We were together four years. She left when Amara was three. It wasn't She didn't abandon Amara. She's in Amara's life, just not in Chicago anymore. She's in Atlanta.
They video call twice a week. He paused. It hurt when it ended. I won't pretend it didn't. But it ended for real reasons, and I understand them now, even if I didn't then.
What were the reasons? He dried the bowl. Set it down. She wanted someone who was going somewhere. I was going somewhere too, just not anywhere she could see.
She needed more visible momentum than I could show her. Victoria was quiet. That's not a criticism of her, he said. People want what they want. You can't argue someone out of what they need.
No, she said you can't. She handed him the pot. He dried it. Outside, the wind had picked up and was doing what Chicago wind does in January, not so much blowing as pressing. A constant lateral force that made every building feel slightly under siege.
"You could have resented me," she said, "when you found out who I was, the visible momentum type. You're not the same thing. I'm a CEO who lives in a building with her name on it. You're also a person who washed three bowls on a Tuesday night because a kid with a cold needed the kitchen cleaned. He set the pot in the cabinet."
Visible momentum isn't the problem. The problem is when the person next to you becomes furniture in the room where your momentum lives. He looked at her. You don't do that. She turned from the sink and looked at him with an expression that was only partially visible.
The part she hadn't locked down in time. Darius, she said, "Yeah, I need you to know something. Tell me. I'm not I'm not easy. I know that.
I work too much and I think in spreadsheets and I go cold when I'm overwhelmed instead of reaching out, which is apparently the wrong way to handle things. And I have a calendar that would terrify a reasonable person. She held his gaze. I'm telling you this not as a disclaimer. I'm telling you so you know I know it.
I know it already. He said, I know you know it. Okay, I'm working on it. She said, I know that, too. She exhaled.