Down the Rabbit Hole

She laughed, confused. “Of course it’s me.” Then she frowned. “Did you mean to call someone else?”


“No!” He looked stricken. “It’s just—I haven’t been able to get through on the regular phone. The phone part of my phone doesn’t work, see, but then I remembered FaceTime. It’s not actually the phone so it works. I’m sure there’s some metaphor in there somewhere,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “But then I wasn’t sure it was allowed—well, anyway, never mind. It’s a long story. Have you got a minute to talk?”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but her heart began to soar anyway. “Yes! Yes, I’m just—I just got out of work. What’s up?” She tried to sound casual and glanced at April, who was still doing that movement.

“Macy . . .” He looked at her a long moment.

She caught sight of herself in the little box in the corner, the one that showed how she looked to him, and realized why April was gesturing. She looked awful. She jerked the phone up to face level and farther away, so it wasn’t looking at her from below, and she instantly looked less ghoulish. April popped herself theatrically on the forehead as if to say, Finally.

“Hey, can I call you right back?” she asked, thinking she should also get into some better lighting. “I’m out on the street and—”

“No!” he shouted. “No, no, don’t hang up. Please don’t hang up. Can you hear me?”

She looked around at the people looking at her and turned the phone down a notch, but she didn’t want to miss anything he said so she turned it back up. “Yes, but so can a lot of other people.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to risk not being able to call back. Listen, I’ve come to a realization. What you were trying to say the other night, that you thought I was done? What did you mean by that?”

She looked around again. Several people at a bus stop were looking at her curiously. She dropped her voice. “Oh, you know. That you . . . you obviously didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about you.”

“What?” he said loudly, as if by increasing his volume he could increase hers. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I said, that I know you wanted out of the relationship,” she nearly shouted, “that you didn’t love me anymore.”

“That’s what I thought you meant!” He looked happy about this. “But Macy, here’s the thing. I mean, I know I was a jerk about the phone. I get that now. Believe me, I really understand now. But I’ve been thinking all this time that it was about me, my problem, my . . . addiction, I guess you could call it. So I’ve been frustrated about what to do. How to get out of here—of the mess I made, that is. It’s hard to explain.”

“No, but Jeremy, it wasn’t about that at all. It was me. I was so intolerant. And I’m so sorry I made you feel like it was you. The problem is that I’m spoiled and impulsive—”

“Stop it. No, you’re not. But I did realize that the problem was about you.”

“I know! I was the problem. I have no patience! I could have given you another chance. Heck, I could have just gotten over it.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I thought the problem was mine, that it was something that I needed to change but hadn’t gotten around to working on yet. What I didn’t realize was not that I had become a jerk, or an idiot, or a guy who was a lousy boyfriend—all of those things were true, but they were still all about me. I finally realized that I wasn’t truly paying attention to anybody but me. The phone was just a symptom. And all the rest of this stuff happened because of what that was doing to you!” He paused, shaking his head. “Did you honestly think I didn’t love you?”