Chapter 8 — The Fight

It was a Wednesday, not a Tuesday, which felt significant later — like the ordinary days were the dangerous ones.She had asked something small. She had asked it lightly, intending it lightly."What are you doing for Christmas?"It was October. It wasn't a strange question. It was the kind of question people asked people they were seeing, and they were seeing each other — had been, clearly, for months. They spent three or four evenings a week together. His toothbrush was at her place.He went very still."I haven't thought about it," he said."No pressure. I was just thinking I might go to my aunt's place up north, and you could—""Maya."The way he said it made her stop."What?"He was looking at the floor. He'd set down his coffee. Something in his posture had shifted — closed, drawn in, like a door she'd seen open before suddenly shut."I can't do Christmas plans."She waited."I don't plan that far ahead. I told you that.""It's two months. That's not—""It is for me."She looked at him. Something cold moved through her. "What does that mean?"He stood up. Moved to the window. He did that when he was uncomfortable — put physical space between himself and something he didn't want to say."I'm just not a planning-ahead kind of person. I don't know where I'll be—""Where you'll be?" She heard her voice change. "You live here, Daniel. You have an apartment, eight minutes from mine. You have been here for six months.""I know.""So what does 'I don't know where I'll be' mean?"He turned around. His face was doing the complicated thing. "I just can't make that kind of promise right now."She felt it hit somewhere under her sternum. "A Christmas dinner is not a promise. It's a Christmas dinner.""I know, I just—""Is this—" She stopped. Started again. "Are we going somewhere, Daniel? Because I need to know if we're going somewhere. I'm not asking for a ring. I'm not asking for anything big. I'm asking if I should be—" She couldn't finish. She hated that she couldn't finish.He looked at her. And in his eyes she saw something she'd never seen there before: desperation."You should," he said. "You should make plans. Long ones. You should plan everything. You're so—" He stopped."So what?"He turned back to the window. "You should plan everything. That's all I meant."She felt the tears arrive before she could stop them. She was furious at them."I'm going to go," she said, quietly and clearly."Maya—""I'll call you tomorrow."She picked up her coat and left. She held herself together until she was around the corner and then she stood against a brick wall in the October cold and cried for exactly four minutes and then she stopped, because she'd learned years ago that crying in public had a time limit.She walked home. She did not call him tomorrow.He didn't call her either.The three days that followed were the longest she'd spent since learning how to be without her father.