“And you think it’s fun to just sit around and wonder if your girlfriend’s going to wind up dead or missing?” Jesse yelled back. “You think that’s fair? Because it’s not, Maggie! It’s hell. You’re out there doing God knows what and I’m just hanging out. I can’t even help you and it makes me crazy!”
I pressed my fingers against my eyes, so mad that I wanted to punch something. “This is how it is,” I told him, and my voice was so cold that it scared me a little. “You’ve known this from the very beginning. This is who I am. I can’t change and I won’t change, especially not right now.
“And if you can’t handle it, then you need to go.”
I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
Jesse’s eyes widened in surprise, and then his face smoothed out into something I had never seen before. “That’s the thing, Mags,” he said, his voice strained and sounding nothing like him. “I can’t go. I’m always going to worry about you. Even if we break up tomorrow—”
“You want to break up?”
“No, I’m just saying! Even if we did, I’d still worry about you. I’m going to worry about you for the rest of my life because of this insane job of yours. I can’t stand that you’re out there risking your life and I can’t protect you!”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?”
“No, because I love you!” Jesse suddenly covered his mouth with his hand and turned away from me. His shoulders were bunched together, the tension running down his spine. When he turned back, there were tears in his eyes.
“That’s what people do when they love each other, Mags. They protect each other. You looked out for me and Roux, and now you won’t let us do the same for you and it makes me crazy.”
Now the tears were starting to fall and I was too exhausted to try and stop them. “Jesse, wait,” I said. “We’re both tired. We’re both angry. Let’s just talk about this tomorrow, okay?”
“When? Can you make time in your busy, world-saving schedule for me? Or do you want to leave me hanging and making excuses to my mom for ninety minutes while you risk your life around town?”
“You didn’t tell your mom, did you?” I asked. “Oh, my God, Jesse.”
“Of course I didn’t!” he cried. “That’s what I’m talking about! You can’t even trust me and all I’ve ever done is trust you and worry about you and—”
“I can’t tell you because it’s dangerous!” I exploded. “It’s really, really dangerous, Jesse! I shouldn’t have even told you and Roux about any of this in the first place, but I did and it was my stupid mistake and now I have to protect you because if I don’t …” The words stuck in my throat and I couldn’t get them out for a few seconds. “If I don’t and something happens to you …” They were stuck again, not going anywhere this time.
“You don’t have to protect me this time,” Jesse said, stepping toward me.
“Yes, I do!” I cried. “If you don’t have any information, then no one can get it from you. That’s what I keep trying to tell you!”
Jesse went quiet for almost a minute as we stood across from each other, both of us trying to catch our breath. He was the first to speak.
“So if you can’t trust me and I can’t protect you, then how the hell are we going to make this work?”
It’s a special sort of pain when someone voices your exact fears, when someone tells you that all the dark thoughts you have about yourself are not only real, but that everyone else can see them, too. It’s the sort of pain that drives the tears out of your eyes and shuts down your heart and drops a steel wall in front of it and makes you realize that yes, being alone is terrible, but it will never be as painful as this.
“Maybe we don’t,” I said, the tears stuck in my throat. “Maybe this is how it ends.”
Jesse just blinked. “You seriously want to break up?”
“I don’t want to,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! No matter what I do, I’m going to hurt you!”
Jesse bit the inside of his cheek, his jaw tightening. “Nothing hurts worse than this,” he said, echoing my own thoughts.
“Maybe we just need to take a break,” I said. “Not break up, but just figure things out.”
If a nod could be sarcastic, then that’s what Jesse did. “Cool. Fine. Okay.” He put his arm up to signal a cab turning the corner, then pulled open the door when it glided to the curb. “Get in,” he told me.
“I can hail my own—”
“Just.” Jesse took another deep breath and I saw his chin quiver a little. “Just let me do this for you,” he said. “In case this doesn’t work, let me do one last nice thing for you.”
My hands were shaking as I climbed in. We had shared a cab together last Halloween, hauling a very drunk Roux back to her apartment and then heading back downtown after sharing a kiss on an Upper East Side brownstone stoop. It had been our first kiss, and I remembered feeling the cracked pleather seats on the cab ride home, the smell of Jesse’s cologne, and the buzzing feeling that I had from kissing someone for the very first time. I had been in love with him then, but now it was deeper. Now I loved him.
And I had to let him go.