Heartbreak, like joy, makes space for cliché; you run out of clever ways to say things.

Something hasn’t been working for a while now.

We’ll talk about it, we’ll work it out.

Work what out? It’s not a math problem you can logic your way through.

They slept in the same bed, they had sex, they professed their love every single day. But it was all flawed. It wasn’t only that Tessa was gay. There was Edith’s inability to make a life for herself here. The pressure of their pre-romantic history.

What do you want, you wanna call it quits?

I don’t want that but that is what’s going to happen.

We’re not living in a fucking Greek tragedy, Teresa. We get to make choices. No one’s making us not get married.

You’ll go off to grad school and that’ll be the end. It’s clean that way.

And what if I don’t get in? What then?

I don’t know! Tessa was crying. Edith was crying.

One by one, letters had come rejecting her from writing programs. Edith spent eight hours a day refreshing her email. She answered every spam call in case it was the call of congratulations.

Even Meghan, when Edith ran into her at CVS, could not be brought to gloat. Tessa is really hurting, she said. She didn’t eat anything at lunch the other day. Edith tried to hide the box of condoms she was buying, afraid Meghan would snark her for it. I hope you’ll do the right thing, my guy.

An insane thing to say!! Edith was always trying to do the right thing. If Meghan knew of a magic fortune-telling machine that could print—ideally on a small, portable scrap of paper—what the right thing was, Edith would happily be pointed toward it! But Meghan was already gone and Edith was left in CVS with her box of condoms, feeling very much like someone who had already been broken up with.

Edith was waitlisted at the Alabama school. She went walking on her lunch break, pacing until the universe provided.

Tessa was more angry than upset. You can’t sit around waiting for me to fix your life!

I’m not asking you to!

One of us has to, Joni. Where would you be without me? She meant it literally; it would’ve been easier to answer metaphorically.

You’re right.

About what?

About all of it. No one was crying now. Eventually you had to stop.

Good things kept going. They read on the couch with their legs entwined. They played Magnetic Fields songs on Tessa’s guitar. They made French toast on the weekends and made out at rooftop parties.

They were walking home one night when the news came: she was off the waitlist. She was going to Alabama.

Oh shit. Edith held her phone at arm’s length. There it is.

Tess exploded with congratulations. Hugged her, kissed her, kissed her again. Sincere in her pride, her love for Edith and her hopes for the future. But it would be a separate future. That had been decided.