Page 76 of Five Years
“Are you saying you feel like it’s disingenuous on her part?”
“Maybe, a bit on mine too.”
“How so?” Leah asked.
“Is this what you want to talk about?” Ariana asked.
“I guess I want to understand.”
Ariana nodded, she pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck; the pressure kept her scarf firmly in its place.
The best pizza place in New York served pizza on paper plates, and sauce from a re-used bottle, not luxury fine china, the heating was intermittent. It was obviously way down on their list of priorities, but the flavour made up for her blue knuckles and red nose.
“I overheard her say to her friends once that she couldn’t imagine starting over, that the dating pool was slim, and shewould rather stay in a place of comfort...even if it didn’t feel right anymore.”
“Oh, was she speaking hypothetically?”
“I don’t know. I never brought it up with her after the fact, but after I heard it, I started to see things a little differently. I think Hannah loves me, and me her, but I think the idea of a stable relationship, the security of good jobs, the convenience of having someone to split the bills with, the comfort of knowing there’s always someone waiting at home to hear all about your day whether they want to or not. I think that became the driving force, I think the idea of someone not necessarily me was what she wanted.” Ariana stopped for a bite of mozzarella heaven. “Her friends play a big part, they joke about how they’ll snap me up if she ever let me go, they think our relationship is so perfect, and she wants them to believe that, I know she does. It’s easier if they believe it and life resumes normal practice. Any attempt to derail the train and she panics.”
“You said you’d been sleeping in separate rooms?”
“Nobody knows about that. I wanted to tell someone, I wanted to understand what it meant, but it’s been swept under the rug ever since.”
“What does this all mean for us? What are we doing here?”
Ariana reached across the scuffed wooden table, gathering Leah’s non-pizza-wielding hand.
“I ended things.” The words slipped from Ariana’s mouth as though they didn’t have the power to shake the ground beneath them.
“You ended things?” Leah repeated.
Truthfully, the marinara sauce was the most wonderful thing she’d ever tasted, but as the last bite worked its way into her body, it was tasteless, her senses shut down, the sound of the cook shouting out pizza orders was muffled, her sight blurred. She shook her head in an attempt to claw her way back into themoment. Three small words that she longed to hear, but now they felt so surreal.
“It was a long time coming,” Ariana said.
Leah remained silent, the sudden loss of appetite poor timing with half of their pizza left.
What was she supposed to feel?
She wasn’t sure, the guilt from being a factor in Ariana’s decision to call things off outweighed the excitement at a rekindling between the two of them.
How was Hannah feeling?
It wasn’t Leah’s responsibility to care, but she did. She was human, she was empathetic, sometimes a little too emotionally involved, and she liked Hannah, despite everything, she had no reason to dislike her.
Was she heartbroken? Was it expected? Was she relieved? She almost wanted to ask the question, hoping the answer would ease the culpability.
“Leah?”
Ariana’s face snapped back into focus.
“Are you okay? I thought you might be a bit happier,” she said, curiously.
“I don’t want to be the reason you end things with Hannah.” Leah said, honestly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to be the only reason. Is this something you would’ve done regardless of seeing me again? Because the thought of being the reason you ended things makes me feel awful.”
