Page 64 - In Five Years

ringing. It’s Bella.
“Aaron texted me. How crazy is that? What were you even doing down there?
You never run in Brooklyn. What did you think of the place?” She stops, and I
can hear her breathing—shallow and expectant through the phone.

“It’s nice, I guess,” I say. “But your place is perfect. Why would you want to
move?”

“You hate it?”
I think about lying to her. About telling her I don’t like it. That the windows
have the wrong view, that it smells like trash, that it’s too far. I’ve never lied to
Bella, and I do not want to, but she also can’t buy this place. She can’t move

here. It’s for her protection as well as my own.
“It just seems like a lot of work,” I tell her. “And kind of far.”

She exhales. I can feel her annoyance. “From what?” she says. “No one lives
in Manhattan anymore. It’s so stuffy, I can’t believe I do. You need to be a little
more open-minded.”

“Well,” I say. “I don’t really have to be anything. I’m not going to be the one
living there.”