Free Pug Hill by Alison Pace Page B

know what comes next.
    “Evan.” I take another breath, let it out.
    “No, Hope, listen,” he says. He’s going to say it first, I think, and I think also that maybe I prefer it this way, that maybe I always have.
    “Hope,” he says again, and I feel like it’s been so many times already tonight that he’s said my name. I wonder if maybe he thinks someone else is here, too? “I just don’t think this is worth it,” he says it softly, not so meanly at all. A line from a song that I don’t know the name of pops into my head: I was the one worth leaving. I try not to listen to it.
    “I-I don’t either,” I say, instead of anything else. I look away from the sidewalk that up until now I have been staring at so intently. I look up at Evan and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him look sad.
    The past six, almost seven, months with Evan flash before my eyes, much in the manner of one Stouffer’s microwave pizza. It occurs to me that I could possibly stop this, that maybe I could say something about trying to be better or trying to find compromise. It occurs to me that maybe we could go together, just about ten blocks up Columbus to the Patagonia store and buy some new fleece things and some microfiber, the kind of materials that would wick away the cold. I could wear my fleece and see the meaning behind long, purposeful walks in the cold, and things right away would be better between us.
    But I don’t say anything at all to Evan, because right now I know I’m afraid of more than just public speaking, and I want to believe that it’s entirely possible that sometimes the only thing to fear is fear itself.
    “Sorry,” he says. I wait, but he doesn’t say my name again. He looks at me. I tell myself it is nothing if not unwise to try to build a foundation with someone who will throw a pizza at you.
    “I’m sorry, too,” I say, even though I harbor darkness in my heart, even though I’m pretty sure that I’m not. And then for a while neither of us says anything.
    “I mean, uh, it’s late and all, and do you want to, like, talk about this more, do you want to come inside? I don’t want to be a dick or anything.”
    No, I think, of course not.
    “It’s okay, I think I’m just gonna go,” I say and I feel like I’ve done this already, a million times before.
    “Here, I’ll hail you a cab,” he says and starts walking over to Broadway. I walk with him and I think that it’s good, that all he’s saying right now to me is that he’ll hail me a cab. I think it’s so much better than other things he could say, things along the lines of, “Hope, don’t you have anything, anything at all, to say?” or, “Hope, I just want you to know I really did care about you,” or “Hope, I just want you to know I don’t really think your upper arms are fat.” Because any of those things, any combination of them or even any of them alone would, I am pretty sure, make me cry. And I don’t want to cry.
    A taxi stops and we stand for a moment outside of it, and I worry it’s going to drive away without me. And then, I want it to.
    “You know,” I say, “I think I’ll walk.”
    “Are you sure? It’s late.”
    “It’s not that late,” I tell him, and also, I’m telling myself, too. “It’s really not.”
    Evan leans over to the cab driver’s window, waves and shakes his head no, and the cab drives away. He reaches out right then and touches my arm, just under my elbow and leaves his hand there for a moment. As our eyes meet, I want to be the type of person who will remember this. I want to be the type of person who remembers that there was softness, tenderness even, in the way he touched my arm and held it for a moment, right under the elbow. But I know I’m not.
    I walk up a block and then cut over to Columbus. Columbus feels safer to walk on alone when it’s late, even though, as I mentioned already, it’s not that late.

chapter ten
    There’s One, One Pug
    I know what I don’t need