The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

about how their class trip to Paris gave them a new perspective on the world, or how the night their father won an Oscar had changed their lives, I’d been fine, just another L.A. striver with more dreams than successes. But now . . .
    Gary took my hands once more. “I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone to be happy with, someone who wants all of this, who’s going to be happy for you. But it’s not for me. Do you understand?”
    I thought I did. Maybe I don’t feel comfortable with these people was what Gary told himself or maybe even what he really believed, but I thought the truth was different and far less flattering. The truth, I thought, was that Gary liked it when we were both in the same place, a just-starting-out teacher and an unemployed television writer, both of us trying to take that next crucial step forward. Now I’d leapt ahead, vaulting over him, and he didn’t like being left behind, and I didn’t know if I could face what was coming all by myself, all alone. It was too much. I couldn’t do it without him . . . but I wasn’t going to beg. Maybe the fantasy of Dave would be better than the reality of Gary. Maybe somehow it would be enough to sustain me.
    “You know what?” I heard myself saying through numb lips. “Maybe it’s for the best. I’m going to be so busy. Even if we don’t get picked up. You know, so many of the shows get shot in Vancouver. I could end up in Canada for six weeks.” I could be with Dave, I thought, and felt the knots in my belly relax incrementally, even though I knew how utterly unlikely that was.
    Gary nodded, head down. The back of his neck glimmered, pale in the wash of the streetlights. I felt a moment of overwhelming tenderness mixed with frustration toward him, remembering how we’d made love for the first time, how slow he’d been, how careful. Is this all right? he’d asked me, holding his weight on his forearms, his body hovering over mine, the tip of his penis barely grazing the seam between my legs. Okay? Am I hurting you? Should I stop? I’d gotten so frustrated, because that kind of solicitousness, that caution, was not what I wanted at all. I wanted to be desired, fiercely; I wanted him to tear at my clothes, to kiss me like he was drowning and my mouth was air, to hold me like it would hurt him to let me go. Okay? he’d asked, easing himself inside me. His bedroom had been lit by a single flickering candle, and in that chancy light, with my breasts and the smooth skin of my belly and thighs exposed andmy hair down over my cheeks, I could believe that he thought I was beautiful. And now he was leaving me. How could I stand it? How could I go on, get up in the mornings, go to work, do my job, without his love?
    A car rushed past. The wind sent my skirt flapping up past my hips. Gary leaned toward me, with my hands still slack in his. I turned away and then told myself, sternly, to be a grownup about this. I kissed his cheek. He squeezed my hands . . . and while I was trying to come up with a line— Be well or Take care or I’ll never forget you —Gary took one long last look at me, then crossed the street and walked away.

FIVE
     
    T he day I found out about Rob’s marriage, I sat behind my desk, holding very still, concentrating on the act of pulling air into my lungs, then letting it out, waiting until the writers and the rest of the assistants had made their noontime exodus to the food trucks. When they were gone, I’d opened up a fresh document on my computer and typed my resignation letter, giving my last day as precisely ten business days from that moment. I printed it out and left it, signed, on Steve’s desk. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind?” he asked when he came back from lunch, and he hadn’t looked surprised when I’d shaken my head. Rob was on his honeymoon, which meant I wouldn’t have to face him before my time on the show was up. On my last day of work, I got a cardboard box from the supply