Page 16 of In What World

We stay like this for a beat, her chin perched on top of my head, her arms around my chest. My breathing starts to regulate. We’re going to be okay, I decide. It was an ugly moment, but all relationships have them, and both of us have forgiven each other. That counts for something.

“You know, I’d still be willing to live together, if you are,” she says. Her jaw moves against my skull as she speaks, which is fitting, because each word is like a tiny meteor pelting me from outer space.

We’ve been talking about this for a while. It’s been an uncommitted conversation on what I thought was both sides—me mentioning the private student loans I’mstillpaying down thanks to the predatory interest rates I naively agreed to at age eighteen and my wish to keep living in my small but cheap studio apartment as long as possible. Her expressing her somewhat frustrating concern that our personal styles might clash in a shared interior space, since she’s spent so long cultivating her perfect two-bedroom condo with just the right amount of furniture and decor, and my penchant for “tacky” knickknacks is not a compatible fit for the vibe. Since she’s the designer of the two of us, I’ve never felt like I had the better case to make for my belongings, which do tend to veer toward kitschy. I cansee her point, but that doesn’t mean I want to get rid of any of them. They’re mine for a reason.

“C’mon,” she says. She’s reading my silence not as shock, but as me wishing for her to put a little more elbow grease into this makeup. “I’ll even let you dedicate an entire bookshelf to your ceramics collection.”

I can make a cute joke about how I’ll need more than a single bookshelf for all the ceramics I’ve collected over the years. She can pretend to be outraged. We can kiss and make plans for what we’re going to do with all of our free time when the school year is over in a few weeks.

But Dallas has been ripped from my life like a book with pages pulled from the middle of the story, and his absence draws into sharper focus all the other places where I’m missing something. Like in this relationship. Something between Alice and me has never quite fit right. Dallas has always known, and I’ve spent almost an entire year ignoring the possibility he might be right.

“I think we should still split up,” I say, spinning Dallas’s office chair around to face her. “I’m sorry. We just…” I search for more words.

I don’t really know how to explain why, other than it bums me out that we’re not right for each other, when everything about her makes for a wonderful partner. Just not the right partner for me.

“We don’t fit,” she finishes.

So she knows it, too. She didn’t break up with me yesterday by accident.

“I thought maybe what I’ve been feeling was wrong,” she admits. “That we should make it work because we get along so well. And it makes sense. We’re both here. We have all this history. We should be right for each other.”

“I thought the same thing,” I say, standing to pull her into a hug that feels both necessary and final. Even as I breathe in her sweet-smelling shampoo, enjoying her familiarity, I know this is the right thing to do. I haven’t felt this kind of certainty in so long that I almost forgot I was capable of it.

“If we keep up this calmness, this might be the most civilized breakup I’ve ever had,” she says with a hollow laugh. She pulls away to attempt a smile, but it’s too sad to pass for authentic. “Do you think we could win some kind of award?”

“Best Lesbian Breakup Between Two Teachers Who Share a Job and a Hallway and an Entire Friend Group?”

“Wait.” True worry crosses her face for the first time. “Are we going to need to broker a custody agreement for our friends? I don’t want to lose Tequila Thursdays.”

“No, no,” I assure her. And also myself. Because I hadn’t thought about this element yet. I’m the one who created Tequila Thursdays, but Alice has kept it thriving. We each have equal claim to it. “Carina and Vic still hang out with all of us, and I was there when Carina set Vic’s muscle tees on fire. If they can tolerate each other on Tequila Thursdays, so can we.”

“That’s true.” Alice puts her hand on her heart. “I solemnly swear not to touch your ceramics.”

“The fact that my ceramics have come up twice in this conversation leads me to believe you’ve already been wishing them harm,” I say.

Alice mimes zipping her lips. “In order to preserve our Best Breakup award, I don’t think anything further should be said on the subject.”

It’s funny that I once thought it was nice that we didn’t have any of the same problems or even the same approach to our interests. Now I can see our respective hills for what they are—not places for us to die, but the places where we thrive.We both love to fixate on the things we care about. I’ve got theater and nostalgia and an unwavering love of my own routine. She’s got design and self-improvement and being a social butterfly. To compromise would be to blunt our favorite parts of ourselves, and the older I get, the less interested I am in dulling myself to fit someone else’s vision for my life.

“Just remember, it was you and I who led the campaign against Mr. Pritcher’s horrible idea to make our yearbook grass themed,” I tell her after rolodexing through the times we’ve shared the same hill, realizing it hasn’t happened since we were teens. “You were only a freshman then, and you and I still got him to change course. We can do impossible things together. Tequila Thursdays are safe.”

“Oh my god,” she says. “The grass theme. I’d forgotten all about that.”

I put on my best Mr. Pritcher voice. “Varsity volleyball is a cut above the rest.”

“Waving in the wind. Our seniors hedge their bets on the future,” she responds in her own impression of his low, overly serious tone. “We were so bold when we were kids. When did we lose that?”

“Probably when we started paying bills,” I say, grabbing her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Alice. The grass will be greener for us soon.”

It starts as a joke, both of us smiling, but then the contact turns serious.

This is really it. The end of Alice and me.

I plant a kiss on her lips that’s heatless but sweet. A kiss of goodbyes. A kiss of closure. And, maybe, one final test.

There’s no spark that prompts me to deepen the contact. No need for me to tangle my hands in her hair or tug her closer.

When Alice pulls away, she’s looking into my eyes forsomething. Searching one last time for what we both know isn’t there. “All right, then,” she says.