Page 159 of Say My Name

“What do you mean by weird?”

“She said they were evaluating a consulting firm and she had financial modeling to finish. Then there was this pause, like she’d almost told me something else.”

“She was tense during the strategy meeting.”

“About the acquisition?”

“I thought it was because of me.”

Cliff goes silent, the kind of quiet that means he already suspects the answer isn’t simple. “Why would Elena be tense around you?”

There is no clean way to answer that question.

“Elena and I were involved,” I say. “It ended two weeks ago.”

“What?”

I walk into the living room and look toward the dark windows. “I’m not discussing anything private that belongs to her. I can tell you my part.”

“Your part better start making sense fast.”

“We developed a relationship. I wanted it to have a future. She was planning a future where we lived separate lives.”

“So you ended it.”

“Yes.”

“Did she want you to?”

“She couldn’t tell me what she wanted.” The memory of her standing in her condo, the spreadsheet glowing on her laptop, is still sharp enough to cut.

Cliff exhales hard. “Jesus Christ. The two of you.”

“I asked her directly where we existed in the life she was planning. She couldn’t answer me.”

“And you walked away.”

“I told her I couldn’t keep acting like we were building something together while she prepared to remove me from it.”

“That sounds like you rehearsed it.”

“I’ve had two weeks to repeat it.”

The frustration leaves his voice. “You sound like hell.”

“I’m working on it.”

“You mean you’re working.”

I sit on the edge of the sofa. He knows me too well for this conversation.

The words feel stripped bare, offered into the silence without any of the planning I rely on. “I love her,” I say.

Cliff doesn’t answer.

I press my palm against the back of my neck and wait.

“You love Elena,” he finally says.