The Breakup Happened in a Bathroom – “Hadley, we should break up.”

PART 3

Dating Merrick turned out to be less dramatic than I expected and much more dangerous to my concentration. He still met me at the tennis courts before sunrise, still destroyed me without mercy, and still bought breakfast whenever I tried to insist it was my turn. The difference was that now he kissed my forehead before handing me coffee, which made it difficult to remember I was supposed to be annoyed. Nolan noticed immediately. A week after Merrick and I made things official, he cornered me outside the library and said Sabrina had “become complicated.” Translation: they had broken up. “I think I made a mistake,” he said. I actually laughed. “You did. You just made it three years ago, not three weeks ago.” He told me Merrick was too old for me, too rich, too polished, probably only interested because I was convenient. I told him that was impressive coming from a man who had accepted free breakfast from me for four years. By that evening, a rumor was circulating that I was being financially supported by an older businessman. Maren traced it back to Nolan’s friend group. I was furious. Merrick was calmer. “Do you want me to handle it?” he asked. “Legally?” “Preferably.” The next day Nolan publicly posted that the rumor was false and apologized for repeating private assumptions. Merrick never told me exactly what he said to him. I decided some mysteries improved relationships.
Winter arrived, and my graduate-school application became the center of my life. Ridgemont’s social policy program accepted only a few students each year, and President Hale had already made one thing painfully clear: dating his son would earn me exactly zero academic favors. “If anything,” he said at dinner, “people will scrutinize you more.” So I studied until my eyes burned. Merrick quizzed me on research methods during breakfast and made me explain policy theories between tennis sets. When the written exam results came back, I ranked second. I nearly screamed in the student center. Merrick picked me up and spun me around until people stared. The interview came next. President Hale recused himself from the panel. I sat before four faculty members who challenged every answer I gave. When I walked out, I was certain I had failed. Three weeks later, I opened the email in Merrick’s office. Congratulations. I read it three times. Then I started crying. “I got in.” Merrick crossed the room and wrapped me in his arms. “Of course you did.” “Did your father say anything to them?” I demanded into his shirt. “Yes.” I pulled back in horror. Merrick grinned. “He told them that if they admitted you, they would have to deal with you for another two years.” I hit him with the acceptance letter.
A few months later, while helping Merrick clean out a storage room in his apartment, I found an old photo album. The first picture stopped me cold. Sixteen-year-old me sat on the bleachers at my old high school, eating an ice cream bar and staring across the football field. “Why do you have this?” Merrick went quiet. The next page showed me again. Then another. In one picture, Merrick stood in the foreground during a student-teaching placement. I was behind him, making a ridiculous face at a friend. “You were at my high school?” I asked. He sat beside me. “For one month.” I barely remembered him. Then he showed me a final photograph of the school rooftop. His voice changed. “I was twenty-two. My father and I were fighting constantly. He wanted me to follow him into academia. I wanted something else. I was depressed, and I wasn’t getting help.” My stomach tightened. “One afternoon I went onto the roof.” He didn’t need to finish. Suddenly I remembered a young substitute teacher standing dangerously close to the edge while I skipped class with two ice cream bars. I had panicked and shouted, “Don’t tell my teacher I’m skipping and I’ll give you one!” Merrick smiled faintly. “You kept talking until I came away from the edge. Then you made me promise not to tell anyone about your ice cream.”
I stared at him, barely breathing. He continued quietly. “You told me sugar improved bad moods. Then you told me if that failed, I should run until I was too tired to be miserable.” I remembered reporting the unlocked rooftop door afterward because I was afraid someone might fall. I had never known what happened to him. Merrick said that day forced him to admit he needed help. He entered therapy, eventually stepped away from teaching, built his company, and repaired his relationship with his father. “I saw you again at Ridgemont years later,” he said. “You were sitting by the tennis courts complaining about your terrible love life.” I covered my face. “Please tell me you did not hear everything.” “Everything.” “I need a new identity.” He laughed, then became serious again. “I wanted to talk to you sooner. I didn’t because I needed to know I was healthy enough to build a life with someone, not use someone to hold me together.” He took my hand. “So I waited. And when I finally walked over that morning, you had just been dumped in a restroom.” I groaned. “Our love story is disgusting.” “Memorable,” he corrected.
One year later, I was halfway through graduate school when Merrick took me back to the same tennis courts before sunrise. I assumed he wanted another match. Instead, he handed me a small box. “If you make a joke, I’m leaving,” he warned. Naturally, I said, “Depends on the ring.” He opened it anyway. “Hadley, you accidentally talked me off a roof when you were sixteen. Years later, you made me laugh when I thought I had forgotten how to let people close. I don’t need you to save me. I just want to walk beside you.” For once, I had no sarcastic response. I said yes. President Hale later claimed he had known from our first breakfast. Celeste claimed she knew before that. Maren demanded credit for diagnosing Merrick’s crush. Nolan eventually transferred after graduation and became nothing more than an embarrassing story I rarely told. Sometimes I think about the girl who sat in that restroom believing she had just lost the love of her life. She had no idea the man who would actually love her had been waiting beside a tennis court. And this time, when I opened my mouth, he answered.