When the boyfriend who could barely find twenty minutes a week to talk to me suddenly said he needed “space,” I knew the three thousand miles between us weren’t the distance he was talking about. What frightened me was the timing. That same night, his house in California was throwing a party, and for the first time in two years, Daniel seemed strangely eager for me not to be his girlfriend.

Chapter 3

Her profile was easy to find.

I stared at her picture for almost ten minutes before writing anything. She was twenty-three, with dark curly hair and a wide smile. In another life, under different circumstances, I might have liked her.

I did not hate her.

That surprised even me.

Daniel was the person who had made promises to me. Daniel was the one who had asked me for a break under specific conditions. Whatever Melissa had done, she had not been my boyfriend.

So I wrote carefully.

I told her who I was, though obviously she already knew. I explained what Daniel had told me about the break and about their night together. I told her he had sworn before the break that no other woman was involved and that if I had known otherwise, I never would have agreed to it.

Then I asked for the truth.

Not revenge.

Not details designed to hurt me.

Just the truth.

Melissa answered the next afternoon.

Her message began with an apology.

Then she dismantled Daniel’s story piece by piece.

For several weeks, she said, she and Daniel had been spending more time together. They often stayed up drinking after the other roommates went to bed. There had been tension between them before our argument ever happened.

Little things at first.

Sitting too close.

Touching shoulders.

Jokes that lingered too long.

The night Daniel and I fought about communication, he became openly physical with her. He put his arm around her. They wrestled playfully on the couch. At one point, she stopped him.

You have a girlfriend, she told him.

He apparently responded that things between us were complicated.

Melissa admitted she was attracted to him. After that night, she made her interest clear.

Then came Sunday.

The day Daniel asked me for a break.

Minutes after we ended the call, he messaged Melissa.

He told her he and I were “taking space.”

That night they began hooking up.

Melissa stopped before they had sex.

She wanted him to be certain.

The next night, Monday, they slept together.

And then they did it again Tuesday.

I reread that sentence until the words blurred.

Twice.

Daniel had told me once.

He had told me he regretted it immediately afterward.

He had told me he bought his plane ticket the next day because guilt hit him so hard he realized he could not lose me.

But according to Melissa, after the first time he supposedly regretted sleeping with her, he went back the following night and did it again.

I put my laptop aside and walked to the bathroom.

I thought I might throw up.

Instead, I sat on the closed toilet lid with both hands pressed against my face.

Suddenly, the entire previous month made sense.

The fading communication.

The annoyance over one weekly phone call.

The speeches about loneliness.

The bizarre insistence that being three thousand miles away from me was not enough “space.”

The break.

The party.

None of it had been random.

Daniel had not asked for a week to discover whether he appreciated me.

He had wanted temporary moral permission to test another woman without fully losing me.

And even that permission had been obtained through a lie.

Melissa continued.

She said she did not want a relationship with him. Watching how he handled the situation had changed the way she saw him. She admitted she might still have been physically attracted to him, but she considered him immature and dishonest.

Oddly, her honesty helped.

I thanked her.

Then I went to my bedroom.

Daniel still had things at my apartment.

A gray hoodie.

Three T-shirts.

A pair of running shoes.

Two books.

A battered coffee mug from freshman year.

A toothbrush.

A framed photograph of us at Lake George.

I put everything in a garbage bag.

Then I stopped.

I took the photograph out.

For a long time, I looked at the two people smiling back at me.

We had been happy when it was taken.

That mattered.

I was not going to rewrite two good years simply because the ending was ugly.

But good memories did not create an obligation to accept bad treatment.

I placed the photograph facedown inside the bag.

Then I took a picture of everything and sent Daniel an email.

I know the truth. Melissa told me what happened. You lied about the timeline, you lied about how many times you slept with her, and you lied when you said the break had nothing to do with another woman. I’m giving your things to Eric. We are done. Do not contact me again.

My phone rang less than a minute later.

I did not answer.

It rang again.

And again.

Then came texts.

Kate please.

Please pick up.

I can explain.

It isn’t what you think.

That last one almost made me laugh.

There was no version of reality left for him to rearrange.

After the ninth call, I answered.

Daniel was already crying.

“Kate, please don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything. You did it.”

“I was scared.”

“You lied.”

“I thought if I told you everything, you’d never forgive me.”

“You were right.”

“I told you almost everything.”

I closed my eyes.

“Almost?”

“I told you ninety percent of it.”

For one second, I genuinely thought I had misunderstood him.

“Ninety percent.”

“Yes. I admitted I slept with her. I admitted I messed up.”

“Daniel, fidelity isn’t a math test. You don’t get partial credit for confessing ninety percent of a betrayal.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You wanted to protect yourself from losing me.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No.”

It finally became clear.

Daniel believed love meant wanting me badly enough after hurting me.

I believed love meant considering me before doing the hurting.

Those were not the same thing.

“I only want you,” he said.

“Then why did you need Melissa?”

“I didn’t need her.”

“You wanted her.”

“For a stupid moment.”

“For weeks.”

Silence.

“I was lonely.”

“So was I.”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

And there it was.

Not I don’t want to lose the woman I love.

I don’t want to be alone.

Suddenly, something Daniel had told me weeks earlier returned to me.

He had always had someone.

A girlfriend.

A roommate.

Me.

Six housemates.

He had never learned how to sit inside an empty room and be responsible for his own loneliness.

I had mistaken his need for closeness for devotion.

Maybe sometimes it had been devotion.

But when distance removed the comfort I provided, he went looking for another body to fill the space.

“I’m sorry you’re afraid of being alone,” I said.

“Then don’t leave me.”

“That isn’t my job to fix.”

He started sobbing harder.

“I was going to marry you.”

I looked at the garbage bag by my door.

“Maybe you should have treated me like someone you wanted to marry.”