At turns hilarious and gut-wrenching, this is a tremendously fun slow burn

Friends. Not a date, I repeat, like a prayer. I’m just here to make up for breakfast, and to clear the air.
I attempt to brand it into my brain and my heart.
“Thank you.” Elliot clears his throat, smiling without teeth, eyes tight. And really: where to start?
The waiter pours water into my glass and slides my napkin onto my lap for me. The entire time, Elliot is
staring down at me as if I’ve come back from the grave. Is that what it feels like for him? At what point
would he have given up on getting in touch with me, or would the answer be never?
“How was work today?” he asks, starting somewhere safe.
“It was busy.”
He nods, sipping his water and then putting it down, letting his fingers trace drops of condensation as
they flow from the lip to the base. “You’re in pediatrics.”
“Yes.”
“And did you know as soon as you started med school that you wanted to work in that?”
I shrug. “Pretty much.”
An exasperated smile quirks his mouth. “Give a little, Mace.”
This makes me laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be weird.” After a deep inhale and long, shaking
exhale, I admit, “I guess I’m nervous.”
Not that it’s a date.
I mean, of course it isn’t. I told Sean I was meeting an old friend for dinner tonight, and promised myself
I would give him the whole story when I got home – which I still intend to do. But he was preoccupied with
setting up his new TV and didn’t really seem to notice when I stepped out, anyway.
“I’m nervous, too,” Elliot says.
“It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” he says, “but I’m glad you called. Or texted, rather.”
“You replied so quickly,” I say, thinking of his old flip-phone again. “I wasn’t prepared for that.”
He beams with mock pride. “I have an iPhone now.”
“Let me guess: Nick Jr.’s hand-me-down?”
Elliot scowls. “As if.” He takes another sip of water and adds, “I mean, Andreas updates his phone way
more often.”
Our laughter dies down but the eye contact remains. “Well, in case you were wondering,” I say, “the
score is even at one–one. Liz gave me your number. Though I probably should have remembered it. It’s the
same one you always had.”
He nods and my eyes flicker down reflexively when he lick-bites his bottom lip. “Liz is great.”
“I can tell,” I say. “I like her.” Clearing my throat, I add quietly, “Speaking of… sorry about how I left at

---

breakfast.”
“I get it,” he answers quickly. “It’s a lot to process.”
It’s almost laughable; an ocean of information separates us, and there are an infinite number of places to
begin. Start at the beginning and work forward. Start now, and work backward. Jump in somewhere in the
middle.
“I honestly don’t even know where to begin,” I admit.
“Maybe,” he says hesitantly, “maybe we check out the menu, order some wine, and then catch up? You
know, like people do over dinner?”
I nod, relieved that he seems as mentally sturdy as ever, and lift the menu to scan it, but it feels like the
words on the page are trumped by all the questions in my head.
Where does he live in Berkeley?
What is his novel about?
What about him has changed? What stayed the same?
But the petty, traitorous thought that lurks in the guilty shadows of my brain is the bravery it took him to
end a relationship after seeing me for less than two minutes. I mean, unless it wasn’t very established.
Or was already on its way out.
Is this the worst place to start? Am I a complete maniac? I mean, at the very least it was the last real
thing we talked about yesterday, right?
“Is everything okay with… with…?” I ask, wincing.
He looks up from his menu and maybe it’s my slightly anxious expression that clues him in. “With
Rachel?”
I nod, but her name triggers a defensive reaction in me: he should be with someone named Rachel, who
reads with relish every issue of the New Yorker, and works in nonprofit, and composts all her eggshells and
beet peelings so she can grow her own produce. Meanwhile, I’m a mess, with never-ending med school
loans, mommy issues, daddy issues, Elliot issues, and a shameful subscription to US Weekly.
“Things are okay, actually,” he says. “I think. I hope eventually we can be friends again. In hindsight, it
couldn’t ever have been more.”
This sentiment slips into my bloodstream, warm and electric. “Elliot.”
“I heard what you said,” he says earnestly. “You’re engaged, I get it. But it will be hard for me to just be
your friend, Macy. It’s not in my DNA.” He meets my eyes and puts the menu back down near his arm. “I’ll
try, but I already know this about myself.”
I feel his disarming honesty chipping away at the resilient shell around me. I wonder how many times he
could tell me he loved me before I melted into a puddle at his feet.
“Then I think some ground rules are in order,” I say.
“Ground rules,” he repeats, nodding slowly. “As in, no expectations?” I nod. “And, maybe… anything you
want to know, I’ll tell you, and vice versa?”
If this is quid pro quo, I’m going to have to put on my big girl pants and get through it. Although
everything inside me is rioting in panic, I agree.
“So,” he says, easing into a smile, “I don’t know what you’d like to know about Rachel. We were friends
first. For years, in grad school and after.”
The idea of him being friends with another female for years is a knife pushed slowly into my sternum.
Taking a sip of water, I manage an easy follow-up. “Grad school?”
“MFA from NYU,” he says, smiling. Rubbing a hand over his hair as if he’s not quite used to the feel of it
yet, he adds, “Looking back, it seems a little like when we hit twenty-eight, we defaulted into a
relationship.”
I know what he means. I turned twenty-eight and defaulted to Sean.
He’s a mind reader: “Tell me about this guy you’re going to marry.”
This is a minefield, but I may as well put it all right up front and be honest, too.
“We met at a dinner welcoming all of the incoming residents,” I say, and he doesn’t need me to do the
math for him, but I do: “in May.”
His brows slowly inch up beneath his shaggy mop of hair. “Oh.”
“We hit it off right away.”
Elliot nods, watching me intensely. “I assume you’d have to.”
I blink down to the table, clearing my throat and trying not to respond defensively. Elliot has always been
brutally honest, but it never came out sharply at me before. To me, his words were always gentle and
adoring. Now my heart is pounding so hard, I feel it swooshing between us, and it makes me wonder
whether our individual heartaches are silently duking this out from inside our bodies.
“Sorry,” Elliot mumbles, reaching across the table before thinking better of touching me. “I didn’t mean
it to come out like that. It’s just fast, that’s all.”
I look up and give him a weak smile. “I know. It did move fast.”
“What’s he like?”
“Mellow. Nice.” I twist my napkin in my lap, wishing I could come up with better adjectives to describe
the man I plan to marry. “He has a daughter.”
Elliot listens, nearly unblinking.
“He’s a benefactor for the hospital,” I say. “Well, in a sense. He’s an artist. His work is…” I sense that I’m
beginning to brag, and I don’t know why it leaves me feeling unsettled. “It’s pretty popular right now. He
donates a lot of the newer art installations over at Benioff Mission Bay.”
Elliot leans in. “Sean Chen?”

---

“Yeah. You’ve heard of him?”
“Books and art run in similar circles around here,” he explains, nodding. “I’ve heard he’s a good guy. His
art is stunning.”
Pride swells, warm in my chest. “He is. It is, yeah.” And another truth rolls out of me before I can catch
it: “And he’s the first guy I’ve been with who…”
Shit.
I try to think of a better way to end this sentence than the bald truth, but my mind is completely blank
but for Elliot’s earnest expression and the gentle way his hands are cupping his water glass. He unravels
me.
He waits, and finally asks, “Who what, Mace?”