Roomies by Christina Lauren

twenty-five

Iremember coming to New York for the first time at sixteen to visit Robert and Jeff. I landed at the airport, and although Jeff had planned to meet me at JFK, he was held up with some work emergency, and instead texted me directions to the AirTrain, and then the subway, and then the walk to their apartment, where he would meet me.

It sounded simple, but that was before I had the true scale of New York bearing down on my Des Moines naiveté. It wasn’t just the number of people and the number of signs, it was the noise. I felt like a bubble trying to push my way to the top of a carbonated bottle.

And even though New York seems almost comically easy to navigate now, I remember that feeling of complete disorientation as I head out of the apartment. I’ve fooled Calvin into thinking I have a gynecological exam in some mysterious region of Manhattan, and, no, I do not need him to accompany me—because really I am going to meet his mother and sister at the airport.

Nerves are a funny thing. I thought I was nervous at our wedding. And then, no, I realized that had nothing on the jitters of his first rehearsal. But that was swallowed whole by the whale shark of my restlessness during the immigration interview, and—later—on the Night of the Failed Birthday Blow Job. All of that feels like a tiny dot on the horizon compared to my anxiety today.

Despite our many texts, Brigid and I have never spoken. And after our plan to bring her and Marina out here took root, our interactions became pretty transactional, in part because I warned her that Calvin is highly casual about phone privacy—both mine and his. He’ll have me read emails to him while he plays, or answer a text if his hands are full unloading groceries. And although I don’t think he ever intends to be nosy, he’ll often inform me when Lulu or Robert or Jeff has texted or called, asking me if I want him to read it aloud. And usually, why not? I have nothing to hide.

Except this visit, which we are all determined to keep a surprise.

I admit I’m nervous as hell. I’m meeting my mother-in-law. I’m meeting my sister-in-law. These people are technically family, and what if they take one look at me and I’m nothing like what they’d hoped for him?

Calvin is so open and easy to talk to; normally I would let loose all my thoughts about this visit with him. Obviously, that’s not really possible here. And I can’t trust Lulu to keep her trap shut, Robert is composing a new show with a writer friend of his and is completely unavailable, and Jeff has listened to my concerns but what can he say? Don’t worry, you’re perfect?

What does Calvin’s family know about me? What has he told them?

I’m so distracted wondering what they’ll expect, what they’ll assume, what they’ll want to see in his wife—that when a subway car jerks along a bend I make a rookie mistake and lose my footing, sliding roughly into the door.

A man helps me, pulling me upright again. “Hold on to the bar here, honey.”

It is on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I live here, and I’m just nervous about meeting my in-laws, but he doesn’t fucking care—and neither do my thoughts, which are back on a wild bender, buzzing around.

I wait outside of international arrivals, hoping I’ll recognize the two women I’ve seen only in photographs. From what I can tell, of all Calvin’s siblings, Brigid looks the most like him, and it’s true in person, too—the second she walks around the bend into the terminal, I know it’s her. She has the same thick, light brown hair, the same olive skin, the same crinkly-eyed smile when she sees me. Marina is right behind her, and cries out when she follows where Brigid points in my direction, clapping a hand over her mouth.

They run, throwing their arms around me, and I feel the moment Marina breaks down and starts crying.

“Aw, Mum.” Brigid laughs as she pulls her mom into a hug. “We’ve just been so excited,” she explains over the top of Marina’s head. “We haven’t seen Calvin in four years.”

Marina is tiny but has the appearance of being unmovable and ageless. “You have no idea,” she says, pulling away and wiping her eyes. “And we’ve wanted to meet you for ages. We were excited thinking the two of you might come home at Christmas, and then it fell through.”

What a curious thing to say. I smile, returning their individual hugs and guiding them out of the terminal with a stunned numbness.

Does she mean this upcoming Christmas? It didn’t sound like that.

I’m trying to answer their questions and ask my own, but her words are pinging around in my ears, unwilling to move aside and let other things in.

We make small talk, about the weather, about the flight, about the food that was served, but in the background, the high-pitched voice needles me.

She’s wanted to meet me for ages? It’s April 8; I met Calvin officially just over three months ago.

We load up their bags into a cab. “Forty-Seventh and Eighth,” I tell the driver.

We pull away from the curb, and Marina takes my hand. “You look different in your recent photos than the early ones we got.”

The early ones?

My stomach tightens again. “I do?”

“Your hair’s lighter than it was when you first met in school.”

Something is very, very wrong . . .

I pat my hair, plucking a lie from the chaos of my brain. “Yeah, I lightened it a little since then.”

I have never colored my hair.

“Amanda?” Brigid says. “Amanda.” She reaches around her mother in the middle seat and taps my arm. “Amanda, love, is that the Empire State Building?”

She means me.

She’s talking to me.

In all of our texts, not once did she ever need to use my name. She doesn’t know me as Holland. Apparently she knows me as Amanda.

Who the fuck is Amanda?

I am worried I’m going to lose my breakfast in the back of this taxi. “Yes, that, um . . .” I nod to where she’s looking. “That’s it, over there.”

The refrain I put on a loop in my head is to not assume anything until I’ve spoken to Calvin. My first Hail Mary was hoping I picked up the wrong Irish family from the airport, but when they started rattling on in the taxi about being so proud of Calvin, and unable to believe that he was really playing with the orchestra for Possessed, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

Don’t assume anything, I tell myself, walking up to the apartment building. Don’t freak out.

“He’s here?” Brigid asks in an excited whisper. “He’s upstairs, in your flat?”

“He should be,” I tell her over my shoulder. “He doesn’t head to the theater until around five.”

Behind me, Marina lets out a quiet sob. “I cannot believe we are going to see him play.”

That’s right . . . Robert got them front-row tickets for tonight’s show.

Dread has settled as a brick in my stomach, and I can’t even find the enthusiasm to turn and smile at her. “It’s a stunning performance,” I say over my shoulder. “He’s going to be so happy you’re there.”

“He has no idea!” Brigid squeals.

A dark laugh rips through my thoughts. He has no idea—apparently none of us has any idea what we’re in for.

I fit the key in the lock with a shaking hand. Inside, we can hear Calvin strumming his guitar, absently playing “Lost to Me,” and the song performs the same silent seduction on me that it always does.

But then Brigid presses up against me, and I pray to the benevolent gods of everything that whatever this lie is, it doesn’t ruin us . . . if there is or was ever an us.

The door has barely swung open before Brigid bursts past me, screaming, “SURPRISE!”

Calvin shoots up, dropping his guitar in shock. He lets out a choking “Bridge?” and then bursts into tears as his sister launches herself into his arms. He sees his mom behind her and a sob tears out of him as he loosens one arm to pull her into the tangle.

I hover near the back, feeling the sting of tears across my eyes, too, because this scene is wonderful and they’re all sobbing and I love him

I love him

I love him

and this reunion is truly one of the most genuine displays of joy I’ve ever witnessed.

“How did you manage this?” he asks, his voice muffled by his mother’s coat.

“Amanda,” she cries, squeezing him tighter. “Your sweet Amanda and Brigid arranged the whole thing!”

Calvin looks up, sobering as his eyes meet mine across the room.

I put on a pot of water for some tea and make myself busy in the kitchen while they take a few minutes to get caught up. My movements feel robotic, my pulse is paradoxically slow.

Why did he give Brigid my number?

What was he thinking?

And how did we manage to never use names for crying out loud? How did she never ask me why we were in touch now—rather than years ago when we supposedly first got married?

She won’t get too personal, he’d said.

It’s the McLoughlin way.

Would Calvin have told her not to ask?

The deception of that possibility feels cutting.

“When did you get in?” he asks them.

“Just now,” Marina tells him. “Amanda met us at the airport, we took a car here.”

I feel him glance across the room into the kitchen. “She said she had a doctor’s appointment.”

“Oh, she fooled you!” Brigid laughs, and I hear the sound of them groaning happily in another embrace.

“Are you tired?” he asks, and I note how thick his accent becomes around them.

“Exhausted,” his mother says. “We didn’t sleep on the plane.”

Calvin is quiet for a few breaths, and then says quietly, “We could make up the bed here for you to rest a bit.”

“Not at all, Callie,” Marina says to her son. “We’re staying at the Sheraton.”

“Let’s get you checked in, then. You can have a lie-down.”

“Amanda’s uncle got us tickets to see you tonight.”

“Oh, he did?” His voice is so tight. “Wonderful. Thank you, love,” he calls out to me.

I try to reply with as much natural brightness as I can muster: “Of course, Callie!”

“Come on, then,” he murmurs to them, “let’s get you sorted.”

He moves them toward the door before ducking into the kitchen and putting his arms around me in a show of gratitude. “Thank you for this,” he says.

“Are you kidding?” I give him a bright smile, knowing they’re listening and hoping they can hear it in my voice. “I’m so happy for you. That was so sweet, I started crying, too.”

He pulls back, kissing my temple, and looks at me; I can feel how flat my expression is. A book’s worth of words is communicated in our eyes.

“I’m going to take them to their hotel to get checked in,” he says.

Nodding stiffly, I say, “Okay.”

Calvin leans in, lips pressed to my cheek. “I’ll explain everything later, please don’t leave.”

I don’t say anything.

His lips come right up against my ear. “I’m so sorry, mo stóirín.”

So many times I’ve felt his kiss there, and in the rearview mirror, every one of them now seems suspect.

“Don’t leave,” he repeats.

Unable to stop it, I feel a fat tear roll down my cheek. “Okay.”

Calvin returns an hour later, alone. He walks in, shuts the door, and then leans against it, closing his eyes.

I watch from the sofa, still nauseated, waiting to see how this is all going to unfold. In a weird way, I feel like I’ve been cheated on, and I know that sentiment isn’t quite right, but the betrayal is sharp like that: bewilderment with a side of inexplicable shame.

“I was going to tell you this whole story,” he says, straightening and walking toward me with wary eyes. “I didn’t think it would come out this way.”

“I’m just sitting here reeling in the irony that a few weeks ago you were so upset I didn’t admit I had feelings for you before we knew each other. Meanwhile, you’ve been married for years to a woman named Amanda?”

“It’s a lie.” He sits beside me, reaching to put his hand on my thigh before he seems to think better of it.

“But is there someone named Amanda?”

“She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

Inside, my heart seems to flip over and twist, and I remember. “Oh.”

“I mentioned her when we first . . . were married.”

“The bossy one.”

He laughs, but it isn’t a joyful sound. “Right.”

I don’t even know if I need him to tell me more, because the story unfolds so obviously in front of me. His words fade in and out, close on the heels of my own spiraling understanding: “I haven’t spoken to her since we broke up. We were together only six months or so. It was so good when we first met . . . I was young, and stupid. After only a week I told my family that I was going to marry her, and stay in the States. Things went off the rails, but I didn’t bother to tell them. Didn’t want them to worry, and it got to a point where it was easier to lie.”

I nod, staring at my hands folded in my lap.

“I sent them a photo of us—of me with Amanda—and told them we’d been married at City Hall.” He pauses, wincing. “But . . . this was after I’d ended things with her. Before then, Mam kept threatening to bring me home. Dad was sure I’d never make anything of myself here. Since then, they’ve not worried so much. I sent money home, wrote letters. I think they’ve been really proud.”

“You were proud, you mean,” I say quietly. “You were too proud, and you lied.”

“I suppose.” He takes my hand and I let him. I’m sort of torn between understanding and fury. Of course I get why he would lie about this, but he lied to the people he loved, he lied to me. After our first fight, we were honest about everything; all of this has felt so genuine that it’s shattering to think it isn’t quite real.

“They said I looked different from the earlier photos.”

He nods. “That’s the silver lining. I suppose it will make it all easier because you look like her.”

I pull my hand from his and stand.

The silver lining, like it turned out to be convenient that the girl who found him at the subway looked like the girl he had pretended to marry. It fits into a perfect narrative he created. I want to scream.

I feel like the trust we’ve built in the past few weeks has been hurled against the wall.

“ ‘Will make it easier’? You’re asking me to play along . . . ?” I try it out in my head and, if possible, the hurt deepens. I can almost understand lying to his family for all these years out of a desire to protect them—after all, I haven’t told my parents, either. But I imagine spending the rest of the week responding to someone else’s name with a smile. Obviously it’s a temporary solution, but I guess the problem is that I didn’t think I was temporary anymore. If he wants to do away with our initial year plan, then isn’t it better for us to tell them the truth now?

I’m in this same spot again, playing a secondary role in Calvin’s life story. The role of Amanda.

His eyes track me as I move around the sofa. “It’s only a few days,” he says softly.

My heart is a deflating balloon. He’s fine with his family continuing to think I’m someone else? Isn’t he proud of me? Of what we’ve built together? Doesn’t that outweigh the shame in having to admit his lie?

I’m saved from replying when his phone rings, and use the excuse to walk into the bedroom to get some space, and some air.

The call lasts for only a second because when I look up, he’s in the doorway, moving toward me. With a finger under my chin, he tilts my face up.

“Hey,” he says, face softening when I meet his eyes. “I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

I nod, fixing my gaze on his jawline, his lips, the bob of his Adam’s apple when he swallows. “Things lined up strangely, that’s all.” He leans forward, kissing me once. “It doesn’t change me and you.”

I have no idea what to say to this; it feels like this changes everything. I don’t even get my own name here.

“I want to talk more, but I need to run downstairs. A messenger dropped something off and I need to sign for it. We’ll finish this when I’m back, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Holland.”

He’s said it. He’s said it for the first time, and I feel numb. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats, and with another brush of his lips against mine, he’s out the door.

He’s gone less than five minutes, and when the door opens again, I know right away that something’s wrong. He’s staring in shock at the paper in his hands.

“What is it?”

His eyes jump to the top again. “It’s from immigration.”

A trapdoor opens and my stomach plummets. We’ve been expecting a letter—the official notification of his green card contingency details—but judging by the look on his face, it isn’t that letter.

Reaching up, he runs a hand over his mouth and in a hoarse voice adds, “They want us to come in for another interview.”

“Does it say why?” I move to his side to read over his shoulder.

Calvin shakes his head and hands me the letter. I scan the words, trying to make sense of them, to find some piece of information hidden in the handful of vague sentences.

In regards to your interview dated . . .

Further clarification . . .

My mind spins back to that drab gray office, and I’m trying to find some memory that might help explain what we did wrong. Calvin paces the living room.

Dropping the papers on the counter, I head straight to where my phone is charging on the bedside table, and press the tiny photo next to Jeff’s name. It only rings once before someone picks up.

“Hey, kiddo,” Robert says, answering his husband’s phone. “We thought you might call.”

“Calvin got a letter from—” I stop, processing what he said. “What?”

“Jeff woke up to a text from Sam Dougherty.” I imagine him standing in their cozy kitchen, having a lazy morning and his second cup of coffee. “He’s on the phone with him now.”

I’m not sure if I feel better or worse that Dougherty thought to contact Jeff about whatever is going on.

“Can you hear what he’s saying?” I ask. There’s a pause and I can hear the faint murmur of Jeff’s voice in the background. I chew on my fingernail, waiting for an answer.

“It looks like he’s hanging up, so hold on a second and you can ask him yourself.”

“Okay,” I whisper. Calvin appears in the doorway. The living room curtains are open, and with the sunlight streaming into the apartment behind him I can barely make out his face. But I can easily identify the rigid line of his shoulders and the tight clench of his hands at his sides.

“Hey, Hollsy,” Jeff says, startling me back to the call.

“I’m here. Dougherty texted you?”

“Yeah, early this morning. He said he needs you to come back in for a few more questions. Both of you.”

“Did they say what kind of questions?”

“He didn’t want to get into it, but didn’t sound all that concerned.” I want to curl in on myself in a paralyzing combination of anxiety and relief. “Now, Holland, listen. I’m sure this will be fine. They’re just doing their jobs and clarifying a few things, making sure everything’s on the up-and-up. Things are good between you and Calvin, so there’s nothing to lie about. It is a real marriage.”

I look up to where my husband is quietly listening to my end of the conversation, and quickly divert my eyes. “Right.”

“I know the letter said to call for an appointment,” Jeff says, and there’s the shuffling of paper. “But Sam’s moved some things around and can get you in at noon today. Can you guys make that work?”

“We’ll make it work,” I say. “Noon.”

We end the call, and the resulting silence feels oppressive. In unison, we glance to the clock on my bedside table: it’s eleven.

Calvin turns away, muttering, “Right.”

I watch him move to the door, pull his phone from his coat on the hook, and bend his head, dialing. The muscles beneath his shirt shift as he lifts his arm to place the phone by his ear. I have an acute memory of those muscles moving beneath my hands only this morning, with the sun barely filtering in through our bedroom window.

I really should look away, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll get to enjoy this view.

“Mam.” His voice is quiet. “Yeah, good, good.” A pause. “Right, so Amanda and I need to hop over to a meeting at noon.” Another pause, during which my heart bleeds into my stomach. “All’s good, but we’re not going to make lunch.” He goes quiet, nodding. “Sure. Sure. That’s fine. We’ll meet you outside the theater at half four.”

I watch him lower his phone and end the call. The name Amanda was a stone skipped across a lake; the ripples from it spread out across the room.

Calvin turns to look over his shoulder at me. He looks resigned, like he clearly doesn’t know where to start fixing this. Given the meeting we have less than an hour from now, I’m wondering whether we’ll even get the chance.

“Is there anything you want to take with you?” I ask him, hedging.

He startles a little. “You think it’s that kind of meeting?”

I shrug, helpless. “Calvin, I have no idea.”

Panic animates him, and he moves back over for his guitar, hurriedly bending and shoving a bunch of documents and letters into a messenger bag. And what if he doesn’t come back here with me? What if he gets put on a plane? The prospect seems nearly preposterous, with his mother and sister finally only a mile or so away in a hotel.

I feel like I can’t quite catch my breath in this madcap circus between us. We’ve gone from strangers to spouses to friends to lovers, and now are spiraling in this no-man’s-land of awkward. Amanda is still a shadow on the wall, and here we are, defending our marriage to the government, again—and this time it feels real.

He loops his bag across his chest, picks up his guitar, and meets me at the door, expression somber. “I hate how this has turned.”

I can’t help it; I laugh. The sentiment is sweet, but so unbelievably obvious.

“It’s funny?” he asks quietly.

“It’s just . . .” I look up at him, and for the span of three tight breaths, it all reels through my head: his first small smile at the station, the easy comfort of our first lunch together, the vibrator in the couch, the first interview, the drunken blur of his body on mine and then the clarity of making love with him again, and again, every day for weeks. I swear I know him but then there’s Amanda, and another interview, and I realize with startling horror that I am a complete disaster of an adult. “It’s just a lot.”

I don’t trust any of the sweet gestures right now. I don’t trust his hand reaching for mine on the C train, or his reassuring chatter as we walk the three blocks to the federal building. I don’t trust the tenderness in his eyes when he bends outside, cupping my jaw in his hand and whispering right up against my ear, “I want to fix all of this. Let me fix all of this.”

Obviously, he has the most to lose here—at least on face value, because it’s impossible to assess the damage this is doing to me emotionally. He has his work permit, his dream job, a pretty sweet apartment in walking distance to work, and a wife who conveniently looks a lot like the woman he’s been pretending to be married to for the past four years. Of course he wants to fix this. I only have this blossoming joy in my heart that I’ve felt waking up beside Calvin McLoughlin for the past several months.

Not to be melodramatic, but who needs love?

So I don’t bother to answer him, and instead turn into the building. Through the security screening we go, up the elevator, down the marble hallway, and into the immigration suite. Calvin gestures for me to sit, and then lowers himself into the chair beside me in the waiting area, pulling out his phone. I watch as he turns on the screen . . . and reads a text from someone named Natalie.

I can’t help it. I’m already a bare wire, exposed. “Natalie?”

He doesn’t even try to hide it. He tilts his phone so I can read the text there.

Hey you! Checking in to see if you’re free?

When I look up, he reminds me unnecessarily, “She’s the girl I was meant to go on a date with that night at dinner with you and the uncles.”

What the fuck?

Heat rises like steam to my face. “She’s still texting you?”

He drops his head into his hands. “We haven’t talked since. I guess she’s just following up on what I said.”

“What you said? We were married when you spoke to her. What did you say? ‘Check back in four months for a rain check on that date’? What the hell, Calvin? What have you been doing with me?”

He begins to argue, but Dougherty has materialized a few feet away, and we stand in a burst, as if saluting.

How long has he been there? Did he hear us? Oh my God, we are idiots.

“Hey there,” Dougherty says. “Come on back.”

With a small, encouraging smile, he turns and we follow. It feels so familiar—the walk to his office, the gray view out his window, the tight ball of anxiety in my stomach—but I’m also struck by how different it is, how much more we know now. Our first interview was a naive shot into the dark, with fingers crossed. Now we’re walking across the room, dragging all this emotional and marital baggage behind us. Even if we make it out of this meeting intact, how long will we stay that way?

Do I want to be married to someone who’s been keeping a Natalie on the back burner?

Do I want to be married to someone who may have married me only for this job, and because I looked like someone named Amanda?

Dougherty tells us to sit and closes the door behind us before rounding his desk. In front of him are three stacks of papers, and to the right is a thick file I can only assume is ours.

“I’m going to lay it out straight up,” he says, scratching an eyebrow. He doesn’t look pleased. “After your first interview, I’m required to do an audit of the documentation to create my report.”

We both nod.

“At first blush, your story was pretty clear-cut. You met at the subway station, went on a date, fell in love.”

Calvin and I nod again.

But it’s like I know what’s coming, and I can’t breathe.

“Something jumped out at me.” He pulls a sheet off the top of the middle pile, and reads it quietly for a few seconds. “The police report. Holland, here it is, dated January ninth. You were assaulted at the Fiftieth Street station. You claimed there was an unnamed musician in the station as a witness to your injury, correct?”

There it is.

I swallow before speaking. “That’s right.”

“Now, you also mentioned that Calvin used to play sometimes. Wasn’t the assault at the station where you used to play, Calvin?”

“That’s right, sir.” And before I can catch his eye, give him a tiny shake of my head—he adds, “That’s how it all began.”

But then he pulls back in a jerky motion, turning to me. “Wait.”

I watch as understanding dawns.

“No,” he says. “I wasn’t there that night, right?”

Silence blankets the room.

“You don’t remember whether you were present when your girlfriend at the time was assaulted?”

Calvin closes his eyes, slumping. “I was there.”

Slowly, Dougherty slides the paper onto his desk and leans back, rubbing his eyes.

Neither of us says a thing. We both know we’re busted.

We told Dougherty we met six months before we got married. If Calvin was at the station when I got injured in January, he would undoubtedly be named in the police report as a witness—the victim’s boyfriend.

“Okay, so I was right. The timelines don’t match up,” Dougherty says quietly, resting his elbows on his desk and meeting our eyes in turn. “See, I do the first audit, but there’s always a second, independent assessment of the docs. Sometimes they’ll skim the paperwork, but sometimes they’re really thorough.” He leans back again, studying us. “Normally, I would reject this outright and not even bother to bring you in, but I like you, and Jeff is a good friend. Unfortunately, this is easy to catch, because I have that Calvin played at that station, and you were assaulted at that station. If Calvin was there the night you were assaulted, then why didn’t he come forward with information, and why isn’t he explicitly named? I don’t want to get caught in a situation where I’ve pushed through an obviously fraudulent marriage.”

“It isn’t, though,” Calvin says, sliding forward in his seat. “We may have . . . stretched a few details, but it’s a love marriage.”

A thick knot of emotion takes up residence in my throat. Dougherty looks at me, and I nod. He probably assumes my watery eyes are tears of intense agreement rather than heartache because I’m not even sure whether Calvin is telling the truth or is just a really, really good liar.

“On a personal note, I’m glad to hear that,” he says, “but it’s pretty immaterial here.” He sweeps his hand over our files. “This doesn’t look great.”

Beside me, Calvin leans back heavily in his chair, covering his face with his hands.

“Before you panic,” Dougherty continues, “I have come up with a solution.” He pulls the pile of papers from the left side of his desk and pushes them toward Calvin. “When Jeff approached me initially, I advised him off the record that you’d be unlikely to qualify for an EB-1A green card, or O-1B visa, because of the length of your illegal tenure in the U.S.”

“Right,” I say. “Jeff said those are really competitive and Calvin wouldn’t qualify because he’d broken the law.”

Dougherty nods. “But given the current change in circumstance—specifically that Calvin is arguably one of the brightest stars on Broadway at the moment—I say we can easily make the case for national or even international acclaim and apply for a visa for Persons with Extraordinary Ability.”

Calvin sits forward, eyes red, and finally takes a look at the papers. “So we’d do this sort of visa instead of the green card?”

Dougherty nods. “Whether you stay married is up to you, but I worry about the red flags there. I know we can put an O-1B through now.”

The sun can’t decide what it wants to do; it fights behind clouds, and even when it’s free and exposed, it seems to beam weakly down on us. Outside the building, Calvin and I huddle in our coats. I want to look up to the cold spring sky and laugh my face off. All of this was moot—the wedding, the information sharing, the checking account, the utility bills. Even the emotional entanglement. We were all so naive.

“This is what happens when you put a bunch of artists in charge of a legal decision,” I mumble.

“I’ll fill these out later and send them in first thing tomorrow,” he says, and nods down to the forms clutched to his chest. “Holy Christ, I’m glad this doesn’t affect us.”

It’s like we’ve walked out of a movie theater thinking we were together only to realize we watched two different shows. “This,” I say, pointing between us, “is totally moot. You get that, right?”

He reacts like I’ve shoved him, shifting a step back. “Is that what you’re taking away from the meeting?”

“That we don’t need to be married?” I say, laughing harshly. “Yeah. That’s what I’m taking away.”

What a mess this is. I want to go back in time—two weeks, that would be perfect. And I want to find a way to get him to tell me about Amanda, and explain it in a way where his explanations don’t sound convenient and shady. I want it to happen before I meet his family, before I realize that I could be Holland, or Amanda, or Natalie, or anybody—that Calvin just needed a warm American citizen in his bed.

But does that time exist? I’m not sure there would have been a way for him to tell me about Amanda and our convenient similarity without it sounding like utter bullshit if he said in the next breath, But I do love you.

He stares off down the street, squinting. “My takeaway was a bit different.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re free to just be together now.” He turns back to me. “That this marriage can exist without the odd pressures of obligation.”

Defeat is a weight, pulling my heart low. “I like the idea of that, but two hours ago I found out I’m just a convenient doppelgänger. Even without the obligation of the green card, we still have that to address.”

He growls, tugging at his hair. “The Amanda thing isn’t relevant here. It’s not relevant between us—it was just a way to keep my family from worrying!”

His defensiveness stokes a fire in me. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it sounds terrible,” he says, laughing incredulously.

“It is terrible.”

Calvin tilts his face up to the sky, his jaw tight with frustration. “You know, I think you need to back off me a little here. Your parents still don’t even know I exist.”

“You’re right.” I nod. “But I never lied to you about it. I planned to tell them everything. The emotions that happened between us were unexpected, and I figured I had time to tell them before I took you home. I was just swept up in it.”

“As was I.”

“Yeah, but I only need to tell them that I fell in love with someone. Your family has been carrying around a photo of a woman they think is your wife—a photo you sent them, by the way—and have explained away the differences between us because they think I’ve lost a little weight and that I’ve done something to my hair. Is that why you always want me to wear it up?”

He looks furious. “No! I want you to wear it up because I like it up.”

“You’ve been lying to me about all of it this entire time, and would have been happy for me to go along with it.”

“Not everything here was a lie, Holland.” The wind whips his jacket collar against his neck. “I think we can both admit that what happened between us in bed wasn’t a fraud.”

He’s right, and inside, I am a simmering pot of feelings. Without question, I’m in love with him, and can so acutely remember the bliss of making love to him in the middle of last night that it makes my jaw clench with need. But I’m mad at myself for thinking this fucked-up situation was what I deserved. What happened between us in bed was the truth, but what about outside of that? I can’t even trust my internal compass of emotion anymore. Is this love?

“I know the sex wasn’t a fraud,” I say, and meet his eyes in time to catch his tiny wince. “But I don’t know how to believe you want more than that when you stood there and asked me to let them call me Amanda. That doesn’t scream long term.”

“Holland, I—”

“I need some time to think. Maybe I’ll call my family tonight and talk it out.”

“The show is tonight, love. Mam and Bridge—”

“You can’t honestly expect me to come along, can you?”

His expression crashes and he steps forward, holding my arm in his free hand. “Holland, this is all shite, I get that. But I’ll talk to them, I’ll explain. We’ll fix this.”

I know I’m going to hate that I say it, but I can’t seem to hold the words back: “We don’t need to fix it anymore. You’re free.”

The wind chooses this moment to burst past us, propelling us apart. It’s the perfect moment for the perfect metaphor.

Calvin searches my eyes for a few more seconds and then looks away. “All right. I’ll come round later to gather my things.”