Page 77 - In Five Years

She looks at me and frowns, and then her face dawns recognition. “Oh, right!
There’s this other one I think I want. It’s this totally savage place in
Meatpacking. I honestly didn’t know they had anything like that left there.
Everything is so generic now.”

“You don’t like the Dumbo loft?”
She shrugs. “I’m just not sure I want to live there. There’s only one grocery

store, and it must be freezing in the winter. All of those wide streets that close to
the water.? It seems kind of isolated.”
“It’s close to every train,” I say. “And the view is spectacular. There’s so
much light, Bella. I can see you painting there.”

Bella squints at me. “What’s going on? You hated that place. You told me I
shouldn’t even consider it.”

I wave her off. She’s right, though. What am I doing? The words keep
tumbling out, like I have no control over them. “I don’t know,” I say. “What do I
know? I’ve lived within ten blocks for the last decade.”

Bella leans forward. Her face splits into a sly smile. “You love that place.”
It’s raw space, but I have to admit it’s beautiful. Somehow industrial and
energetic and peaceful, all at once.

“No,” I say. Firm. Definitive. “It’s a pile of plywood. I’m just playing devil’s
advocate.”
Bella crosses her arms. “You love it,” she says.

I don’t know why I can’t just condemn it. Tell her she’s right—it’s freezing
and too far and absurd—then drop it. I should be thrilled that she has forgotten
about it. I want her to forget about it. I want that apartment to disappear into the

atmosphere. So far I’m doing a good job at preventing that fateful hour. If the
apartment disappears, so does what happened there.
“No, it’s true,” I say. “Dumbo is far. And Aaron said it would need a ton of

work.” The last part is a little bit of a lie.
Bella opens her mouth to say something but closes it again.
“So things are good with you guys?” I venture.

Bella sighs. “He said you had a nice time at the apartment. Like maybe you
liked him a little better? He said you seemed friendly, which is entirely out of
character.”

“Hey.”