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Back You Exist Too Much Save as PDF
Chapters (23)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter 1
  4. Chapter 2
  5. Chapter 3
  6. Chapter 4
  7. Chapter 5
  8. Chapter 6
  9. Chapter 7
  10. Chapter 8
  11. Chapter 9
  12. Chapter 10
  13. Chapter 11
  14. Chapter 12
  15. Chapter 13
  16. Chapter 14
  17. Chapter 15
  18. Chapter 16
  19. Chapter 17
  20. Chapter 18
  21. Chapter 19
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Author

But he refuses to accept this, he keeps insisting. “I’m coming there, even if it’s just so you can break up with me in person. Then I’ll leave the next day. That night, even.”

“Matías—”

“If I don’t come,” he raises his voice, “then we’ll both always wonder what seeing each other might’ve done for us.”

As promised, he comes. In truth I’m happy to let him, rather than risk regret. And during his visit, I manage to resist him. Sex with the Enthusiast seems a harmless distraction compared to the potential destruction of Matías. We sleep together only once, on his first day, and I realize before we even make it to my bed that the spell is broken, the appeal of him no longer exists. I am amazed by how quickly and completely it’s diminished when faced with his reality.

I see him only a few times after that, once for dinner, then again for coffee. We spend an afternoon writing together in his hotel room, with no sex, just feedback and a few laughs. Pavarotti sings on low volume in the background as we work. I ask Matías if he thinks we could transition into a friendship, supporting each other in our creative lives and in our future relationships. I could see him being an excellent confidant, which is ironic, I tell him, given that he broke the trust by conducting a parallel relationship the entire time we were dating. He seems hurt by the question. “I think it’s a bit soon to think of us as just friends,” he says, “but maybe one day we can braid each other’s hair.”

After ten days, he surrenders. He changes his flight to leave two and a half weeks earlier than planned. I drive him to the airport and drop him off outside the airport, underneath the departure sign, with no extended farewell. By the time he leaves he can no longer save me, even if either of us had still wanted him to.

Chapter 16

16

TARA GREW UP IN SOME SORT OF COMMUNE THAT I CAN never quite visualize when she mentions it. Her dad is a drummer and a bit of a player, she tells me, her mother needy and dependent—both drug addicts. A poetry MFA student, Tara moved into the apartment next door to mine a few days ago. Her divorce was finalized over the summer. “He stopped effing me years ago,” she tells me when I stop by to give her the Wi-Fi password. She’s just finished baking banana bread and offers me a piece, along with a glass of lemonade. “I once mentioned that we didn’t have enough sex, and as punishment, he stopped sleeping with me entirely.”