Page 72 of Lessons in Chemistry

“Take all the time you need,” Em replies.

My head is whirling with questions, none of which have answers. I’m struggling to see how we could make it work without there being jealousy or resentment. Would Em need to schedule time with each of us? Would Auggie and I keep out of each other’s way, or would the three of us hang out together sometimes? Would Auggie and I ever spend time together, the two of us?

I have so many questions, and if anything, I’m more confused than when I got home. Poly relationships have barely registered as a thing that exists in my subconsciousness. Now they’re asking me to consider being part of one. The one thing I know is that Em loves me and isn’t prepared to walk away from his feelings just because I’m not interested in sex, and that… that’s huge. Could sharing him with Auggie work? Could it give us all that we want and need without any of us having to compromise? Would a vee relationship be one huge compromise for all of us, or is it the miracle that could make us all happy?

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Are you open to thinking about it?” Em asks.

“Yes, but I don’t know if I’d be able to be in that sort of relationship, and the last thing I want is for things to get worse between Em and me, or Em and you. I—” I shake my head. “I want us all to be happy.”

“Even me?” Auggie teases.

“Yes. Even if you were the catalyst for all this weirdness.”

Auggie bounces on his seat. “Can we rewrite that thing you quoted on Saturday?”

“What thing?” I ask.

“It was something Jung said, which reminded me of us,” Em says.

“Right. Two people meeting being like chemical substances colliding, reacting, and being transformed,” Auggie says.

Em laughs. “That’s not how it went.”

“I was paraphrasing. But we need to change it because there are three of us.”

Em pinches his lips together for a few seconds. “The meeting of different personalities is like the contact of chemical substances. If there is any reaction, all are transformed.”

Auggie claps his hands. “Perfect. You are a genius, Emory.”

Em’s face turns bright red. “I’m not.”

“You are,” Auggie and I say in unison.

“Let’s get back on topic,” Auggie says.

“You were the one who distracted us,” Em says.

“And now I’m undistracting us. What about a trial period?”

“A trial period?” I ask.

“We try out a vee relationship for, say, a week, a fortnight, or a month, and at the end of that time, we talk about whether or not it’s worked, if we want it to continue, and if we need to make any changes.”

“Sounds good to me,” Em says.

I rub my hands over my thighs. “Are you sure about this? Wouldn’t we be better remaining best friends while you two date?” I ask him.

His eyes sparkle with unshed tears. “I love you as more than a friend, but I want to be with Auggie too. I didn’t think that was possible, but it is, Casey, and I think we can make it work.”

“All we’re asking is that you think about it. There’s no pressure to give us an answer now,” Auggie says.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Em says.

Will thinking about it more give me any answers? It’s like in science lessons in school, where we had to predict what the outcome of an experiment might be. We could guess all we liked, but until we did the experiment, we didn’t know if we were right, wrong, or somewhere in between. This is exactly the same. We won’t know unless we try.

“Okay. Let’s try it,” I say.