Olivia Parker 
It was a Friday in October and I got to his place at 7:50. A cereal bowl from Tuesday sat on the coffee table. I said “I cannot sit down in here” before I took my coat off. He laughed, and then he saw that I meant it. We had been together two years by … Read more
Last Sunday at 4:15 we sat on his balcony with cold coffee. I finally brought up the thing I had held all week. He listened to me for forty seconds. Then he said “you are right” and reached for his phone. On paper the problem was handled. It did not feel handled, and for two … Read more
My best friend Renee told me the truth in a coffee shop on a Sunday in October. She stirred her drink and said he was not my person. It was 3:15 in the afternoon and the place was nearly empty. I remember the espresso machine better than my own answer. I had been dating him … Read more
My friend Renee called me at 11:20 on a Thursday night in March. She had just left a birthday dinner and her voice was flat. A coworker of her boyfriend had raised a glass at the table. He said congrats on Denver, and Renee had no idea what that meant. Caleb had accepted a job … Read more
On a Sunday last October, I stood in our hallway pulling my coat on. My boyfriend looked up and said, just put it on the calendar. I had been doing that for three weeks and it still felt strange. A shared calendar sounds tiny until you actually live inside one. We closed the distance two … Read more
My friend Renata called me from a parking garage on a Thursday in March. She had been sitting in her car for twenty minutes. Theo had come home the night before with an offer in Denver. They had lived in the same Columbus suburb for nine years. She said, I am happy for him and … Read more
It rained all Sunday in October and we never left the house. I finally asked why he had been so quiet all week. He set his coffee down and looked at the rug. Then he said, I am not good at talking about feelings, and stopped. That sentence used to end every hard conversation we … Read more
Two families, one week off work, and nobody telling you how to split it. What actually worked our first holiday season together.
It was a Thursday in November and my laptop sat on three library books. My boyfriend was on FaceTime, eight hundred miles away. My mom had just told me the family was selling my grandmother’s house. I started crying at 10:20 at night with the camera still on. We had been long distance for a … Read more
My friend Marisol met me for coffee at 7:15 on a Saturday morning. Her phone sat face up on the table the whole hour. She had been texting a guy named Trevor for five straight weeks. They had never once been in the same room. She showed me his last message and read it out … Read more
