Page 205 - In Five Years

I wave him off. No. But he presses, and my stomach answers in return. Yes,
actually. I’m starving.
I follow Aaron into the closet, itching to get out of this dress. He pulls his
sweatpants, the ones he still has here from all the work he did on the apartment,

out of the drawer along with a T-shirt he left behind. The only things here that
aren’t mine.

“I moved to Dumbo,” I say, incredulous. Aaron laughs. It’s all so ridiculous,
neither one of us can help ourselves. Five years later, I have left Murray Hill and
Gramercy and moved to Dumbo.
I change and wash my face. I put some cream on. I wander back into the

living room. Aaron calls from the kitchen that he’s making pasta.
I find Aaron’s pants flung over the chair. I fold them and his wallet slides out.

I open it. Inside is the Stumptown punch card. And then I see it—the photo of
Bella. She’s laughing, her hair tangled around her face like a maypole. It’s from
the beach. Amagansett this summer. I took it. It seems years ago, now.

We decide on pesto for the pasta. I go to sit at the counter.
“Am I still a lawyer?” I ask him, wearily. I haven’t been to the office in nearly
two weeks.

“Of course,” he answers. He holds out an open bottle of red, and I nod. He
fills my glass.
We eat. It feels good, necessary. It seems to ground me. When we’re done, we

take our wineglasses to the other side of the room. But I’m not ready, not yet. I
sit down in a blue chair. I think about leaving, maybe. Not going through with
what happens next.

I even make a move for the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Aaron asks me.
“Just the deli.”

“The deli?”
And then Aaron is upon me. His hands on my face, the way they were just
weeks ago, on the other side of the world. “Stay,” he says. “Please.”

And I do. Of course I do. I was always going to. I fold to him in that
apartment like water into a wave. It all feels so fluid, so necessary. Like it’s
already happened.