Love and Other Words

Macy’s dad insists Macy and Elliot do their reading downstairs or outdoors and not in the closet anymore. According to one of her mom’s rules, Macy should be safe, so Macy begins taking birth control medication. Her father clarifies that it is not permission to have sex; it is just a way to stay safe and protect their future.

In October, Macy’s dad leaves Elliot and Macy alone while he goes to get dinner ingredients. Elliot crawls to Macy on the floor and takes off her shirt. She pulls his leg toward her, rubs up against him, and orgasms in front of him for the first time. At that moment, they hear the car in the driveway. Elliot says he was just waiting for Duncan to get home before going home. Elliot sees Macy staring at his fly. He bends to her and says, “You’re trouble.” Macy whispers back, “Soon.”

Elliot and Macy walk around the garden, talking. She knows she needs to talk with him about their falling out, and she’s avoiding it. He kisses her on the forehead and cheek like he used to. At the wedding, Alex tells Macy that she’s been wanting to meet her, or re-meet her, for years. After Macy left, Elliot wouldn’t bring a girl home. He finally brought Rachel home and their mother called her Macy by mistake. This makes Rachel’s behavior make more sense to Macy. Watching Elliot walk the maid of honor down the aisle, Macy realizes why everything felt wrong with Sean. She mouths to Elliot “yes” as in, “Yes, I’m yours. Yes, I’m ready. Yes, I love you” (108).

They are back in the closet, with the door open. It’s too cold to be outside. Elliot is reading Wally Lamb and admits he likes him. They hear Duncan leaving in the car. Elliot and Macy have sex for the first time. Afterward, Macy suddenly feels hollow. Then they hear Macy’s dad coming home. They quickly get dressed. Macy’s dad comes into the room just as they finish dressing and tells Macy that he just got a fax and needs them to leave for the city in an hour.

Alone again, Elliot notices that Macy has blood running down her leg and asks if he hurt her. She says no more than she expected. Macy says she doesn’t want to go. Then she asks, “Did we just have sex?” He says, “Yeah. We did” (111). She notes, “How strange and wonderful it was that we had never said I love you. And we hadn’t needed to” (111).

Elliot gives a toast, welcoming Andreas’s wife to the family. He says that he and Andreas have one thing in common, which is that when they fall in love with someone they commit fully. Later, Macy and Elliot are dancing. He has an erection. He apologizes but says that he loves Macy and can’t help the way his body reacts. Macy says she loves him too. He asks why she left him. She says that she was broken. He asks how she was broken. She says she doesn’t want to talk about it there, and he asks if she wants to go somewhere else. She pulls him toward her and kisses him.

On New Year’s Eve, Macy is at a black-tie event with her dad. Elliot calls her from a house party. He says he loves her and proposes marriage. He’s had a few drinks. Macy doesn’t want to discuss this over the phone. She says she’ll give him his New Year’s kiss on Saturday when she sees him next. They get off the phone.

Duncan asks Macy what’s wrong. She says she’s afraid of losing their friendship, and wonders if they should just go back to being friends. Duncan says if he’s the one, they can’t be just friends. He says, “He’s your Laís,” which is her mother’s name. Duncan gives her permission to drive to see him that night.

They are in a garden, kissing. Elliot begins to cry. He says he thought he’d never kiss her again. They have sex in the garden. She asks, “Is it weird […] that I felt like I was having sex with someone new and old at the same time?” (118). He admits that it was years before he had sex with anyone else after her. He says he’s loved her from the moment he’d ever thought about love, sex, and women. Macy muses, “It’s a little like being in the eye of a tornado. All around me, things are happening, but inside my head, it’s so quiet” (118). Elliot reflects on his words of love to her and exclaims, “Oh my God, I just realized what I’ve said” (119).

Macy drives toward the house party where Elliot is. She realizes she doesn’t know where it is and so calls him. His friend Christian answer the phone. She says it’s Elliot’s girlfriend, Macy. Christian gives her the address of the party. Someone in the background says, “don’t.” Christian says, “what the fuck do I care?” (120).

Macy arrives at the party and asks, “Have you seen Elliot?” (120). Brandon, Elliot’s best friend, says, “He’s really wasted” (120) and tries to prevent Macy from finding him. Macy goes upstairs and finds Elliot passed out with a naked Emma next to him. She says she’s known heartbreak before, “but this was a different sensation, like a lit match held to the bloody organ inside, holding steady, waiting patiently for it to dry out, harden into coal, catch fire” (121).

Christian says, “they have a history, let it go. It’s not really a thing. They just fuck around sometimes” (121). She drives to her house, barely makes it to the couch, grabs a blanket, and curls up on the floor. She wonders if he and Emma have been having sex all along. She thinks that she only knows Elliot only one-third of the time, and otherwise she thinks, she doesn’t know him at all.

Elliot and Macy finally talk about what happened 11 years ago. Elliot says that he was intoxicated and believed he had had sex with Macy. It wasn’t until later that Christian told him it was Emma and what Macy saw. He called her several times a day for months, and she never responded. She says, “The Emma thing feels so small now. It was just the first domino. We had this deep, unbreakable trust, you know—and you broke that, you did—but it’s not just that. It’s…it’s me” (124).

He asks if he deserved a chance to explain. He says, “That’s a knockdown, drag-out fight. That isn’t…disappearing for a decade” (124). He adds, “I’ve never loved another woman […] And every woman I’ve been with knows it” (124). He explains that Rachel had to watch him break down in tears the first time she went down on him. Elliot says he still wants her, but now wonders if he still should. He walks away.

Macy emerges from the garden and asks where Elliot is. Elliot appears behind her and asks if she wants him to drive her home. He drinks several glasses of champagne and is visibly angry. He accuses her of shutting down. She says she’ll come by tomorrow so they can talk more. She goes back to their weekend home where her dad’s belongings are kept. She realizes that some things in the house are so musty they will need to be thrown away. She finds some of her father’s things and begins to cry.

She imagines talking with her father. She asks “Are you with mom? […] Does she remember me? […] Do either of you remember you had a daughter?” (125). She hears “Macy,” and someone picks her up. She says, “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry, dad. It’s my fault” (126). She opens her eyes and sees it is Elliot who has picked her up. He asks her what is going on. She tells the story.

Duncan arrives at the cabin. He asks what happened. Macy tells him that Elliot made a mistake. They drive together. Duncan is so concerned with Macy that he doesn’t see the other car coming. Duncan dies in a car crash. The other driver is a stoned student.

When the paramedics tell her that “he’s gone” she wants to run. Macy tells everyone to stop talking. She says she wants to go back to the other heartbreak. She tries to run away. A police officer grabs her and says, “I’m sorry.” After that Macy’s uncle and aunt come to clean the house. Elliot continues to text her that he made a mistake, but she doesn’t want to respond. She says, “He could have every other bit of my heart, but not this” (128).

After that, she goes to live with her uncle and aunt in Minnesota. They decide to send her to college. At college, she gets paired with Sabrina as a roommate because, Macy believes, she lost a brother in a car accident two summers before. “Time. I knew well enough time numbed certain things—even death” (129).

Macy tells Elliot the story. Elliot says this explains so much. She says she had no way to explain it to him. “I’m so bad at words” (130). Elliot tries to understand how he didn’t hear about this sooner. They didn’t have any other people in common. Macy explains she was intentionally trying to avoid seeing him. At college, she felt numb, and it was easier for her to feel nothing at all than to talk with him. Elliot asks, “How do I say I’m sorry? How do I ever—” (131) and runs into the bathroom to throw up. She asks Elliot what the years were like for him. He focused on schoolwork, mainly.

Elliot says that it’s time they move out of the closet and into the world. He notes Macy probably thinks the closet is a safe place and things fell apart when they tried to bring their romance out of the closet and into the world but that it was just bad luck. Now their relationship will be whatever they make it.

They return to the house in Berkeley. Elliot notes that it smells like Duncan and that he’s only seen one picture of Macy’s mom. Macy assures him that she can look at her mom and appreciate it without falling apart. She’s glad she looks like her mom. Elliot says they should move in together in the city.

Soon, Elliot and Macy move in together. The entire Petropoulos family helps them move. Somewhat awkwardly, they bring them a four-poster bed. Macy thinks that soon everyone will leave, and they will follow each other into bed. She’ll wake up and still want him. They’ve gone in circles to wind up here. He asks her favorite word. She doesn’t hesitate to say “You.”