By Jeanine Skowronski

I tell Robbie to meet me at Parkside, his favorite spot, our usual table, that booth in the back, its leather held together with gray duct tape. He orders breakfast for dinner: three eggs, two pancakes, two sausages, a side of creamed beef. I order water, fiddle with the silver band on my left hand.

“You want something?” Robbie asks.

“No,” I say, but on the way out, at the counter, I buy a brown bag full of Kit-Kats, spend the ride home splitting the candy bars in twos.   

~

I tell Robbie to meet me at the coffeehouse on Oak and Ivy, lay a map across the table, trace the route from Quentin to Bradley. 

“The university,” I say. “My university. It’s far. 104 miles, 2.2 hours away.” 

Robbie laughs, puts a palm over his heart, on top of his shirt, that awful tie-dye shirt, the one he keeps wearing, even though the collar is unraveling, and there are holes in both sleeves. 

“Mitzie,” he says. “For you, I’d cross oceans. For you, I’d walk through fire. For you, I’d drive up and down U.S. 5.”

~

I tell Robbie we should go for a drive. Head toward where all twenty-four time zones collide. Find a spotted river, the lips of Thor’s well.  

“What?” Robbie laughs. “Where?” 

“Wherever.”   

He drives up Avenue E, down Main, stops on Baker Street, next to the movie theater, a few feet away from where we first touched lips. 

“Hey,” Robbie says. “Remember when Dean ate two dozen chicken ranch taquitos at my old man’s Super Bowl party? Remember when Bea peed in a bottle because the buses didn’t have bathrooms on the way to semi-formal? Remember when you drank too much at prom, and I tied up your hair? Remember Mitzie? Remember that time?” 

~

I tell Robbie to meet me at Parkside, but outside, in the parking lot. I tell him to meet me at a park, that small park, over by the community pool. I tell him to meet me at the big park on Hudson next to the green jungle gym and spiral slide. I tell Robbie to meet me at the Panera Bread in Junction—no, the one in Loxley, two towns over. I tell him to meet me at that bench, that one nice bench they put between the old hospital buildings, half-torn down.  

~

I don’t tell Robbie, I tell Bea instead: I’m gonna break it, break us, break up, Mitzie + Robbie, apart; I practice the words loosening a promise, like a cherry-stem knot on the tip of my tongue. 

“Good,” Bea says.

“Good?”

Her eyes hit my hips. “You’ve had your hands tucked in your pockets ever since he gave you that promise ring at graduation.” 

I relax my fists, flex my fingers, push up, then pull down my sleeves.

“When will you do it?” Bea says. 

“As soon as I can figure out where.”

“Wherever,” Bea says as if that’s something I haven’t already tried. 

~

I try telling Robbie how all hearts are split, divided by septums, left and right, blood to the lungs, blood to the body, a circuitous route. Other stupid stuff: How half of the squiggly lines on a map aren’t roads, but rivers that narrow or widen, depending on the view. How you shouldn’t stick a finger into a hole; it can get stuck in. How, I don’t know; tree branches only look like roots. 

~

I tell Robbie to meet me under a tree, our tree, the one he carved our names into. I hand him pieces of bark that I’ve picked off around the first “I” in my name. Maybe love isn’t a big thing, I tell him; maybe it’s little, a Buffalo nickel in your back pocket, a sworn pinky, a wishbone, a lost baby tooth wrapped in cellophane. 

Robbie sits next to me. His head finds my shoulder, my arm finds his elbow. Our knees line up in a row.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you,” but just like this—just as we are right now. Muddied jeans. Matching sneakers. Threaded fingers and crossed thumbs. I tell him not to move. 

“Mitzie,” he says, fiddling with the silver band on my left hand. “You’ve lost your mind.” 

And I haven’t. We have, but I still, somehow, can’t tell Robbie that. 

~

Robbie calls me two weeks into first semester. Tells me he’s been thinking about it, been thinking about us and how it’s probably time to go our separate ways. Like it’s that simple: To not meet anywhere, in fact, to turn on opposite heels and walk off, walk in different directions, to not say much, not say anything, even; to make like a road or a river and go ahead, just diverge.  

I look down at my empty ring finger. 

“Thank you, Robbie.”