Page 3 of The Seven Year Slip

“It really wasn’t that big of a deal.” I shrugged. “It was over text messages. I think he’s already dating somebody he met on Hinge.” My friends looked at me with utter pity, but I waved it off. “Really, it’s fine. We weren’t that compatible anyway.”

Which was true, but I didn’t include the fight we had before the texts.Fightwas a strong word for it, though. It felt more like a shrug and a white flag tossed onto an already-abandoned battlefield.

“Again? You have to work lateagain?” he’d asked. “You know this is my big night. I want you here with me.”

To be fair, I had forgotten that it was the opening night of a gallery with his work. He was an artist—a metalworker, actually—and this was a big thing for him. “I’m sorry, Nate. This is important.”

And it was, I was sure of it, even though I couldn’t remember what the emergency had been to make me stay late.

He was quiet for a long moment, and then he asked, “Is this how it’s going to be? I don’t want to be second to your job, Clementine.”

“You’re not!”

He was. He absolutely was. I kept him at arm’s length because at least there he wouldn’t be able to see how broken I was. I could keep lying. I could keep pretending I was fine—because Iwasfine. I had to be. I didn’t like people worrying about me when they had so many other things to worry about. That was my allure, right?That you didn’t need to worry about Clementine West. She always figured it out.

Nate let out that heavy, body-heaving sigh. “Clementine, I think you need to be honest.” And that was it—the nail in the proverbial coffin. “You’re so closed off, you use work as a shield. I don’t think I even really know you. You won’t open up. You won’t bevulnerable. Whatever happened to that girl in those photos? With watercolor under her fingernails?”

She was gone, but that much he already knew. He met me after she was already gone. I think that might have been why he didn’t just dump me after I canceled plans on him the first time, because he kept trying to find that girl with watercolors under her fingernails that he saw once in a photo in my old apartment. The girl from before.

“Do you even love me?” he went on. “I can’t remember you saying it once.”

“We’ve only dated for three months. It’s a little early, don’t you think?”

“When you know, you know.”

I pursed my lips. “Then I guess I don’t know.”

And that was it.

I was at the end of this relationship. Before I said anything I’d regret, I hung up the phone, then texted him that it was over. I’d mail his toothbrush back to him. God knows I wasn’t going to take a trip toWilliamsburgif I didn’t have to.

“Besides,” I added, grabbing the too-expensive bottle of wine to top off my glass, “I don’t really think I want to be in a relationship right now. I want to concentrate on my career—I don’t have time to mess with guys I might end up dumping in a text message three months later. The sex wasn’t even that good.” I took a large gulp of wine to wash downthathorrid truth.

Drew watched me in awe, shaking her head. “Look at that, not even a tear.”

“I’ve never seen her cry over any guy,” Fiona said to her wife.

I tried to argue that no, I actuallyhad, but then closed my mouth again because... she was right. I seldom cried, anyway, and over some guy? Absolutely not. Fiona always said it was because all my relationships had boiled down to calling themsome guy—a person not even worthy of a name in my memory. “Because you’ve never been in love,” she once said, and maybe that was true.

“When you know, you know,” Nate had said.

I didn’t even know what love was supposed to feel like.

Fiona waved her hand. “Well,whateverto him, then! He didn’t deserve a financially stable girlfriend who is kicking ass at workandowns an apartment on the Upper East Side,” she went on, and then that seemed to remind her of theotherthing I really didn’t want to talk about. “How is it? The apartment?”

Theapartment. She and Drew had stopped calling it my aunt’s apartment back in January, but I still couldn’t kick the habit. I shrugged.

I could tell them the truth—that every time I walked through the door, I expected to see my aunt there in her wingback chair the color of robin’s eggs, but the chair was gone.

So was its owner.

“It’s great,” I decided.

Fiona and Drew both gave each other the same glance, as if they didn’t believe me. Fair enough; I wasn’t a very good liar.

“It’sgreat,” I repeated. “And why are we talking about me? Let’s find this famous chef of yours and woo him to the dark side.” I reached over the table for the last date and ate it.

“Sure, sure, we just need to flag down our server...” Drew muttered, looking around to see if she could catch anyone’s eye, butshe was much too polite and too meek to do anything more than give them a meaningful look. “Do I just raise my hand or—what do you do at expensive restaurants?”

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