“No,” I moan. It was so much worse.

“Or, ‘I don’t think we should see each other anymore’?”

“No.” The tiniest stirring of hope flutters inside me.

“Seriously, bro,” Monae insists. “You’re not being yourself. What’s it going to take to get you off my couch and back to work?”

The pillow absorbs the brunt of my guttural protest. Monae yanks it out from under me. My teeth click as my face bounces off the couch cushion. “Hey.”

“You need to tell me what happened. Tell me everything. You are in desperate need of a girlfriend whisperer.”

KIMBERLY

Zeke texts me.

I have to be in the office all day. Can I come over later? We should talk.

My heart is exploding. Yes! Of course. I want to talk. I attempt several versions of a response. Exclamation point, or no exclamation point? Multiple exclamation points? I end up with:

Okay. Can I help at the office?

There is a pause.

Don’t you have to work? I can’t get into our thing yet.

I want to see him. I want to see him so bad that I’m tempted to just show up anyway. Work can just be work, right? Instead I say:

I can help from here. What do you need?

I spend the morning working on press materials and placing calls to legal aid. Zeke arrives before dinnertime. Jennica’s still at work, so we have the apartment to ourselves.

“Hi.” He gives me a little pecking kiss.

“Hi,” I say. Then I blurt out, “We had a fight.”

“Yeah.” Zeke shrugs out of his coat. “Our first fight. It’s kind of a landmark.”

Our first fight. The way he says it makes it sound romantic. Some of the awkwardness is stripped away. Not all of it.

“Wine?” I offer. “Or tea?”

“Tea is good,” he says. “Wine later?” His voice sounds hopeful, like he wants us to be talking for a while.

“That sounds good. We have all night.” I set the kettle on and he hovers near the counter.

“I’m sorry, Kimberly,” Zeke says, as I pull out the mugs. “I am the sort of person who gets pretty upset when I feel like I have failed at something. Sometimes I take my feelings out on other people.”

The way he says it is funny. Stilted, or something. It sounds like he’s repeating something someone told him about himself.

“You haven’t failed,” I assure him. “Why do you think you failed?”

“The protest,” he says. “And then I was mean and you ran away. So, double fail.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly. “I didn’t handle it well.”

“I didn’t, either,” I admit. “We were too stressed. That part was my fault. I brought up … things I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m taking the job in DC,” Zeke says.

“I know,” I answer. “I’m happy for you. And I don’t want you to go.”

“I know,” he says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”