there was nothing but possibility in front of her. She wanted some time after graduation to think about what all this was going to mean, and she wasn't so keen on Max deciding what that world would look like for her.
But she waited.
She decided that, since he seemed so preoccupied over dinner, they would talk about things when he was in better spirits. They still had time. She was still weeks from graduation.
But she waited too long.
That night, after they made love, he kneeled beside their hide-a-bed in their tiny, nasty Boston studio, and, with the sound of the city streaming through the open window, the twilight washing over his skin, he opened the case to a small but elegant engagement ring, and asked Annie to marry him.
It was perfect.
She was shocked, truly stunned. She was so taken aback that she was struck utterly mute by the moment. And she was silent for a long time. She can still remember him saying her name, 'Annie?' And she just stared at him, saying not a word, not an ounce of articulate in her brain.
And Max stared at her with those eyes that said so much, and now all those eyes could do was scream from fear, and there was an intense vulnerability in that stare—so full of hope and terror and love and anguish—that she's never forgotten that look, and, to this day, if she hangs on that image too long, she will cry as if it were happening all over again.
Of course she wanted to marry him. There was a part of her screaming 'Yes! Yes!' But there was a stronger part of her that kept that voice silent. She knew that she couldn't make that promise when she hadn't made a clear decision about her future. She needed time—a month or two—before she could give him a answer.
Later that night, once she collected herself, she tried to explain all of this in the most thoughtful, gentle way possible. But no man wants to hear anything other than yes when he asks a woman to marry him. He had clearly placed himself in an incredibly vulnerable, yet hopeful position, and she gave him nothing. Just silence. And he was appropriately crushed.
She was determined not to let him go to sleep angry, and he did his best to hide his anger. She could tell that he was hurt, and that her verbal reassurances, her timid touches, only annoyed him with their cold uncertainty. Everything she did came off as patronizing, and she knew he loathed nothing more than that.
She didn't sleep much that night, laying in the cool of a Boston night in May—the traffic still audible out the open window. She watched him that night, constantly looking over at his beautiful, strong body bathing in the city's brilliant blue light. She wanted to wrap herself around him and never let go, convince him that her love was as real, and as deep as any love. She wanted to assure him that he was her life's anchor, but she knew that he was a prideful man, a stubborn man, and things—no matter how she struggled to keep them afloat—would never be the same between them.
Though she had no idea to what extent things might change.
In the morning, Annie slid quietly out of bed, careful not to disturb him. Max appeared to be sleeping, which was odd because he was usually the first out of bed in the mornings. Of course, if her night was in any way indicative of his, then it wouldn't be a surprise if he hadn't fallen asleep easily.
She quietly got ready for her day, walked over to his sleeping body, kissed him softly on the cheek, and left the apartment.
It was the last time she saw him.
When she got back to the apartment later that afternoon, his stuff, or any trace of his past presence was gone. The only thing left behind was a note, written on the back of a restaurant receipt: 'Now, you'll have time.'
Once again, he had left her after she'd told him something he didn't want to hear. It was suddenly clear to her that she wasn't the only one who still had some growing up to do. Instead of talking about this with her, trying to work things out, giving her a little space to figure things out, he just disappeared. Still, being aware of his immaturity, of his gross overreaction to the past night's drama, did not make his absence any less hurtful.
From his perspective, though, as was the case after they graduated high school, love is a certainty, not a thing we question or second-guess. It's hard to imagine anyone truly in love not having an immediate and certain answer to a marriage proposal. If there are questions, then the love must be questionable. That was the kind of black-and-white world Max lived in.
But she did love him, and she worried that she'd made a terrible mistake. She should've said yes. She wanted to say yes. It was, after all, only an engagement to be married, not the marriage itself. She could've easily taken the time over that summer to consider what she might do with her self. After all, she knew how sensitive Max was about these things. How did she think he would react? But, then again, it wasn't as if she expected him to propose. She simply didn't have the time to think rationally about what her reaction should be.
But she also couldn't escape the fear that having Max around would influence her decisions. She just knew that one morning she would wake up somewhere on the west coast, thousands of miles from home, and even further from finding her own identity. Suddenly her identity would be intertwined, inextricably, to Max, and her choices would be limited by his choices. She had seen what that kind of life did to her mother, and it terrified her. She loved her life with Max in the abstract, but when you started to add the details of a longterm commitment, things became more and more claustrophobic. Control over the direction of her life was only just beginning, and having the freedom to choose her future—on her own terms—was of paramount importance.
She tried to call him that evening, but, as she expected, he didn't answer his phone. He let all of her calls that night go straight to voicemail. And, after several days of silence, she finally called his parents to see if they had heard anything. He had left for a summer trip, backpacking across Europe. She asked if they knew of any way she could get in touch with him. They didn't. He'd left his phone behind, and made a point of expressing his wish to be untethered on the trip. He had promised to check in with them from time to time, and they said they would tell him to call her next time they talked.
But she knew he wouldn't call.
She knew things were bad after he proposed. And she knew they were in a situation similar to what they faced after high school. But she had hoped that he'd matured enough to try to deal with this practically. But, no, he just ran away again. It occurred to her that when you fall in love with someone as sensitive and full of emotion as Max, you have to accept all the tumultuous lows with all those glorious highs.
Now, she knew she wouldn't see him at least until the end of summer. This made her desperately sad. The hole he had left behind was too large and ever-present. The despair left by his absence was constant. The stark emptiness of knowing she couldn't see him, that he was far away, marching across another continent, made her perpetually ache for him. Missing him was never not a part of her.
Luckily, though, those last several weeks before her graduation were very busy, and she spent every free second at school practicing for her final recital. Unknowingly, he had left her right when her playing could most benefit from the emotional turmoil of his absence. She put all her energy in her playing, and when she finally played in front of the students and faculty of Berklee, she knew she had accomplished something great.
But the next day no one was waiting for her to play. No one was there to applaud her, pat her on the back, or tell her how great she was. One day she was too busy to obsess about Max, and the next she was done with school, and could do nothing but obsess about him. She couldn't last long this way, being trapped in the city with no school, no job, no plans. Eventually, having this much time would eat her alive inside. So, she had a choice to make: She could either get a job in the city, keep her apartment and figure out her next move over the summer. Or she could go back home, try to regain some of her equilibrium, and clear her head.
At first, she didn't know what to do. She didn't want to make a rash decision based on how much she was missing Max. But, aft
er a few days of wallowing, she knew there wasn't anything left for her in Boston. She'd spent those last few weeks of school trying to delay her loneliness, but now that she was unavoidably alone, and was finally dealing with the pain of it, she couldn't escape the loss of him. And it was particularly cruel because she knew he was out there somewhere, that he loved her, had asked her to spend the rest of her life with him. It was just too much to bear. So, even though part of the reason that she had put Max off was so that she could control her own destiny without his influence pushing her into one direction or another, she was suddenly realizing how naive she had been. Here she was, in her tiny Boston apartment, and the pain of losing him was forcing her home. He was still influencing her decisions, even in his absence.
So, she packed some things, left some things behind, and moved back home to her parents' house.
The summer back home was a very close copy of the summer she spent there before she moved to Boston. There was a lot of time spent in bed, listening to sad music, intermittently reading and daydreaming of Max—where he was, what he might be doing. She spent many a night watching one of the movies that her and Max had watched together, movies that they had both loved together. Or she would watch