“I love you.” Chad shuffled his feet. “I don’t want to lose you.” Clarifying, he added, “Or her.”

I flattened my hands against my stomach and looked away. “Please don’t say that.”

His breath was loud in my small kitchen. “Why not?”

My stomach clenched. “Because I think Penny had the right idea when she broke up with me.”

He looked stunned. It must have been the last thing he’d expected me to say, after everything we’d been through together. “W-what does that mean?”

“We’ve done everything together all our lives, and the one thing that should have been just you two … You never had a chance to figure out what you were like as a couple, or as people, because in a way, we never really grew up. We stayed the same. And it can’t be like that anymore—it shouldn’t be.”

And then, because I was afraid my voice had sounded hesitant and unsure, I repeated, more firmly, “She may have said it for the wrong reasons, Chad, but Penny was right. About all of it. Whatever was good about us, we’re choking it to death. Our roots are too tangled. We need to have space to breathe.” Relief came over me as I realized I had finally said what I had struggled with articulating for so long.

His forehead scrunched as he took it all in. “You actually agree with Penny? But she just did that to hurt you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think she did. She can be mean, but she’s not cruel.”

“So what changed? Why do you agree with her now?”

“Just … space. Distance from the whole situation.”

Chad’s expression cleared. “You love him, don’t you?”

He meant Levi. I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I barely know him!” I exclaimed.

“You want to, though. On the beach, when you were on a picnic with him…” Chad swallowed. “You looked at him the way you used to look at Elodie when you didn’t think anyone was watching.”

The kitchen felt too small to keep looking at him, so I turned around. I knew it was childish but I didn’t care. My world felt small and suffocating and for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to just leave. Not tell anyone where I was going and vanish. Do what Levi did—pick a place with a pretty name and reinvent myself, become someone new, someone without a past.

“Hey.” Chad moved behind me, hugging my waist for a brief moment before pulling away. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not.” I turned around and laughed, partly from embarrassment, and partly because my eyes were wet.

“Listen,” said Chad, rubbing the side of his nose in an awkward gesture that I’d learned to associate with his discomfort. “If you like this guy…”