Page 64 of Let's Talk About Love

“Come on,” Alice said, placing her hands on his waist to steady him.

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” He turned to her, eyes unfocused. “I think that last drink kicked in.”

“You don’t say?” She laughed. Before Takumi could protest further, she looped his arm over her shoulders and her arm around his waist. He leaned into her, mumblingthank youin her ear as they walked up the stairs to his apartment and went inside. She didn’t not notice that she was touching him, he was touching her, closely again.

“Do you want me to get you anything before I go? Water or Tylenol?”

He sat on his couch, head resting against the back. He took a deep breath. “No. Aren’t you going to stay?”

“I need to get home. Ryan’s waiting for me.” She turned to leave and turned right on back when he took her hand.

“Stay. Please. Just for a little bit.”

Takumi begging was hazardous to Alice’s soul. Her breath caught as she looked down at him, his eyes drunk and upset, but pleading with her to stay. She sat her hopeless self down, right next to him on the couch, but slid her hand out of his. He frowned at that.

She wouldn’t have minded continuing to hold his hand, but he was drunk. It wasn’t right.

He sat up. Moved closer. Their thighs touched.

“If you were dating someone, and you knew they loved you with their whole heart, had absolutely no doubts about it, could you cheat on them?”

Obviously, that question sent her mind into overdrive, connecting all the dots. A roommate who moved out suddenly. A part-time job to cover his rent. Essie telling her he’s single “now.”

Takumi had asomeone.

Asomeonewho had, apparently, cheated on him.

The girl in the photos.It had to be. Alice was nearly caught up with her photographic Takumi History—the girl was still in every single album Alice looked at.

He stared at Alice, waiting for an answer. Meanwhile, she wanted to keep her mouth shut to keep her jaw off the ground.

“Me personally?” she asked finally. “No. I mean, it’s highly unlikely.”

Cheating on someone was one of those things she was destined to never understand. Choosing to not have sex with someone else didn’t seem like that hard of a concept to grasp, and yet she had comforted more than one person who had been cheated on.

“I don’t get it.” He shook his head. His fingers were intertwined, hands clenched together until spots of pink and white began to appear. “We were together almost four years. Four fucking years.” At first, Alice thought he was talking to himself and she just happened to be there, but then he turned to her. “We were going to get married.”

Married?

Marriage—for better or for worse, until death do they part.

Jesus.

Takumi had opened his house to her, listened to her family drama, trusted her to watch his nieces—why did he choose to keep a failed relationship a secret?

(And even though she had seen the pictures, she wasn’t going to justask.)

She had seen people talk about the weather and who they were dating in the same breath. Some would whip out their phones to show pictures. Minutes after a breakup, people changed their status on Facebook. Everyone seemed to love sharing their love.

(She was just as guilty—when she and Margot were together, she told anyone who would listen.)

“If she wanted to take a break, why couldn’t she just say something?Why cheat on me?” He asked Alice that question as if she had an actual answer to give him.

“I don’t know,” she said, keeping her voice as gentle as possible. “I’m also a little confused.”

So he told her.

All of it.