- Levi Hastings
Breakups are a bummer, but breaking up in Seattle, in the winter, is a goddamn nightmare. A few years ago, I became friends with Sarah and John—a couple who’d been together three years and majorly had their shit together, as they say. They were engaged and good at mowing the lawn and cleaning out the fridge and planning for their future; they juggled grad school, two dogs, teaching jobs, and car payments. I squeaked into their lives just in time to be invited to their wedding, and I always thought of them as a couple, an entity.
After they married, they moved a few times and finally bought a house. When I went through a breakup, I felt lucky to remain a part of their rock-solid lives. While I still felt like a teenager who couldn’t properly make a bed, they were making their own concrete countertops for their kitchen in the house they owned. Because that’s something you can do, MAKE YOUR OWN COUNTERTOPS. They wrote their initials in the wet cement so underneath the counter it read S + J = ♥.
It’s hard to know exactly how it happens. Couples fight. Sometimes a lot. And no one ever knows how much fighting is normal. S and J seemed to have the healthy relationship bases covered—they squabbled, sure, but went to counseling on the regular. In their eighth year together, the house was coming along and plans for babies were in the works. But then one day late last November, without warning, John told Sarah he was leaving. He made her some ravioli and left.
