We were stopped at a red light, and I was still reeling from the abuse of her truth. Yet somehow I couldn’t help but feel like this was someone who needed forgiveness. And not just from me, but if she had told me the truth—all of it—then the last thing she needed to her honesty was my reaction. The last thing.

I hated myself for it. I hated myself for forgiving her, even though it was on the least important level of my psyche—my heart’s desire. It wants what it wants and it wanted to tell Spencer that it was all ok. To comfort her. The rest of my body wouldn’t allow for such behavior…such humanity.

“Spencer?”

What was I doing? Why couldn’t I stop?

“Yeah?” she asked, a little faster than I’m sure she had hoped.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? What would you be sorry for, Ashley? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know, Spencer. I just needed to say that.”

“Well, thank you,” she said, staring at me as often as she could while still managing not to wreck. Not to wreck us.

“I wish that we had met under different circumstances, you know?”

And I did. I wished that I had met her in that coffee shop seduced her with my self-deprecating charm, and we had fallen in love in some really romantic, independent movie kind of way. In a way that would make history’s greatest writers and lovers envious. I wish that we had written long, passionate letters filled with all of the things we were too scared to say late at night on the phone when we mostly communicated through awkward pauses and significant breathing. I wish I could show up to her apartment at three in the morning with a box of cereal and one spoon so that I could promise her breakfast after an early morning of soft, silent lovemaking.

She began to cry, loud and deep and I realized again that I had been speaking aloud. Or maybe she just knew.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I know. But I can’t help it because I miss you, you know? I already miss you.”

Lie, Ashley. Spare her.

“I miss you too, Spence.”