My hands remain firm on her face. Her eyes remain firm on mine.

And then a tear slowly begins to take shape and rolls down her cheek. She shakes her head, “Ben, you can’t—”

“Yes or no, Fallon. That’s all I want to hear.”

Please say yes. Please tell me you aren’t finished falling in love with me yet.

“You need to be here for your family this year. You know that as well as I do, Ben. The last thing we need is a relationship over a cell phone. And that’s exactly what will happen, because we’ll spend every spare second wanting to talk to each other instead of focusing on our goals. We’ll alter everything just to be together, and it shouldn’t be that way. Not yet. We need to finish what we started.”

I let all of that go in one ear and out the other, because it isn’t the answer I want. I lower myself until I’m at eye level with her. “Yes. Or no.”

She inhales a shaky breath. And then, in a weak effort at sounding sincere, she says, “No. No, Ben. Go back inside and finish your book.”

Another tear falls, but this time it falls from my eye.

I take a step back and I let go of her. When she climbs into the backseat of the cab, she rolls down her window, but I won’t look at her face. I stare at the ground beneath my feet, waiting to see if it will split in two and swallow me whole.

“The one thing I want more than anything is for the whole world to laugh at you, Ben.” I can hear the tears in her voice. “And they can’t do that if I don’t do for you what you did for me the day we met. You let me go. You encouraged me to go. And I want the same for you. I want you to follow your passion instead of your heart.”

The cab begins to back away, and for a split second I think maybe she’ll realize how fucked up her priorities are, because she’s my passion. The book was just an excuse.

I debate running after her—giving her a book-worthy performance. I could chase down the cab and when it comes to a stop, I could pull open her door and whisk her into my arms and tell her I’m in love with her. That I finished falling in love with her almost immediately after I started, because it was a straight plummet from the top to the bottom. A whoosh. An instant. Insta-love.

But she hates insta-love. Apparently she hates semi-instant love and slow love and love at a snail’s pace and love in general and . . . “Fuck!”

I curse at the empty street, because for once, I get exactly what I deserve.

Fourth November

9th

In her darkness, she is silent.

In my darkness, she screams.

—BENTON JAMES KESSLER

Fallon

Even counting the night I was called up from being the understudy, I wasn’t this nervous. I’m over an hour early, but our booth was already taken when I arrived here this morning, so I chose the one next to it.

I tap my fingers on the table, my eyes flicking to the door anytime someone enters or exits.

I have no idea how I’m going to start this conversation. How do I tell him that as soon as I pulled away last year, I knew I’d made the biggest mistake of my life? How do I tell him I made that last minute decision for his benefit? That I thought if I told him I didn’t want to fall in love with him, that I would be helping him in some way? And most important, how do I bring up the fact that I moved back to Los Angeles just for him? Well, not exactly just for him. I did make a huge career change a few months ago.

Back when I was in community theater, I was asked to help out with lines a lot because people had confidence in my talent. I guess you could say I taught acting in a sense. The joy I got from that stuck with me and over time, I realized that I enjoyed assisting the actors with their parts more than I enjoyed being the actor.

It took a few months to finally accept that maybe my goal wasn’t to be an actress anymore. People change. They grow. Passions evolve, and mine evolved into wanting to help others develop their own talents.

I looked into schools all over the country, but with my mother, Amber, and yes, Ben, being in Los Angeles, it was a no-brainer for which city I ended up choosing.

As much as I question my decision for not agreeing to be with him last year, I know it was for the best in the long run. I’ve never been more at peace with my career choice as I am right now, and I’m not sure it would have happened had Ben been in the picture. So even though mistakes were made, I don’t have any regrets. I think things are working out exactly as they should.

But as Ben and I can both probably attest, a lot can change in a year, so I’m terrified he may have changed his mind. He may not even want to be with me like he did last year. He may still be so pissed at me, he doesn’t even show up.

But that’s not really why I’m nervous.

I’m nervous because I know he will. He always shows up. But this year, I have no idea where we stand. We left on really bad terms last year and I take complete blame, but he has to understand that if the shoe were on the other foot, he would have done the same for me. If I had made such a huge declaration in the midst of so much suffering, he would have acknowledged that maybe I wasn’t in the best place to make such a life-altering decision. And he certainly can’t fault me for encouraging him to stay and help out his family. His brother had just died. His sister-in-law needed him. His nephew would need him. It was the right thing. He would have done the same for me. He just took it as hard as he did because he was already having such an emotional week.

I almost feel like showing up unannounced last year was a bad idea. I feel like my time there did more damage than it did good.