Kidding Themselves

January 8: promised dinner, cancelled at 6:12 p.m. January 14: disappeared after asking if she was “free later.” January 22: said he wanted to make things right. Did not specify how. February 3: late to her birthday dinner. Blamed parking. There was no parking problem; she had checked. February 17: promised to call after work. Called at 1:03 a.m. and sounded surprised she was asleep.

Her fingers hovered over the trackpad.

She hated the neatness of the dates. It made the whole thing look less like a relationship and more like evidence. Worse, it made her look like the sort of woman who collected evidence instead of leaving.

A car hissed through the wet street below. Somewhere in the building, a pipe knocked twice.

Mara added tonight’s entry.

March 2: promised to come over. Sent late-night excuse. No explanation. Again.

She typed again three times, then deleted two.

The kitchen smelled of cold tea, damp wool, and the garlic she had roasted for the dinner he never ate. She had set two plates out at seven. At nine, she had covered his portion with foil. At eleven, she had eaten it standing at the counter, using a fork because sitting down felt too much like waiting.

Her phone lit up.

Don’t be mad.

Mara laughed once. It came out sharp and joyless.

She typed, I’m not mad.

Then deleted it.

She typed, You don’t get to decide what I am.

Deleted that too.

Finally, she wrote: I’m tired of being promised a version of you who never arrives.

She looked at the sentence. It was honest, which made it dangerous.

Before she could send it, another message appeared.

I know. I’m trying.

There it was. The little sentence that had kept the whole ridiculous machine running. Three words, soft as a blanket, strong enough to smother every fact beneath it.

Mara leaned back and pressed her palms to her eyes.

“Trying to do what?” she asked the empty kitchen.

The laptop gave a faint electronic hum.

She opened a new spreadsheet.

The first column became Date. The second became Promise. The third became What Happened. She added a fourth, then a fifth, because apparently heartbreak came with administrative needs.

Excuse. Impact. My response.

She stared at the last heading.

My response.

Under it, she wrote: Reassured him. Then: Explained my feelings gently. Then: Accepted apology. Then: Made alternative plan. Then: Believed potential.

That final phrase sat there like a small, expensive lie.

At 1:18 a.m., she searched for relationship advice forums.

The first one had pastel banners and women named things like SunshineMum1987 telling strangers to “communicate openly.” The second was mostly men arguing that commitment was a social construct. The third was called Aunties After Dark, with a red lipstick logo and a warning that no one there would tell you what you wanted to hear.

Mara clicked.

The page loaded slowly. A list of posts filled the screen.

He says he needs space but watches all my stories. Am I unreasonable for wanting him to meet my friends? He forgot our anniversary and says dates are commercial nonsense.

At the top, a pinned note read: Bring the facts. Leave the fantasy at the door.

Mara almost closed the tab.

Instead, she clicked New Post.

The form asked for a title.

She wrote: Why does my boyfriend keep repeating the same promises?

It looked pathetic. Too direct. Too much like a woman standing in a doorway with her coat still on, asking to be let in.

She changed it to: Pattern of broken promises - am I expecting too much?

That looked worse. Polite enough to be dismissed.

She pasted in the spreadsheet entries, then deleted the dates. Dates made it sound prosecutorial. She removed Ethan’s name. She took out the birthday detail, the covered plate, the fact that he had once sent her a photograph of his “dead” phone while actively appearing online.

Each deletion felt like helping him.

At the bottom, she wrote: He says he is trying. I believe he loves me. I just don’t understand why nothing changes.

Her cursor blinked.

A private pain, dressed for public inspection.

Mara pressed save draft instead of publish.

The apartment door rattled in its frame.

She froze.

For one breath, she imagined Ethan had come after all. That he would be standing in the hallway with rain in his hair and shame in his eyes. That he would look at the spreadsheet and understand it without making her explain why it hurt.

Her phone buzzed again.

Going to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.

The door stopped rattling. A neighbour’s key scraped in the lock downstairs.

Mara looked from the message to the post.

Then she clicked publish.

The site asked whether she was sure. She hated it for asking, as if the website had better instincts than she did.

“Yes,” she whispered.

The post appeared under the username MaraE.

For several seconds, nothing happened. Then a small red number appeared beside the comments.

One.

Mara clicked it.

The reply came from AuntVera, a user with a black-and-white photograph of a woman in enormous glasses and an expression that suggested she had buried several men in shallow graves, metaphorically or otherwise.

> You keep calling these promises because “habits” would require you to admit he has no intention of changing them.

Mara’s mouth went dry.

She read the sentence again.

A second comment appeared.

> He is not confused. He is comfortable. There is a difference.

Mara pushed away from the table so quickly her chair struck the wall.

“No,” she said.

The kitchen answered with the refrigerator’s low mechanical buzz.

She scrolled back to her post. Her own words looked exposed now, stripped of the private softness she had given them. I believe he loves me. There it was, displayed among strangers, a confession she had never managed to say aloud without immediately defending him.

A notification chimed.

AuntVera replied to your post.

> You say he is trying. What has he actually changed?

Mara’s fingers tightened around the edge of the laptop.

She could answer with the truth.

Nothing.

But Ethan had once remembered she hated coriander. He had kissed her forehead in the supermarket when she was crying over a broken jar of pasta sauce. He knew how she took her coffee and which side of the bed made her shoulder ache. He had looked at her in the beginning as if she were the only clear thing in a crowded room.

Those details had become her evidence for the defence.

She typed: He says he wants to be better.

AuntVera answered almost immediately.

> That is not an action. That is a trailer.

Mara stared at the screen.

Despite herself, she laughed. The sound loosened something in her chest, though not enough to make breathing easy.

Another user joined in.

TwoMessagesMax: Maybe stop treating his intentions like accomplishments?

Mara clicked the username. The profile was empty except for a sentence: If he wants to see you, he can survive making a plan.

AuntVera added:

> You do not have a boyfriend who keeps failing at the same promise. You have a man who keeps making the same promise because it resets the conversation.

The room seemed to tilt - not dramatically, not enough for a film score, just enough that Mara had to put her hand flat on the table.

Her phone lit up again.

Morning, beautiful. I hate that we ended the night weird.

She felt the old reflex rise: reassure, soften, translate. It’s okay. I know you’re tired. We’ll talk when you’re ready.

The words formed automatically, obedient little servants.

On the laptop, AuntVera was still waiting.

Mara typed: What if he really does mean it when he says he’s trying?

The reply took longer this time.

> Then he can tolerate being measured by what he does next. If he needs you to keep calling him “trying” while he repeats the damage, you are not helping him. You are helping him avoid the bill.

Mara looked at Ethan’s message.

Morning, beautiful.

The endearment landed badly. Like a hand placed over her mouth.

She began to type. Not to him. To the forum.

He says he loves me. I think I’ve been using that as proof that he will eventually become reliable.

She stopped.

The sentence was too naked. Her hands trembled over the keys.

Then she posted it.

The red notification appeared almost at once.

AuntVera wrote:

> Good. Now stop hiding the notes and bring the whole spreadsheet.

Mara’s stomach dropped.

She had not told anyone about the spreadsheet.

A follow-up appeared.

> If you want clarity, stop editing the evidence to protect his feelings.

Mara turned the laptop toward the stack of handwritten pages. The paper edges had curled from being carried in her bag, tucked beneath receipts and lip balm and the emergency charger Ethan had borrowed three months ago and never returned.

She opened the spreadsheet again.

For each entry, she restored what she had removed.

The birthday. The dead phone. The covered plate. The apology he had delivered while already reaching for his coat. The time he had promised to meet her sister, then sent a message saying social situations made him anxious, though he had somehow found the energy to go drinking with his friends that same night.

At the bottom, she added a new column.

What I called it instead.

She filled it in slowly.

Bad timing. Stress. Fear of commitment. A difficult week. His way of coping. My expectations.

The final row remained blank.

Mara’s phone buzzed.

You awake?

She looked at the message, then at the spreadsheet, then at the public post where strangers were waiting for the answer she had spent eleven months avoiding.

She entered the final line.

What I called it instead: love.

The reply from AuntVera arrived before Mara could decide whether to delete it.

> He is not “fixable” yet, Mara. More importantly, he has not agreed that he is broken.

Mara sat very still.

Outside, rain ticked against the window. Inside, Ethan sent another message, and another, each one warmer than the last, each one asking her to return to the version of the story where wanting him badly enough counted as progress.

Mara did not answer.

She pressed publish on the full spreadsheet.

The page refreshed. Her private history became a public object, searchable and commentable and impossible to fold back into her handbag.

AuntVera’s final line appeared beneath it.

> Now let’s see what he does when you stop doing the changing for him.

Mara closed her eyes.

For the first time that night, she wanted something more frightening than Ethan’s arrival.

She wanted to see what happened if he didn’t.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters and about 97,600 words in the full book.