Page 69 of The Break-Up Pact

She starts rooting through my fridge and immediately locates the pizza box and pulls it out with two Blue Moons.

“It is eight in the morning,” I remind her flatly.

She cracks open the two beers like she can’t hear me.

“Sana, I have to get down to Tea Tide in, like, ten minutes.”

“Oh, sweet summer June. You are not going anywhere near that cesspool of internet gremlins right now. There’s already a blob of them waiting outside. Not a line, mind you. A full blob.”

I sit up so straight the couch springs squawk under me in protest. “Well, then I really need to get down there. We’ve only got four people on staff.”

“Mateo and Dylan are on it.”

“Shit,” I mutter, running a hand over the top of my ponytail.

I’ve barely spoken with either of them. I just sent them both texts on the way back from New York letting them know I was all right and I was coming home. I haven’t even had a chance to explain the situation to them, and at this point, I’m not even sure how. “We were pretending to date and then we were kind of dating and then got publicly outed and now are in a self-inflicted limbo” doesn’t sound quite as snappy as “the Revenge Exes” did. Especially since both of those just boil down to the same thing, which is: I lied.

“Hey. You basically organized their entire wedding this month,” Sana points out. “They can handle a few unruly tea drinkers for a day while some of this blows over.”

Instead of handing me the slice of pizza like a normal human, she slides it into my mouth like I’m an ATM. I bite into it as I take it from her, scowling, and she sets an open Blue Moon on the coffee table in front of me, taking a swig from her own.

“Oh. Wow. That felt… collegiate,” she says, blinking.

I surrender, taking a cautionary sip of mine. My brain doesn’t know what to make of it except to give in to the complete and utter anarchy. I take another sip, heartier this time, and immediately regret it. It aches all the way down, the taste of it sending me back to that night Levi and I spent at the bar a week ago. That night we spent tangled in the sheets of the bed I can see from my open bedroom door. Even the stupid pizza makes me think of him burrowed on this couch, and suddenly it feels like everything in the world goes straight back to Levi, Levi, Levi.

I set the pizza and the beer down, steadying myself. Sana nudges my knee with her foot.

“Tell me what happened.”

So I do. I start with the interview (“That absolute fucknut,” Sana mutters), get into my great escape (“The Drunk Bus never once let a girl down,” says Sana, holding her beer up in the air), and then dive into the details of the entire conversation with Levi, down to the part where he told me he loved me, and I was still too terrified to say it back.

When I’m finished, Sana takes a sip of Blue Moon, staring at the coffee table in thought. When she looks back at me, I’m expecting her to tell me I’m being ridiculous. To go down and fix things with Levi right now, before it’s too late. But she just nods and says, “I think you’re both right. You need some time.”

I nod, picking at the label on my bottle. “Yeah?”

“I mean, I ship it harder than anyone, don’t get me wrong. But yeah. He’s moving fast. You’re moving slow. You’ve both got good reasons to do it. But I think some time is the only way you can meet in the middle on that.”

“Thank you,” I say. It doesn’t make me feel any better, but right now it’s the only thing stopping me from feeling any worse.

She narrows her eyes at me. “You are being remarkably cavalier about this whole thing.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. “You forget this isn’t my first public humiliation rodeo.”

“I mean about this whole mess with Levi.”

I turn away, because the more we talk about it, the less “cavalier” I feel. Like now that the shock of the conversation is over and the weight of it is settling in, I’m suddenly restless. Uneasy. Picking apart everything we said, the words each taking on their own weight, shifting against me like uneven stones.

In those few moments of quiet, my throat is already so tight that I know it’s just a matter of time before it hits—the humiliation of last night, the ache of this morning, the anger I have for so many parts of it. I feel it looming like a shadow, a wave about to crash into me from behind.

I swallow hard, wondering if it’s going to hit before or after Sana leaves. I’m hoping I can keep it together until then. As much as her comfort means to me right now, whatever is gathering inside me feels like something I need to ride out alone.

“Which, by the way, I have thoughts about,” Sana continues. “An entire thesis, if you will.”

But before Sana can get into it, there’s a knock at the door. We exchange wary looks. Everyone we know who has the emotional clearance to knock without texting first is helping at Tea Tide right now. I get up to my feet slowly, squinting through the peephole, and mouth the word “Shit.”

“Just a sec!” I call through the door, then turn to Sana and hiss, “It’s Nancy.”

“Well, now this really feels collegiate,” she says, diving across the coffee table to hide the beers.

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