“Stop saying that.”
“It’s true. You think you know what you want now, but it’s going to change a million times before you reach thirty. You’re not going to be the same person ten years from now. Five years from now, even. You’re not.”
“Stop,” he said.
“I’m not going to let you do this. I’m not going to let you throw this opportunity away for something you think you want right now. And I’m not going to be the fucking Yoko Ono of August Moon.” I was crying. I did not recall at what point it started, but it had. “I don’t want the wrath of your fans. I don’t want this pressure for us to make this work. I don’t want the guilt when it doesn’t. You need to call Jane and tell her you’re coming back. Now.”
There was a thump against the far wall and I feared we’d woken Isabelle.
“Fuck. Put your clothes on. You have to go.”
He sat there, seemingly stunned.
“Now.” I grabbed his underwear from the floor. His black jeans, his T-shirt. His boots. “Now.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
I stopped for a second, peering into his eyes, haunted. “This was never going to be forever, Hayes … You need to move on.”
He reached for my arms. “I’m not going to stop loving you, Solène. I’m not ever going to stop loving you.”
“It’s a choice. You make a choice.”
“You don’t honestly believe that.”
“Put your clothes on. You have to go.”
I watched him dress. Crying.
“Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me away?”
I could not speak. My chest, crushed. My heart, hemorrhaging. And I thought perhaps this is what it felt like to drown.
I led him back down the hall. Past Isabelle’s room, past the photos of me pregnant, of me doing ballet, of me at seventeen figuring out who I was supposed to be. And out into the night air.
“You love me,” he said. “You loved me. You said you loved me. Why are you doing this?”
And I realized, then, that there was only one way to truly let him go. “Maybe it wasn’t you,” I said. “Maybe it was the idea of you.”
He stared at me for a minute, silent, his eyes red, wide. And when he finally spoke, he seemed to me broken. “You’re lying,” he said. “You’re lying to me. You’re trying to push me away. Again. And I don’t know if you’re just trying to convince me. Or you’re trying to convince yourself. But either way, I know you’re lying.”
“You have to go, Hayes.”
The tears were falling, rushing, easy. “Tell me. Tell me you’re lying, Solène.”
“You have to go.”
“Tell me you’re lying.”
“Please. Go.”
“Fuck. I love you. Don’t do this to us.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I stepped back in the house and shut the door.
*
He went back to the band. And from what I could tell, nothing came out in the press about him having ever left. He’d missed a show in Sweden due to the “flu,” according to their management. But I knew better.
*
He called me. In the beginning, every day. Multiple times. Although I would not answer. And he texted. At first often, and then every few days or so. It went on for months. These little messages that would paralyze me. And to which I resisted responding. Because I had made a choice.
I miss you.
I’m thinking of you.
I still love you.
And then one day, they stopped.
Long, long before I had stopped loving him.