The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch

her for being right, but instead, I mutter: “Well, I don’t know.”
    And she says: “It’s the not knowing that will kill you.”
    And I retort: “I’m pretty sure there are other ways to die.”
    And she answers: “Of course there are. But at this rate, I wouldn’t count on it.”
    —
    OLIVER CHANDLER
    Yogi, life-lover, naturalist, vegan, student, teacher, wanderer, admirer of beauty. Namaste!
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    Amazeballs power vinyasa class today at Yogiholics! Thanks ladies for getting your om on! (1 hr)
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    Sometimes bad news is actually good news. You just have to dig deeper. (Shout-out to my pops.) ( 5 days)
    Absorb what is being said to you. Listen, and you will hear. (1 week)
    —
    “Well, he’s evidently in New York,” Vanessa says, clicking onto her home screen on her phone.
    “And evidently, still as full of shit as before.”
    “You should join Twitter,” she urges.
    “Why?” I reply. “I never have anything interesting to say.”
    —
    Two hours and five miles later, I am back at my apartment, though no more ready to go inside. I know that it will likely make no difference, my entry, my refusal to say Grape!. That whatever will be, will be — we will fight (we never fight), we will say things (though we never say things), we will dance around this and then we’ll move on to wherever we’re supposed to move on to. The thing about half-believing in my father’s philosophies is that they lend themselves to passivity: why bother fighting, why bother speaking in truths when maybe those truths don’t matter. Can’t we just fast-forward to when we’re happy again? Because if we’re going to be happy again, none of that in-between stuff matters.
    I insert my key and rotate the doorknob. None of this in-between stuff matters. Apologize.
    Shawn is on the couch, a sweat ring around his neck, his workout clothes soaked. He flips off the television when he hears the door open, then swing shut.
    “Nicky went to a friend’s for a few hours,” he says, not turning around.
    “You went running?” I linger in the foyer, unsure about stepping forward.
    “I did go running, Willa. Is that okay with you?”
    “What? I was just asking.”
    Shawn sighs like this is the most exasperating statement in the world and finally looks toward me. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
    “I don’t want to fight with you.” I feel the bubble of tension ebb from my body. My stomach unknots, my adrenaline slows. None of this in-between stuff matters. We’ll go back to where we left off. Of course we can do that. I was silly to think that we couldn’t.
    “But…” he starts, then stops. “But…” he starts again.
    Shawn, for all of his strengths — and he has many — is no better at this than I am, and my resolve crumbles all over again. Something is wrong here, very, very wrong, and whether or not I should listen to my instincts (and my father has taught me not to), I can’t help but sense that we are about to make a very abrupt, very hard turn into the unknown.
    He glances at his hands, shakes his head, and then, quickly, like he’s about to lose his nerve, says:
    “Wired2Go wants me to come spend the summer at their corporate office in Palo Alto.”
    I exhale. This isn’t devastating. This isn’t an abrupt, hard turn. I mean, it’s not in the diagram that we drew up three years ago, but I can manage Palo Alto for a summer.
    “I’m sorry about before. I should have told you about my job.”
    The apology bounces off him, barely