together forever one week, broken up the next

Two weeks before the coronavirus started to take over the city, I sat with my boyfriend. He told me he had never been more secure in a relationship and was so happy with us. I agreed.

Just as I began to take the pandemic seriously, I received a call from my boyfriend of a year and a half. He was upset, sick (he had been in the hospital due to Coronavirus symptoms but he tested negative), and doubting our relationship. The health scare made him question if he wanted to be with me long term. After some tears, I asked if he wanted me to come up for the weekend (He lives in upstate New York and I live in NYC and he originally told me he did not want me up there). He said yes through tears as he did not want to be alone.

For the next week, we stayed together at his place switching between having fun and crying our way through intense conversations about our relationship. He had always pictured himself being with someone else in the long run, wanted the freedom to do so, and no longer believed he was in love with me. But we talked and talked and promised we would go to couples counseling or try and figure things out. Neither of us wanted to lose each other. The plan was that I would stay through the pandemic as I no longer could go into work.

Sunday morning I wake up to a pat on my back. I sit up and he is sitting there, fully dressed. "We need to break up," he says. He continued to say that there was nothing we could do. He puts me on a bus to NYC and tells me I'll be ok which only made me feel less ok.

So now here I am in the thick of the pandemic, stuck in quarantine. I've lost my best friend and now all I have are bottles of wine and a consuming sadness. I'm having so much fun!!