Page 114 of Finance Bros

“You said you didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“I don’t. It’s not like that yet.”

The “yet” is excruciating. I rub my face, covering my mouth for a few seconds to make sure nothing’s going to come up. “Okay,” I finally say.

“Is it?” he asks.

“If that’s what you want.” Props to internal screams. They’re super quiet.

“You broke the fuck out of me,” he says quietly.

I clench my jaw and nod, taking it.

He goes on to say, “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

“If you want me to cry, you’re getting pretty close to making that happen.”

“No, Mal, that’s not what I want. But when I said we needed to talk, I meant both of us.”

Swallowing hard, I say, “You’ve been acting like you wanted to win the challenge. Like you want a job at the firm.”

“At the Seattle branch,” he says.

“Oh.” I forgot there were other branches.

“But as a reminder,” he says, “Youdohave a girlfriend.”

I shut my eyes. “It’s over,” I say weakly.

“Does she know that?”

“What difference does it make?” I ask, feeling truly hopeless.

“I mean, nothing’s written in stone,” he says.

“But you don’t trust me,” I say.

“I want to.”

My head shakes. “Not the same thing.”

“No,” he says. “I know it’s not.”

“So, what do you want me to do?” I ask.

“I like the honesty.”

“Really? Because it feels like it totally backfired for me.”

“It’s only July, Mal.”

“Are you saying—what are you saying?”

“I don’t want to fight anymore either,” he says.

I don’t want to hear what he doesn’t want, but maybe his inability to tell me what he actually wants is a relic of the way I broke him. “You’re not kicking me out, right?”

“No.”

---