37. Drew

I'm not going home. Don't get me wrong, I'm getting the fuck out of uptown, but for as much as Olivier claimed he wanted me to take care of all my unfinished business, he hasn't given me any time to do it. Not that I've complained. And not that I have any reason to honor any promises I made him after what he just said to me, but this is something I need to do for myself.

And for Jericho.

It's Sunday night, so I can only hope she's home. I didn't think to call first, still out of my mind with anger and hurt. The anger is a thin layer masking the hurt, and I manage to cling to it for the majority of the train ride to the East Village, but as I'm stepping out onto the cold, relatively quiet street, the hurt breaks through with a vengeance.

I do think Olivier is sorry for what he said. It's the fact that he said it at all. And it's not like in the entire time I've known him he's always treated me as an equal or this is some big news—it's the fact that after last night, the fact of who I once was to him shouldn't have mattered anymore. It shouldn't have come up again.

He made me feel cheap. Like I was the one for rent. And all his insistence on this ridiculous marriage on top of it? His foolish belief that it's going to solve any of his problems? It boggles the mind. And I doubt the thin bond we do have will hold now that I know where his real priorities lie.

I've been kidding myself, I guess. Reading too much into his kiss. Into the way he looks at me. It would take a lot for me to get past how he treated me tonight, and I don't think he has it in him to give me what I need.

But none of that means I should go running back to Jericho. Our relationship is the proverbial dead horse we just keep beating to see if, on the off chance, it's still breathing. Unfortunately, it isn't. And tonight, I heartily regret that, because it was my depression, my lack of effort, that killed it in the first place.

She's been kind not to leave me. To give me space. To hand over the reins and let me lead, because I don't think she's a natural follower, which is all the more reason to ditch me.

Part of me hopes she's already found it. That she's seeing someone else—or at least has someone waiting the wings, but I know her pretty well after all this time, and if anything, after we make this ending official, she's more likely to take a break from dating than she is to jump headfirst into a new relationship.

She's way smarter than I am.

Jericho lives in a third-floor walk-up over a bodega on the corner of 2nd 12th. I have a key to the street door and her apartment, but I use the intercom tonight. I wait with an impending sense of doom for her to answer, and when she doesn't, I buzz her apartment one more time. That's when the latch opens, and all I feel is relief.

I take the stairs two at a time, irritated with myself that I've made her wait this long for a decent explanation about why I haven't reached out since last weekend. She hasn't either, though, and that's how I know she knows it's over, too. It'd be simple enough to leave it at that, a mutual ghosting, but having grown up with four sisters, I've learned it's basically the eighth deadly sin—to leave a relationship on read.

Jericho seems surprised to see me when she opens the door wearing white joggers, black leg warmers, and a baby-pink midriff top. Her hair is in a wrap and her face is plain, her natural beauty on full display. Once the initial shock wears off, she manages a disappointed expression, doesn't speak, and lets me in.

"Thanks," I mumble as I walk past her into the familiar, postage stamp studio. The living room and bedroom are one and the same. The kitchen is a small nook off to the left. The bathroom is probably the one space in the apartment that's a standard size with a full tub. And yet, I've always liked it here. She gets great morning light and keeps plants alive like magic. Plus, there's Jericho herself with her calming presence. Her confidence, as much as her beauty, is what drew me to her in the first place.

The good times come back to me first. The nights we stayed out until four a.m. Walking. Talking. Holding hands and kissing under awnings in the rain. We spent a few weekends at her aunt's summer home in Martha's Vineyard and traveled to parties in the Hamptons thrown by higher-ups at her publishing house. She's been the life support keeping my dream of making it in New York alive. But in the end, she couldn't save it.

"I'm sorry."

I frown at her unexpected words. I haven't even taken my coat off yet, and that's definitely my line. "Why should you be sorry?"

"I've had some time to think about last weekend, and no matter how much your friend rubbed me the wrong way, I shouldn't have acted like that. If I'm honest, I was upset with you, and I took it out on him. I wasn't being up front with you, and I'm sorry about that."

"Can we sit?"

She bows her head and takes a breath. "Yeah."

I hang my coat near the door and help her fold the bed back into the sofa version. It's a familiar task, and we move through it efficiently without speaking. Once it's put together, the apartment feels minutely larger, and she sits first. I sit near her, but not up against her like I normally would. We face each other. She leans back on the arm of the couch with her legs crossed beneath her. I lean sideways, my elbow on the back of the sofa, propping up my head. "I owe you an apology, too."

Her gaze drops, and she grimaces.

"The thing is, I like you so much. It's been really hard to think about not having you in my life."

"Same," she says.

I frown. I can't tell if she's making this easier or harder. Not that I deserve easy. "I have such a long explanation, but I'm not sure you want to hear it."

"I don't need to hear it," she says softly. "I get that you're depressed. I know living here wasn't what you expected or wanted, and you've been unhappy for a long time. And I know I can't fix that for you no matter how much I want to."

I rub my hand over my face, the bad memories flooding in now. Pretending to be asleep when she came over. Her seething irritation when I got too drunk and mean at her last work party in the Hamptons, somehow managing to offend everyone who dared to speak to me because I was pissed they were all better off than I was. The humiliation of not being able to get or maintain an erection when she wasn't doing anything wrong. Shutting her up when she suggested I needed professional help, and her slinking out of my apartment like an abused animal.

"I should have let you go," I say.

"I wasn't ready."

"Why not?"

"I guess I never told you this, but I love you, Drew. Like, it's a big love."

God, my fucking heart. The crack Olivier put in it tonight breaks wide open with Jericho's words. "I'm so fucking sorry," I say, my voice cracking, too.

"I didn't think it'd make a difference, so I kept it to myself. I mean…" She lets out a soft laugh. "My friends know. Chris knows."

Jesus. No wonder Chris is hightailing it to some temporary basement apartment and hanging me out to dry.

"I'm seeing someone," I say.

She sucks in a sharp breath. "I'm sorry?" Her voice is high and airy.

"It's Olivier," I say. "Ollie—the guy you hated on sight."

"You're—wait—Drew, what are you saying?"

I can't look at her. I have no desire to see the expression on her face and have it instantly etched into my memory, which is one of the only things about being depressed that still functions on all cylinders. I remember everything. And ruminate on all of it. "It's what it sounds like. I've been fucking a man."

"Oh." She sounds like she got the wind knocked out of her. "Oh."

"So, if you needed a reason to hate me…"

"I didn't know…that you're…"

"Bi? Gay? I didn't either. I don't know what I am besides a complete piece of shit."

"Drew…"

"Look, I've known you deserve better than me for a long time, and I kept hanging onto you hoping one day I'd measure up to the guy I thought you should have, but I'm so far from him, we're not even on the same continent."

She shakes her head. "First of all, you don't get to decide what I deserve. I know what I'm worth, and I know where my soft spots are, too. You're like catnip to me. I couldn't stay away, and did I want to fix you? Yes. Did I want to bury my face in you and never come up for air—definitely. Did it hurt when you stopped wanting me? I think you probably know the answer to that."

"I still needed you, though," I admit.

"I know."

We're quiet for a while. I feel like I'm drowning in her heartbreak, and I don't think I'm reading too much into this—making myself feel more important to her than I was because she's straight up telling me I really was, and even if I didn't deserve it, even though I might never understand it, it seems to be her truth, and I have no right to dismiss it.

Her hand wraps around mine, and I look up to find her leaning slightly toward me, her brown eyes wet, one streak of a tear on her cheek, but a kind smile on her face, and it rips at me. "Don't," I whisper.

"I can't help it. Love doesn't just stop."

That's when I break down. I'm surprised I've held it together this long after everything that's happened tonight. But the next thing I know, I'm in her arms, those ugly sobs I usually save for the shower tearing from my chest.

She shhhs me, soothing me with tender strokes over my hair and down my back. She sways us gently from side to side and she tells me it's okay. Let it out. I've got you.