What do you mean you want to be with him? the voice in his head hissed. You’ve known him for three weeks. Normal people don’t pick up their whole lives for someone after three weeks! He’ll get sick of you soon enough, just like Manuel did. Or he’ll cheat on you, like Brian. Maybe he already has a whole secret family, like Guy.

Usually when the voice hissed at him, he listened. After all, it was his unconscious telling him things he didn’t want to acknowledge but needed to hear, right?

Then he remembered something Charlotte had told him once. That witnesses lied on the stand all the time without knowing they were doing it. They lied because we quest for stories so we fill in narratives automatically, without evidence, without proof, supplied from our assumptions and the stories we’ve been told. When asked how they knew that something had happened a certain way, they said things like It had to have happened that way because…and then revealed that they saw step one and step three and filled in the blanks to make up a step two.

Assumptions break down under questioning because they’re not made of substance but of assumptions.

Yeah, it was probably unusual for people to think of moving to be with someone after such a short time, but what did that matter? Why was he comparing himself with this idea of normal anyway? It didn’t matter where he lived. He worked from home, and most of his friendships were long distance.

Cheat on him? Ash didn’t really seem like a cheater. Get sick of him? Possible. But he could get sick of Ash too. Relationships didn’t always last forever, but that was a feature, not a bug.

As for a secret family, well…even Truman had to admit that was likely a once-in-a-lifetime reason for a breakup.

“Okay, but seriously, Ash. What if I could stay?”

“Please, don’t.” Ash’s voice was choked. “I know you can’t. Or if you did, I’d feel like you messed up your whole life for me, and it’s too much pressure.”

“It wouldn’t be messing it up. It’d be improving it, if I got to be with you.”

Ash looked at Truman with the eyes of a ghost. He didn’t look hopeful or excited at the prospect of Truman moving here. He looked haunted.

“You’ve done so much for me,” Ash said. “Helped me so much. I’ll never forget it, and I hope you know how much I appreciate it. But…it would never work. I barely have time to take care of myself, and…I’m no fun. With my mom, and the shop, and…”

His next words were so soft and choked that Truman wished he hadn’t been able to hear them. But he could. And he couldn’t unhear them.