When I’m unable to say anything, she sighs. Unfolding her legs so her feet are on the ground again, she finally turns away from me.

“I’m not like you, Gem,” she says softly. “I love that you love people so much. I love how you can fall in love so easily and trust others again. You always see the best in people, and that’s amazing. It’s one of my favorite things about you. But that’s not me. While you moved on and got engaged, and Kayla got married and even had kids… I couldn’t do any of that.”

She laughs, but her voice sounds so broken and pained that it brings tears to my eyes. “Even though I’m glad we cleared the air about the past, I’m still so fucking scared. I don’t want to enter into something serious with you when I know I’m not ready. And nothing you’ve said has given me the confidence I need to trust that you won’t tell me you want to spend your entire life with me and then just change your mind a few months later again.”

“Celeste, I—” I try to go on, to tell Celeste that this time will be different because we won’t randomly break up again like we did when we were a couple of college kids. We’re older now. And we know better. But the truth is, I have no way of guaranteeing that. And it’s so clear to me now that we’re definitely not ready for what I want. What we want.

She caresses my face and wipes my tears away with her thumbs. “I love you, Gem. I really do. I can’t even begin to express in words how much I care about you. Earlier, I completely lost it because it hit me how much I want to grow old with you. How much I want us to have what Nat and Keiko have. But if we fuck up again, it’ll absolutely kill me.”

She’s full-on sobbing again. And this time, so am I. “I love you, too.”

Celeste wraps her arms around me, and I squeeze her tight. Although neither of us say anything, I get the feeling this is the last time I’ll be able to hug her for a while.

We stay like that for a long moment before she pulls away from me, wiping the rest of her tears away.

“Okay,” she says softly, squeezing my hand. “I’ll give you a ride back to your friends’ place.”

After Celeste drops me off at the apartment, I crawl onto Clementine. Burrito jumps up and meows before settling next to me. His warmth is comforting, and I wrap myself around him as tightly as I can without squishing him. Luckily, he’s always been a cuddly cat.