I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This [But I'm Going to Anyway]

by Chelsea Devantez

But Ashley had a secret weapon that stopped me in my let’s-wear-matching-sweaters-to-the-party! tracks. She had something in spades that I did not: boundaries. These foreign, unfamiliar things were established really early on in our relationship when, late one night at a bar after class, Ashley got up to go home, and I did that drunken thing where you squeal, “Nooooo! Stayyyy!” She looked back at me so centered, so grounded, and firmly said, “I need to be able to leave when I’m ready, or I won’t want to hang out with you at all.”