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words took a moment to wrap themselves around my brain because they were so alien, so unexpected, that it was like he was speaking another language. I sputtered , I was so taken aback . “Out of all the things I was expecting you to say, that was not one of them.”
    His eyebrows drew together as he looked at me. “I’m sorry it’s out of the blue. I just think we need to spend some time apart.”
    Tear stung my eyes as his words began to sink in. “You said you love me.”
    His nostrils flared and when he reached out to touch my cheek, his fingers were trembling. “I do.”
    “Then…”
    “I just need to figure out who the hell I am, Elsie,” he said. “I can’t remember a time that you weren’t in my life and that scares me a little. I feel like I have no identity without you.”
    “So you’re breaking up with me to go find yourself ?” I asked incredulously.
    “Not just me. I want the same for you. I want you to figure out who you are without me.”
    Tears were streaming down my face as I spoke. “I don’t need to know who I am without you because you’re a part of me. Taking you out of the equation is like pulling out one of my femurs and asking me to live a normal life. It’s not going to happen.”
    “I need you to understand where I’m coming from—”
    “But I can’t understand,” I shouted. “I don’t understand how you can tell me you’re in love with me and ask me to wait for six months, and now that you’ve come home and we can be together, you’re suddenly breaking up with me. And your reason—that you want to find your identity—is flimsy and stupid.
    “I thought you were going to tell me you had some horrible illness. And you know, the sad thing is that I wish that was the case because then that means you’re not leaving me voluntarily.”
    He turned away, the muscles in his jaw and neck taut, but said nothing. He just looked out the window.
    I waited for him to say something—anything—that would make sense. If he was going to break my heart, I needed a viable reason, something tangible like wanting to be with someone else.
    “Oh my God, it’s because of Nina, isn’t it? Do you want to be with her?”
    “No!” he cried, finally looking at me again. “I don’t care about Nina.”
    “And you obviously don’t care about me,” I said in a broken voice.
    “Of course I do—”
    I didn’t want to hear anymore, so I pushed open the car door and stepped out into the rain. I was instantly soaked, but I didn’t care. I slammed the door shut and stalked off to the house and went inside, locking the door behind me.
    “Sweetheart?”
    I spun around and found my mother in the hallway, with an anxious look on her face and a cup of tea in her hands.
    “Elsie, are you okay?” she asked.
    The gentle worry in her voice undid me so I wrapped my sopping arms around her and let loose a rainstorm of my own.

     
    I sat in the bathtub for the longest time, sobbing into a bottle of Merlot. I scoured through memories to find any hints of the breakup, but nothing came to mind. Wasn’t it only last night that he was telling me we were headed towards a happily ever after? What had changed since then?
    I had so many questions but pride kept me from calling him. I would not break down and beg him to reconsider, no matter how much I wanted that very thing to happen.
    Henry had blindsided me back in March when he told me he was in love with me, and he had blindsided me again by telling me he wanted to break up.
    At the beginning of the year, I was confident that I knew everything about Henry—his favorite color, his favorite quote, down to which dress shoes he preferred—but something changed and with each passing month, I realized that I barely knew him at all. Apart from superficial details, did I really know Henry as well as I thought?
    And just then, when I was certain I had fallen in love with a complete stranger, was the moment that I finally began to understand