I read it while sitting in my car outside the grocery store. Part of me wanted to respond simply because the words sounded like the conversation I'd been trying to have for so long. I could imagine saying yes, that's what I meant, and feeling a small flash of relief that something I'd been unable to explain had finally reached her. But agreeing with an insight was different from consenting to restore the relationship, and I knew how quickly an answer could be mistaken for an opening.
On Thursday, the longest message arrived. "I think I was using the group to avoid dealing with real intimacy," she wrote. "Whenever something between us felt hard, I could go where everybody already understood me and nobody asked anything uncomfortable. I'm not saying that's an excuse. I miss talking to you, not even about getting back together, just talking."
That last sentence nearly got me. Early in our relationship, Marissa and I had been able to talk until the lights in the apartment building across the street went out one by one. We'd discussed childhood fears, jobs we didn't want, embarrassing family stories, and whether two people could be happy without becoming the same person. I still remembered the night she'd told me she sometimes worried her friends would outgrow her. I had held her hand and said that changing didn't always mean leaving.
I wondered whether I had remembered that conversation while we were together. Maybe I had, in the vague way people remember something that feels unrelated until years later. Maybe Marissa had been trying to keep the squad unchanged because it represented a time when nobody had responsibilities that could compete with spending Saturday together. That would explain some of her fear, but it wouldn't excuse how she'd treated me or how she'd helped bring five people to my door.
I put the phone away and went home. There was no satisfaction in refusing to answer, only a sense that I was protecting a choice I'd already made. I could feel compassion for the person she had been and for the person she might become without volunteering to be the bridge between them. I wanted her to have better relationships in the future, but I didn't believe that meant ours had to be one of them.
Sarah knew Marissa had reached out. I'd told her after the second message because I didn't want a quiet decision on my phone to turn into a secret between us. Sarah had listened, asked whether I needed time to think, and accepted it when I said I knew I wasn't going back. She didn't demand to read the texts or ask me to prove how much more I liked her than my ex.
"I don't mind that she's in your past," Sarah said as we walked through a park after dinner. "I just want to know whether the past is still making decisions for you."
I thought about that for a while. "I don't think it is," I answered. "But I'm still learning not to let it."
"That's an answer I can work with," she said.