Our Year of Maybe

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

can’t love you the way you love me. I did once, when I was too young to know what it really meant. But now? I just . . . can’t.”

Our lives have revolved around Peter always. He is the earth, and I am the moon. There was never enough I could do to get him to love me the way I wanted, to see me as more than just a moon. I have never been enough, and he has always been too much.

I’m a toxic, terrible friend. Some part of me thought I deserved all those things: the gifts from my parents, Sophie’s attention. Her love, even. I can’t get her words out of my head. I don’t know how to apologize for all those years of taking so much from her, let alone this past year.

the guilt I’ve felt for exploring a life that didn’t always include Sophie. The horrible, horrible things I said to her in the gym. Things I wish I could take back. Things I couldn’t have fully meant because I’m not a cruel person, am I? “I’m not sure we can get back what we used to have,” I finish. And Sophie—Sophie doesn’t want me back. At all.

If this is the point of no return with us, we can’t ever erase ourselves from each other’s lives.

“He’s a wonderful boy, Soph. Don’t get me wrong. But . . . is it possible—not intentionally—that he’s holding you back?”

Like we understand each other on a completely different level from people who don’t get music. And he just knows me. Better than anyone.”

I need to be away from all this, figure out who I am on my own. I’m hoping the workshop will help. No one will know me in San Francisco. I won’t be quiet Sophie or Peter’s best friend Sophie or kidney donor Sophie. I won’t be Sophie, hopelessly in love with someone who does not love her back. I can be anyone, and I like the

sound of that. I gave Peter a piece of me—but maybe I also gave him the freedom to figure out who he was without me. And I should have realized much sooner that I’d given myself the exact same thing.

A friendship breakup has got to be worse than a relationship breakup. With a relationship, you can go back to being friends. There’s at least the possibility of it. But after a friendship ends, what do you go back to? Do you simply become nothing to each other? Fade away until you barely recognize each other anymore?

“I’m always going to be grateful,” he says, puncturing the quiet between us. “You know that, right? I could say thank you a million times and it wouldn’t be enough. I could utter it once a minute every day for the rest of my life, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

It wasn’t always horrible, being my friend? Was it?” His voice cracks, and it nearly breaks me in half. “No!” I say quickly. “God, no. Most of the time, our friendship was the best thing in my life.”

Without worrying about what it means, I lean in and hug him tightly, his phone mashed between us, the song still pouring out of it. I inhale that good Peter scent like always, but it does not destroy me. It only aches a little, being this close to him. And when his arms come around me to pull me closer, I don’t have to beg my heart to slow down.

But he will always be Peter and I will always be Sophie, and no matter who else we become, our history and our scars will always connect us.

And then I let go of him first, this boy who never belonged to me. I let go first.