Everything Changes

thumbs even as I can feel my own coming, and she wipes mine away in the same manner. We stand like that for a few moments, cradling each other’s head in our hands, a closed circuit of sad affection.
    “What are you doing here?” I ask her after a bit.
    “Thinking.”
    “About what?”
    “About all the things we never talk about.”
    “What things?”
    The room is dark, but I don’t need light to reveal the impatient expression with which she’s regarding me. She steps out of our embrace and leans against the desk. “Okay,” I say, walking over and leaning against the desk beside her. “I know what you mean.”
    She considers me briefly, over the rim of her martini glass. “I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to you if I tell you that I almost didn’t come tonight.”
    “I can imagine.”
    She nods. “But you’re my favorite person in the world, and I love you, and whatever other things may or may not be happening between us, the fact is that you’ve been my lifeline for the last two years, and there was no way I couldn’t be here for you, one way or the other. You saved my life, Zack. You really did. I don’t know what I would have done without you. And I want you to know that no matter what happens, I will never stop loving you for that.”
    I lean over and kiss her cheek. “Thanks,” I say. “That means a lot to me.”
    “So, as long as I took the trouble to be here for you,” she says, taking a dramatically deep breath, “I might as well tell you that I don’t think you should marry Hope.”
    “What?”
    She looks away from me. “If you had any idea how hard it was for me to say that, you would never ask me to repeat it.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say. “I meant, why do you think that?”
    She turns back to me, frowning uncertainly. “I’ve been struggling for months with whether to say something or not. It’s so hard to tell if saying something is the right thing to do, and you have to believe me, I only want to do what’s right for you. If you think I’m wrong, please disregard everything, but just don’t hate me for saying it. Okay? Because I don’t think I could stand that.”
    I place my hand on hers, and it’s impossible to tell where the trembling is coming from, her hand or mine. “That will never happen,” I say.
    “Okay,” she says. “Here’s the thing. I don’t think you’re in love with her, not all the way. If you were, I think you would seem more certain about it. More jazzed. You wouldn’t hug me the way we hug, and say the things you say to me. You definitely wouldn’t have kissed me the other day the way you did. I’m not saying you’re in love with me. I’m just saying that whatever this thing is you feel toward me, this thing we’re both too scared to mention, I don’t think it could exist if you were head over heels in love with Hope. And if that’s the case, if you’re not head over heels in love with her, you shouldn’t marry her.”
    I nod slowly, my chest fluttering with nervous excitement. There are many ways to respond to this, truthfully even, without getting into the thorny undergrowth of my feelings for Tamara. But it’s dark, and I’m drunk at my own engagement party, and there’s a potency to Tamara’s directness, a hidden power lurking behind her words, and if I can match it with some directness of my own, who knows what cosmic forces might be unleashed? “So what do you think it is, this thing between us?”
    “That’s not what matters,” she says, removing her hand from under mine. “We’re not talking about me. What we’re talking about here is whether you belong with Hope or not.”
    “I understand that,” I say. “But as long as we’re doing this, let’s do it completely. I need to know—do you think you might have stronger feelings for me than just friendship?”
    “No way, Zack,” she says, launching herself off the desk and stepping away from me. “I’m not going to let you do that to me. I’m not going to bear this responsibility for you. I’ve got my own problems, and besides, I need you too much to trust anything else I might feel. Either you believe, in your heart, that you belong with Hope, or you don’t. I’m not a factor.”
    “But you are,” I say miserably. “Because I love you, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and it’s fucking me up like you wouldn’t believe. When I kissed you that day, it took every last bit of my willpower to stop. And that’s how it is whenever I’m