I turned in my seat and said, “Miller. We need to talk.”
“What’s up?” he said.
I took a deep breath, digging down for courage—or at least a little gumption. “I don’t think we should keep seeing each other.”
His face fell. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. My heart hurt, but the words still felt right, and there was suddenly no doubt in my mind that I was doing the right thing.
“Why?” he asked, a question that is never really productive when someone is trying to break up with you.
“I just don’t think it’s … right.”
“Is this because of Lucy?”
“No. I swear,” I said, knowing how terrible Miller would feel if he knew who it really came from. “It just doesn’t … feel right anymore. I think we’re both just stalling … hanging out because there isn’t anything better.”
“But I think you are the best,” Miller said, so sweetly. I could tell he meant it, and I asked myself if maybe that wasn’t good enough. For one of the two of us to feel the right way. But I knew the answer, so I pressed on.
“That’s really nice, Miller,” I said.
“Are you seeing someone else?” he asked.
I said no as vehemently as I could, hoping that this made it better. Then again, what I was really saying was that being alone was better than being with him.
“Okay,” he finally said. “We can break up … if that’s really what you want … But can we still do it? You know—friends with benefits?”
“No,” I said, thinking that the question, along with his earnest delivery, confirmed my decision. “We can’t still do it.”
“C’mon. One more time?” Miller asked, reaching out to put his hand on my thigh.
I felt myself weakening, the way I did when a waiter asked if I’d saved room for dessert. But no, I had to rip off the Band-Aid. Just do it, in sports speak.
“I want to,” I said.
“Well, then, come on. Let’s go,” he said, his face clearing, like that of a child who just wore down his mother to watch another thirty minutes of television.
“I can’t … Miller … I’m sorry,” I said, pushing his hand off my knee. Then I leaned across the front seat, planting a small but decisive kiss on his unshaven cheek, and said, “See you around?”
“Yep. See you ’round the way,” Miller said, as I pictured him out at the bars with surgically enhanced, twenty-something blondes. I felt a pang of jealousy, but not enough to reverse the tide. I got out of the car and closed the door, unsure of whether I felt more relieved that it had been so easy or hurt by how quickly he threw in the towel. I told myself not to take it personally. It was just the way Miller was. Laid-back, easygoing, taking things in stride. I watched him now, flashing me a peace sign through his car window, then backing out of my complex, the radio cranked up, undoubtedly already plotting his next booty call.
A few minutes later, I walked into my apartment, pushing the clean clothes I had yet to fold to one side of my sofa, clearing a place to sit. I reached for the remote control and turned on my new flat-screen, the one I had prioritized over fixing my car. The ESPN Friday Night Fight was just ending. Tyson Fury was kicking someone’s ass—an unknown from Brazil. I watched for a few seconds, then flipped channels. All I wanted to do was call Coach Carr and tell him that I’d taken his advice. But, of course, there was no way I’d ever do such a thing. I had his cell but had never called him and instead left messages with Mrs. Heflin. There was nothing so pressing that it warranted bothering him at home—and breaking up with Miller hardly constituted “pressing” to anyone but me. Apparently including Miller.
Instead I picked up the phone and called Lucy, even though I knew that anti-Miller sentiment was inevitable and wasn’t really in the mood to hear him bashed. I needed to talk to my best friend—my “bosom friend,” as she had called us since reading Anne of Green Gables in grade school, even writing a quote from the book in calligraphy and giving it to me for Christmas one year: A really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul.
Although there was one thing I’d never confide in her, the quote was true, always had been. It didn’t matter that we weren’t much alike on paper. That I thought the best of people, and she often assumed the worst. That I was an introvert, and she could work a room like nobody I’d ever seen but her mother. That I was even-tempered, and she was moody and dramatic. That I was no frills, and she was all frills. That I loved football, and she simply tolerated it. The list of differences was endless, but, in the end, none of them mattered. What mattered was that we completely accepted each other. That I had her back, and she had mine. That we shared a common history, going all the way back to our mothers’ collegiate friendship. Lucy had always been more like a sister than a friend, especially in a crisis, and I needed her now.