricky had been the worst of them. The uncertainty, the anxiety, he inspired in me? I’d created a version of him in my head, then broken my own heart when he didn’t fit neatly into its mold. The Ricky who’d told me he loved me hardly an hour ago felt so different from the one standing in front of me now, teeming with fury because I’d dared ask him for reassurance.
“You realize I’m moving in a year and a half, right?” I said instead. “And I won’t be able to tell you where? I’m going to open an envelope and find out. Are you planning on coming with me?”
Ricky blinked back at me in shock, and I held back a snort. It’s not like this is the first time I’m bringing this up. Did you not think Match was relevant to you, Mr. Family Man?
“I don’t know,” Ricky said after a heartbeat. “Figured we would cross that bridge if we got there.”
If, not when. Ricky had never spoken about us in uncertainties, not since blanket fort. It had always been when you meet Abuela. When we take that pottery class. When we go to New Orleans. For someone who had just claimed to want to be sure about his next relationship, Ricky didn’t sound so sure about me. All at the first sign of conflict. The corners of my mouth wobbled, and I fought hard against the sob that wanted to break through and won.
“I get how Camila must’ve felt, you know,” I managed. “About not believing that you ever actually loved her. I think you want to love me. But I don’t think you know how.”
The last vestiges of Ricky’s control snapped. I could see the transition happen in his eyes, like an elastic band pulled too tight, or a fuse running out.
“Are you throwing that in my face right now, Angie? Really?” he said. “I thought you were better than that.”
I winced, huddling myself closer.
“I guess we don’t really know each other as well as we thought,” I said, feeling the maw in my chest burst open as I said the words. Then I sighed. “This clearly isn’t going to work.”
“Wow,” Ricky said. Before this, I had thought of his anger as cold, but this time it raged red hot, flaring like a match over kerosene. I looked down at my lap, watching my tears fall in angry splotches. Then he crossed the room, snatching his jeans from the other side of my bed and tugging them over his hips. I kept my gaze determinedly forward as he dressed, focusing on my breathing as he reached past me to retrieve his phone and stuff it into his pocket. He pulled his shirt over his head and when he was done, he settled in front of me, staring determinedly at the space between us.
“Well, this didn’t last very long,” he said bitterly. “I guess I’ll see myself out.”
I heard the warning in his tone. This is your last chance, he was saying. Take it or leave it. And I wanted to take it, more than anything. I knew that I could still do the easier thing and pick him. And then what? Spend the next year and some change living in fear, waiting for the other shoe to drop? Having any of my concerns met with annoyance instead of understanding? No. Enough. Ricky had made his choice the moment he’d decided to leave me high and dry to sit at Camila’s side, and now I was making mine.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll lock the door behind you.”
I don’t know how long Ricky stood there, waiting for me to speak. As the time passed, I felt the bluster of his anger fade, watched his shoulders begin to droop. By the end, he looked like a shell of himself, haunted and lost. Then he swallowed, and his expression hardened.
“Fine,” he said. “Okay. Fine.”
Then he stepped out of my bedroom, and then out through my front door. I expected it to slam, but instead it clicked shut. It seemed like an inglorious way for our saga to end, with a sigh instead of a bang.
Twenty-Four
“Trust who? The doctors?” Mr. Jenkins, my newest patient, said. He let out a booming laugh that seemed to shake the entire room. “Why on Earth would I do that?”