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The breakup begins on an otherwise unassuming Tuesday, at 11:19 PM. It will drag on for several long weeks, until their relationship breathes out its last gasp during an argument that is only superficially about Jon’s terrible taste in restaurants. But it begins on that Tuesday, and Jon is sure that they both know it.
In the moments before the fracture forms, Jon is explaining the painfully irritating romance “subplot” in a book that claimed to be a “horror/sci-fi novel.”
“And it’s so ridiculously over-exaggerated! I mean, I know all that toff about getting all- all flustered or blushing or- or whatever is just for dramatic effect, but… the way the main character acts around his love interest, you’d think he had some sort of debilitating heart condition!”
Georgie doesn’t say anything, not at first. She’s staring at the ground with a pensive expression, and Jon starts to suspect he might’ve crossed a line. He starts combing through the conversation, trying to gauge where it was he went wrong. Was it the comment about a heart condition? Was it insensitive? Does Georgie have one? Or… maybe she had like the book? They both tended to prefer the same genres, but their tastes ran wildly different. Normally their arguments were friendly, but…
Before he can follow that thought to some kind of conclusion, Georgie speaks up, “I… Jon, what do you mean, ‘exaggerated’?”
They’re stopped, now. They’re stopped, and Georgie is looking at him, and Jon is suddenly feeling as if he’s taking a multiple choice test with only wrong answers. “Well… I mean… the blushing, the elevated heartrate, ‘butterflies in one’s stomach,’ which is sort of a repugnant way of phrasing that, actually. Mostly it makes me think of a swarm of insects getting dissolved in stomach acid, which is-“
This steadier ground is comforting, but he isn’t allowed to remain on it for more than a moment.
“Jon,” Georgie said, sounding slightly strained, “most people do feel those things. I feel those things."
“What?” No, no that doesn’t make sense. If anyone can have them, if everyone does have them, then why doesn’t he? “No you don’t!” It’s a stupid thing to say, and Jon knows it even as he lets the words pour out of his mouth. A frightened contrarian reflex. How would he know?
“Of course I do, Jon! Don’t… don’t you?”
“I- well, I…” there is a right answer here, he thinks. There is also a true answer, but he cannot bring himself to try for either.
“I’m dating you, aren’t I?” It is the wrong answer, and Jon knows it before he even opens his mouth. But these are the only words that could leave his throat, and so it is all that he can offer.
Georgie nods. "Right. Of course." Her voice is flat. He thinks she wants to say something else to him. He isn’t totally sure that either of them know what that is.
That night, they lie together in a bed that suddenly feels like it doesn’t belong to either of them, although they have shared it for months. Georgie is deep in thought, although what she is thinking Jon does not ask and she does not say, and Jon roots around inside his chest cavity for all the feelings he has only ever read about. It is the same pointless, confusing meandering as it has always been. Trying and failing to grasp a concept that is ever out-of-reach. As before, he finds nothing but hollowness in the place where so many people seem to have a thousand alien emotions. Probably he doesn’t love Georgie in that way. Probably he has never loved anyone that way. Probably he isn’t a woman. Probably he doesn’t want sex. Probably he isn’t a man.
Probably, probably, probably, probably.
It is difficult to settle on the term "aromantic," as it had been for "agender," and "asexual," and "them." Without any solid evidence, it feels as if each label is in danger of eroding beneath their feet. Sometimes they are terribly afraid that someone will see all the way through them, will hold Jon's heart up to the light until they can both see that Jon is lying. There is no certainty in the absence; the empty space cannot ground them.
Still, in the years that follow, Jon does not try to date again. It is mostly a relief, at least in their own thoughts. Dating is quite a lot of work for a relationship that seems for all the world to be an overly-touchy friendship. But sometimes in the very dead of night they wonder if they should try, if it would be better now, or different somehow. And to be a priority like that, the most important person in someone else’s life… but it seems unfair to ask that of anyone, and the opportunity has never presented itself regardless.
Some things are not meant for them. There is a kind of peace in accepting that.