Too Good for Him

The message that lit up my boyfriend's phone went into my eyes like a knife. His friend: [Why don't you ever shoot your shot with your dream girl?] My boyfriend typed back.

Him: [Because she's too good for me. I'm not good enough for her.] His friend: [Then what about Phoebs?] Him: [Phoebs makes me better. Good enough for her, someday.] I'm Phoebs.

And the "her" he meant? That went without saying. Chapter 1 He wasn't joking. He had broken it down like a homework problem. Her looks. Her personality. Her grades.

Conclusion: [She's too good for me. I'm not good enough for her.] His friend asked again. His friend: [So what about Phoebs?] He sent a "life sucks bro" meme. Then he kept typing.

Him: [Phoebs makes me better. Good enough for her, someday.] My world cracked down the middle. Every single thing I had done for him had been prep work. For another girl.

I set his phone down where I found it, curled up on the far end of the couch, and flipped through my GRE vocab flashcards. None of the words went in.

After a while, Roman came out of the shower. "Babe, I don't feel like studying today. Can we take a day off?" He said it with that lazy look, eyelids at halfmast.

I used to live for that look.

Because one second later I would be on my feet, crossing the room to kiss him, sweettalking him. "Don't you dare skip." And he would sling an arm around me, all reluctant. "Fine.

One more kiss and I'll study with you." Every time, I walked away feeling like I had accomplished something. Like I had rescued a lost cause.

But that line in his chat… [She's a grad student. Educationwise, I'm not good enough for her.] Everything I had been doing felt like a joke. I looked up at him once.

Then, right under his expectant eyes, I picked up my textbook. "Okay. You rest. I'm heading to the library." Roman blinked.

Then he pulled up a smile and flopped onto the couch. "You're the best, babe. I'll pick you up later." I nodded and let myself out.

A few minutes down the path to the library, my phone buzzed. Him: [You okay?] I wiped away the tear at the corner of my eye and typed back.

Me: [Fine.] The exam was right around the corner. I was not going to let this wreck my future. Head down. Into the practice problems.

When I finally surfaced, my phone was stacked with missed calls. That had never happened before. Maybe I had been too off today. Even Roman could tell something was wrong.

Outside the library, he was waiting under the trees.

He came toward me the second he saw me. "Babe, I was cutting fruit for you and I nicked myself." He held out his finger and showed me the thin red line.

The old me would have melted. Would have scolded him for being careless while I dug a BandAid out of my bag and wrapped it slow and careful.

Now I looked at his face and saw a stranger. Like I had never known this person at all. "Don't cut fruit next time." Roman's hands landed on my shoulders.

The cut was forgotten. "Phoebe, what is wrong with you this time?" This time. That phrase had a past, and the past was the one fight we never fully cleaned up after.

In all our time together, I had blown up at him exactly once. He forgot our anniversary. "Phoebe, it's one anniversary. How is it different from any other day?

Is this really worth getting mad over?" He could play the cluelessboyfriend card all he wanted. In that moment I was so mad I could spit. "It matters.

Every girl hopes her boyfriend remembers this stuff." "Really?" His voice softened, just like that. "Every girl wants to celebrate anniversaries?" Chapter 2 When I didn't answer, he had switched to soothing me. "Babe, don't be mad.

I'll remember from now on." He was all gentleness that night. He even booked plane tickets to Maui, the trip I had always wanted.

My anger got smoothed away before I noticed it going. Except. Turns out every fight I ever picked was a class session. He had been taking notes for someone else.

Under the trees, I answered him. "Nothing's wrong. You always say I nag too much. So I'm done managing you." Roman stared at me for a long time.

Then he dropped one word and walked. "Whatever." His temper showed up all over his Instagram that night. Bar lights, bottles, the whole glittering mess. It looked deliberate.

A mutual friend commented: [So you blocked Phoebe now?] His reply sat right under it: [Since when the hell do I answer to her?] I scrolled past like I had seen nothing and went to sleep.

Sometime deep in the night, my phone rang. Roman's voice came through soaked in liquor and anger. "Phoebe Merrick, you can really sleep through anything, huh?

If I went to bed with some other woman tonight, you wouldn't give a damn, would you?" Four a.m. I had barely gotten back to sleep and his call dragged me up again.

My voice came out flat. "Roman, do what you want. I'm done caring." I hung up. The phone never rang again before morning. Here's the strange part.

The insomnia I used to get when he stayed out late, the worrying, all of it, gone. I slept like a rock.

When I woke again, it was to my alarm, that viral "HOW are you still asleep?!" audio screaming me into the day.

The curtains were shut tight, daylight barely leaking through the edges. A shadow sat by the bed.

I knew it was Roman. "When did you get back?" I asked, surprised in spite of myself.

The old Roman, even blackout drunk at midnight, would crawl onto the bed, wrap around my waist, and whine "Babe, kiss me" until I gave in.

Tonight the room reeked of alcohol and he just sat there. Silent. Not reaching for me. I didn't even know when he had come in. He saw my eyes open.

His voice came out wrecked. "I drank half the night. You didn't call once. I come home and there's not one light left on for me. I closed the door and you didn't even stir.

Do you know what time I got back?" In the thin gray light he stared me down. "Phoebe, what is going on with you?" I sat up and switched on the lamp.

The sudden brightness made us both squint. His usually clean face had gone rough, new stubble on his jaw, his eyes shot through with red. "Roman. I saw your pinned chat.

It isn't me." It was Marina Holloway. The dream girl herself. His pupils flared. His lips moved without sound. I kept going. "You told your friend she's amazing.

That you're not good enough for her. That's why you're with me." "To you, she's the prize. And I'm not even the girl you settled for. I'm just the stepping stone." I sniffed.

Whatever hope was left in me thinned out with every second he didn't speak. "Roman. Do you have anything to say for yourself?" He shot to his feet. Started to say something.

Raked a hand through his hair instead, rough and jittery. He couldn't look at me. The silence stretched on and on.

Then he decided that if he was going down, he would go down ugly. "Phoebe, who said you could go through my phone?" Chapter 3 In that moment, the last dim scrap of hope I had went dark.

I hadn't expected him to go for the throat like a cornered dog. For a second I actually wanted to laugh. Then I did.

Out loud. "Let's break up." All day yesterday I had wondered how it would feel to say those words. Sad. Bitter. Robbed… Turns out, saying them felt like relief. Pure relief.

An uneven love. Better to cut fast than bleed slow. Roman stared at me like the words couldn't be real.

Not from the girl who had chased him for a year. "You serious?" It took him a long moment to realize I wasn't joking. "Whatever." "I'm not good enough for her, but now I'm not good enough for you either?" His jaw set hard as he said it.

Then he slammed the door on his way out. I packed my things in the quiet.

Back at the start, Roman had been scared he would slack off, so he coaxed and wheedled until I agreed to study with him, keep him honest. I thought it was sweet then.

I thought I had found a man who wrote me into his future plans. Now it looked like what it was. A joke. I dragged my suitcase back to the dorm.

My roommate froze midmotion, eyes going wide. "What are you doing back?" "We broke up," I said. Calm. She spoke without thinking. "But you're crazy about Roman.

How could you agree to break up with him?" The words were out before her brain caught up. She winced. "Phoebe, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that." I didn't blame her.

Anyone who had watched me fall for Roman would bet I would hang on to this hardwon relationship until it killed me. Roman was gorgeous. Great at basketball.

Wore that careless halfsmile everywhere he went. Campus famous, a regular on the campus crushes page. Falling for him was probably the bravest thing I ever did.

I gave him a love letter. Got turned down. Wrote another. Got turned down again. And again. At the campus talent show, I sang him a love ballad in front of everyone.

I never missed a single one of his basketball games. I cheered until my voice cracked… And somewhere inside all that repeated, relentless liking, he nodded. Careless as ever.

Fine, we could date. Maybe everyone turns small in front of the person they love. Him with Marina. Me with him. So I made peace with being the one who gave more.

My roommate tested the waters, careful. "Is there any chance for you two?" The chat log replayed in my head, line by line. [Personalitywise, she's so gentle.] [Lookswise, she's beautiful.] [Educationwise, she's a grad student.] [ … ] [I'm not good enough for her.] And then, tossed off at his friend's question: [Ha.

Phoebe? Her whole value is making me better. Good enough for her, someday. That's literally the only thing she's got.] So a 98.6degree body could type out words forty below zero.

I lifted my things out of the suitcase, one by one, and put each one back in its place. "There's no chance." Chapter 4 Turns out, when I didn't get up early to make Roman breakfast, didn't leave the library at noon to grab his favorite chicken tenders from the dining hall, didn't walk with him at dusk, didn't pack up early because he wanted to play basketball… In one day I could memorize that many more vocab words.

Solve that many more problems. Patch that many more weak spots. The seat I used to save for Roman sat empty for days.

People around us who knew him started whispering. "Did they break up?" "Figures. A guy like Roman, threeminute attention span, grad school?

Making it to November was already a miracle." "Guess who ended it?" The library was so quiet every word carried. "Please.

Obviously it was Roman—" A backpack slammed down on a table and cut the sentence in half. "This is a library.

If you're not here to study, don't bother the people who are." Roman pressed the bag flat against the table, face like a storm front, the words cracking through the quiet.

The room went so quiet I could hear people breathe. A few heads turned, curious. Me. Then Roman. Then me again. I kept my head down and kept working. Deaf to all of it.

For a long while I could feel a gaze parked on the top of my head. Then came the rustling.

Roman pulled his books out of the locker and loaded them into his bag one by one, loud about it. Every movement radiating irritation. Like he wanted my peace and quiet ruined.

I meant to ignore him. Then I remembered. My study notes, the ones I had written out line by line, were still in his hands. I looked up. Straight into his eyes.

I wrote a note and slid it across. [My notes are still with you.] That was when I saw he had been watching me the whole time. No telling for how long.

He read the note, and the expectation in his eyes drained away inch by inch. He looked down. His hands paused.

He flipped a few pages, offhand, then gave me a throwaway answer. "Can't find them. I'll return them when I do." I nodded and said nothing else. Roman never wanted to grind.

Minimum time, maximum result. That was his whole system. And the most costeffective trick in that system was running his mouth sweet until I did the work for him.

And I had eaten it up. Thought it was romantic. Looking back now, all that sweetness read as one long joke at my expense. A few days later, Roman texted me. Him: [Found your notes.

Come get them.] I didn't want to deal with him. But those notes were mine, every line handwritten, hours and hours of work. Walking away from them stung.

Me: [Where are you?] As if he had already decided I wouldn't refuse, the location came back that same second. A girls' dorm. Not mine. The building next to ours.

I followed his directions. The closer I got, the louder it got. On the other side of the hedge, a crowd was whooping and chanting. "Say yes! Say yes!" I didn't go closer.

Through the hedge, from a distance, I could see Roman with a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth, head bent, saying something soft to a girl. The girl had a small, fair face.

Delicate features, a mouth like a cherry. Beautiful. She was blushing, telling everybody to quit it, all coy.

Then, like he was afraid I might not hear, Roman's voice climbed louder. "Will you be my girlfriend?" Every word landed like a hammer. Loud. Deliberate.

So one breakup was all it took. Suddenly he was good enough… Good to know my existence had meant something after all.

Chapter 5 Across the crowd, Roman suddenly turned his head and looked at me. Our eyes met. Everything inside me went dead quiet.

I pulled the corner of my mouth into a mocking little smile, just for him. A flicker of regret crossed Roman's eyes