Call It What You Want

Call It What You Want Plot Summary

Introduction

The wine glass hits the kitchen floor with a sharp crack, burgundy liquid spreading across pale tiles as shards scatter like broken promises. Sloane bends to collect the pieces, blood blooming from her palm, while Ethan pulls out his phone to call an Uber. Four words hang in the air between them: "I can't do this." This is the moment everything ends, though it began two years earlier in a college apartment stairwell when their eyes first met. What follows is not a love story in any traditional sense, but something messier and more honest—the anatomy of an almost-relationship that spans years, cities, and countless almosts. It's about the kind of love that teaches you everything except how to let go, and the brutal education that comes from wanting someone who can never quite want you back the same way.

Chapter 1: First Encounters: The Gravity of Unspoken Connection

Senior year at Wilmington College arrives with brutal August heat and the weight of impending adulthood. Sloane Hart climbs two flights of stairs to her off-campus apartment, the final box cutting into her arms as sweat beads on her forehead. Her parents' divorce still stings—another casualty of her father's failed writing career and subsequent drinking, her mother's surgical precision finally cutting him out of their lives. The wooden steps creak under her feet as she turns the corner, and that's when she sees him. Tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a faded Yankees t-shirt that clings to his frame. Dark hair tucked under a backwards cap, brown eyes that feel familiar somehow, like she's looked into them before. "Need some help with that?" His voice carries easy confidence. "No, I'm okay." But she's not okay—not when he looks at her like that, not when her stomach does something acrobatic and strange. He points to her door. "See you around then, neighbor." Ethan Brady. The name will become a prayer, a curse, a question mark that punctuates the next two years of her life. But for now, he's just the beautiful stranger who lives upstairs, the one who makes her wish she'd worn something other than move-in day clothes. Inside, her roommates Lauren and Jordan are already deep into pregame mode, music blasting as they plan their assault on Jerry's—the Thursday night ritual that defines their college social calendar. Lauren, platinum blonde and magnetic, immediately claims dibs on some longboard-carrying surfer type. Jordan, free-spirited and beach-bred, laughs about adopting into Lauren's parents' wealth. But Sloane can't shake the image of brown eyes and that crooked smile. She doesn't know it yet, but she's already falling. At Jerry's, the crowd thickens with the familiar chaos of college night out. Bodies pressed together, cheap beer flowing, the kind of reckless energy that comes with knowing these moments are numbered. Then a voice cuts through the noise: "Can I get you a drink?" She turns and there he is again, close enough that she can smell his cologne, close enough to count the freckles across his nose. Six words that feel like the beginning of everything. "Bold of you to assume I'm a beer girl," she flirts, though her heart hammers against her ribs. "Well, you're holding an empty bottle and it's dollar beer night, so it wasn't really much of a stretch." His laugh is warm honey, the kind of sound that gets under your skin. They talk—about majors, about dreams, about the careful dance of getting to know someone while pretending you're not already imagining what their mouth would taste like. When she finally pulls away, citing the need to find her friends, he calls after her: "See you around, Hart." The nickname lands like a brand, marking her as his in some indefinable way. She doesn't know that in two years' time, he'll use that same name to say goodbye.

Chapter 2: Undefined Boundaries: Dancing on the Edge of Commitment

Fall semester unfolds with the intoxicating rhythm of new possibilities. Lauren starts dating Graham Clark—Ethan's Pike fraternity brother and childhood friend—which means group hangouts and stolen glances across crowded parties. Sloane tells herself she's not interested in complications, not when graduation looms and real life beckons. But Ethan Brady has gravity, pulling her into his orbit despite her best intentions. The jersey party changes everything. Sloane wears a vintage Celtics jersey found at Goodwill, hair curled just so, hoping to catch his attention without seeming like she's trying. When Ethan's eyes find hers across the pregame apartment, something electric passes between them. "Quite a snag," he says, fingering the jersey fabric. "I'm surprised to hear you were at a Pike party before. Maybe we unknowingly met that night." They ride to the party together, Sloane on his lap in the overcrowded car, his hand on her thigh sending shockwaves through her system. At the party, he introduces her to everyone like she matters, like she belongs beside him. They play beer pong and lose spectacularly, but winning was never the point. "Why don't we go back to my place?" The invitation hangs in the air, loaded with possibility and danger in equal measure. His apartment is a disaster zone of empty cups and discarded clothes, but they clean it together, hip-hop music pounding as they move in sync. On the balcony afterward, sharing drinks and conversation under the stars, Sloane feels something shift. This isn't just attraction anymore—it's recognition, the terrifying awareness that this person could matter. In his room, they watch Shameless with careful space between them on his navy sheets. But space collapses when he turns to face her, when his hand finds her back, when their mouths meet like puzzle pieces clicking into place. The kiss tastes like coming home and falling off a cliff simultaneously. She wakes up fully clothed on top of his comforter, morning light filtering through broken blinds. His arm is draped across her stomach, and for a moment, the world feels perfectly aligned. Then reality crashes in—she sneaks out before his roommates wake, before the spell can break, before this beautiful almost-something can be examined too closely. But it's too late. She's already in free fall, and Ethan Brady is both the reason she's falling and the only thing that could possibly catch her.

Chapter 3: Separation and Distance: The Text That Broke Everything

Winter break stretches endlessly, three weeks of just Sloane and Ethan in an empty college town. They become inseparable—cooking dinner together, sharing wine and stories, existing in a bubble where labels don't matter and the future feels negotiable. It's the closest thing to domestic bliss Sloane has ever experienced, and it's intoxicating. New Year's Eve arrives with champagne and possibility. At the party, Ethan's kiss at midnight feels like a promise, desperate and claiming in a way that makes her dizzy with hope. They're exclusive now, even if they won't call it dating. They're something, even if that something remains carefully undefined. Spring semester brings a deceptive peace. They fall into routines—his apartment or hers, takeout and Netflix, sex that feels like communication when words fail them. The mountain house weekend with Graham's family should have been perfect, but instead it cracks something open in Ethan. Late at night, she finds him on the porch, staring into darkness with eyes full of old pain. "It brings up memories I've tried to forget," he admits, voice tight with controlled emotion. "I hate most holidays." She wants to push, to understand the shadows that haunt him, but he's already pulling away. The pattern establishes itself—intimacy followed by retreat, connection followed by careful distance. She tells herself it's enough, that patience will win eventually. But patience has limits, and those limits get tested the night of her birthday party. Downtown bar crawl, green tea shots, the artificial high of celebration masking deeper anxieties. Ethan barely speaks to her all night, treating her like a stranger even as they sit side by side. When she gets sick in the bathroom and needs to go home, he stays at the bar. The conversation comes three days later, delivered in his car like bad news always is. "What're we doing here, Ethan?" "I don't know, Sloane." The honesty cuts deeper than any lie could. She asks for what she's never dared ask before—certainty, commitment, the basic courtesy of knowing where she stands. But Ethan Brady doesn't make promises he can't keep, and he can't promise her anything. "I need to think about things," he says, which is really another way of saying goodbye. Three days of silence follow. Three days of rehearsing conversations in her head, of jumping at every phone notification, of trying to convince herself that space means progress. Then comes the text, long and apologetic and final as a gravestone: *I don't think this is something I can do anymore. I feel so bad saying that, but you deserve someone who's ready to go all in with you, I'm just not there yet. I don't know if I'll ever be.* She calls him screaming, rage and heartbreak pouring out in equal measure. "You couldn't even work up the courage to break up with me in person? Do you know how pathetic that is?" But even as she hurls the words like weapons, she knows the truth: she would have done anything for him, and that's exactly why he had to go.

Chapter 4: Unexpected Reunion: Neighbors in a City of Strangers

New York City swallows Sloane whole, the way it does with all heartbroken twenty-somethings seeking reinvention. The Gist offers her the staff writer position she'd applied for on a whim, and suddenly she's living the dream she'd sketched out in college notebooks—Lauren by her side, Manhattan spread before them like a promise. The year passes in a blur of deadline adrenaline and subway commutes. She dates Reese Thompson, a Pike brother from college who follows her to the city with banker ambitions and earnest devotion. He loves her in all the ways she thought she wanted—consistently, obviously, without the push and pull that defined her relationship with Ethan. It should be enough. On paper, it is enough. But then she sees him. Twenty-third and Third Avenue, rush hour crush of bodies and briefcases. She's checking her phone when she looks up and there he is—Ethan Brady in a business suit, looking like he belongs in this concrete jungle he once claimed to hate. Their eyes meet for one electric second before the crosswalk signal changes and they pass like strangers. That night, her hands shake as she googles his LinkedIn: Digital Production Assistant at NBC Sports New York. Graham's father's connections, most likely. The boy who hated the city now calls it home, living some parallel life just blocks from her own. The building discovery comes later, more devastating for its mundane setting. Phillip, their doorman, makes casual conversation about out-of-town guests as she returns from a work event. Then the elevator doors open and there's Ethan, looking as shocked as she feels. "I guess now would be a good time to tell you I moved to New York and by the looks of it, I moved into your building," he says, barely able to meet her eyes. The conversation is stilted, awkward, loaded with everything they're not saying. He explains about his roommates, about needing a third person for rent, about not knowing she lived here. She mentions her own recent move, the coincidence that feels too significant to be random. "You didn't think to reach out when you accepted a job offer in New York?" The question cuts through her professional politeness. "I was going to. I wanted to. I didn't know what to say." "Hey Sloane, just wanted to let you know I'm moving to New York?" "I'm sorry, I should've said something. I didn't want to open this up again and make it a whole thing." But it already is a whole thing. It's the biggest thing, standing in their lobby at midnight, pretending they're strangers when they know each other's breathing patterns in sleep.

Chapter 5: The Return Cycle: Other Arms and Old Flames

Three months of careful avoidance follow. Different elevator schedules, strategic stairwell timing, the exhausting choreography of two people trying not to see each other in a building with finite hallways. Sloane throws herself into work, into Reese, into the careful construction of a life that doesn't revolve around brown eyes and broken promises. But New York is cruel to the heartbroken, and loneliness has a way of eroding even the strongest resolve. Valentine's Day with Reese feels like performing happiness—expensive restaurant, dozen roses, all the romantic gestures that should mean everything but somehow add up to nothing. When he mentions meeting his parents, taking a trip to their Wilmington beach house, she chokes on her wine. The night everything unravels starts innocently enough—birthday drinks with girlfriends, too much alcohol, the dangerous confidence that comes with feeling invisible. When she sees Reese at Gem Saloon with his friends, something in her rebels against the predictable evening ahead. Instead, she texts Ethan. His apartment is exactly what she expected—mismatched furniture, blank walls, the carefully curated emptiness of someone afraid to leave marks. They drink whiskey and talk around the elephant in the room until he asks the question that changes everything: "Why'd you text me?" "Can't answer that." "Why not?" "This isn't my first drink tonight, Ethan." The kiss happens like gravity—inevitable, devastating, the kind of mistake that feels like coming home. For twenty minutes, they're twenty-one again, back in that apartment stairwell when anything seemed possible. Then reality crashes in. "I have a boyfriend." The confession hangs between them like smoke, poisoning the air they've been breathing. Ethan's face goes carefully blank, the way it does when he's hurt but won't admit it. "What did you expect from me?" she continues, the alcohol making her cruel with honesty. "You broke up with me in a text and I never heard from you again. Did you think I'd wait for you to just call or something?" "I was selfishly hoping that you wouldn't move on," he admits, and the honesty cuts deeper than any lie. She leaves without saying goodbye, walking down one flight of stairs to her own apartment where she calls Reese. Guilt and longing war in her chest as she lets him in, as they have sex while she thinks about someone else, as he tells her he loves her for the third time without reciprocation. It's the beginning of the end, though she won't admit it for weeks. Some betrayals are too fundamental to survive, even when wrapped in good intentions and genuine affection.

Chapter 6: The Final Fracture: When Almost Isn't Enough

Spring arrives with Lauren's announcement that she's moving in with Miles, her second-date-turned-soulmate who represents everything stable and sure that Sloane has never experienced. The news should feel like abandonment, but instead it feels like a mirror—showing her everything she's been avoiding about her own relationships. The breakup with Reese happens on a Tuesday night over expensive pasta and cheap confessions. "I slept with Ethan," she says, the words falling like stones into still water. Reese's face cycles through hurt and disappointment before settling on resignation. "I knew it," he says quietly. "I was hoping it wouldn't happen, but I knew. You'd rather wait on someone who couldn't give two shits about you than be with someone who loves you." The words cut because they're true, because she's spent months lying to someone who deserved better, because she's exactly the kind of person she used to judge. But truth has its own gravity, and she's tired of fighting it. That night, she finds herself on Ethan's doorstep again, this time without alcohol as an excuse. He lets her in, pours whiskey, listens as she explains about the breakup without taking responsibility for it. "Did you break up with him because of me?" he asks. "I just knew he wasn't it for me," she lies. "But if I'm being honest, I don't know that anyone will ever live up to you." "Don't say that, Sloane. Don't put me on some kind of pedestal. I don't deserve it." But she's already there, already worshipping at the altar of their almosts, already choosing the beautiful disaster over the safe harbor. They sleep together that night—not just sex, but actual sleep, the kind of intimate unconsciousness that feels more vulnerable than anything they've done awake. The next morning brings harsh light and harsher realities. The conversation they should have had months ago finally happens over broken dishware and accumulated resentment. "I can't keep doing this one foot in one foot out thing with you anymore," she says, wine already warming her blood though it's barely evening. "We're not in college anymore, Ethan. I want a relationship. No more of whatever this is." He puts his head in his hands, the gesture she's learned means he's already gone. "I've told you this before, Sloane. I need to do this at my own pace and on my own time." "Can you promise me something? Please just don't leave me in the dark again. I want to be here for you. I'm on your side, but I can't do that if you ignore me for weeks on end." "I'll try," he says, but they both know trying isn't promising, and promises are what she needs. The sex that follows feels different—desperate on her end, detached on his, the kind of physical intimacy that highlights emotional distance rather than bridging it. When he asks to sleep at his own place afterward, she knows it's over before he does.

Chapter 7: Moving Forward: Finding Self at Another's Wedding

Graham and Emily's wedding arrives with cruel timing and perfect symbolism. Sloane sits in the third row with Blake, her new distraction who looks good in a suit and asks no complicated questions. The ceremony unfolds with all the beauty she once imagined for herself, all the certainty she never found with the man now standing at the altar as a groomsman. When Ethan's eyes find hers across the crowd of guests, the look that passes between them contains entire conversations. The acknowledgment of what was, what could have been, what never will be. Blake's hand in hers feels foreign compared to the muscle memory of Ethan's touch, but foreign doesn't mean wrong anymore. Emily's vows speak of unconditional love that never wavers, the kind of devotion that doesn't require begging or bargaining or careful navigation of emotional minefields. Listening to her describe love as it should be—steady, sure, chosen daily rather than questioned—Sloane finally understands the difference between loving someone and being loved by them. The realization doesn't come with dramatic tears or confrontation. Instead, it settles like dust, quiet and inevitable and strangely peaceful. She loves Ethan Brady. She probably always will. But love without reciprocity isn't romantic—it's just another form of loneliness. After the ceremony, she doesn't seek him out. She dances with Blake, drinks champagne, celebrates Graham and Emily's beginning without mourning her own ending. For the first time in years, Ethan Brady exists in her periphery rather than her center, and the world doesn't collapse from the shift in gravity. On the flight home, Blake makes plans for their week ahead while Sloane stares out the window at clouds that look like cotton and cities that look like circuit boards. She thinks about the girl who moved to New York heartbroken and desperate, who built a career and a life but kept one room locked for a ghost. It's time to renovate.

Summary

Six months later, Sloane Hart sits in her West Village studio apartment, morning coffee steaming as she writes her daily blog post about life after heartbreak. The words come easier now, honest without being raw, hopeful without being naive. She's learned that healing isn't about forgetting—it's about remembering without bleeding. Ethan Brady still lives four floors above her, their paths crossing occasionally in elevators and lobbies with the polite distance of former intimates. These encounters no longer feel like earthquakes. Sometimes she wonders if he reads her blog, if he recognizes himself in her carefully anonymized stories of almost-love and lessons learned. Mostly, she doesn't think about him at all. The great tragedy of their story isn't that it ended, but that it was never really a story to begin with—just a series of almosts strung together with hope and stubbornness and the naive belief that wanting something badly enough could make it real. Some people aren't meant to be chapters in each other's books. Some are just margin notes, beautiful and brief and ultimately erasable when the real story begins. Call it what you want—first love, heartbreak, the price of admission to adulthood. For Sloane, it was all of these things and none of them. It was the lesson that taught her the difference between being chosen and choosing herself, between the love that demands and the love that simply is. In the end, that education was worth every fragment of her almost-broken heart.

About Author

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Alissa DeRogatis

DeRogatis delves into the intricacies of love and relationships through raw, authentic storytelling, aiming to provide comfort and insight to those grappling with emotional complexities. Her literary work, including her debut book "Call It What You Want," captures the messy realities of "situationships" rather than idealized romance narratives. This book became a cultural phenomenon, resonating with readers who appreciate stories that reflect genuine human experiences. DeRogatis's writing style draws on her personal experiences and influences such as "Sex and the City" and Taylor Swift, illustrating her talent for turning dating misadventures into compelling narratives.\n\nWhile building her career, DeRogatis embraced her dual passions for writing and social media, transitioning from a social media manager to an author whose work connects deeply with audiences. Her journey into writing was catalyzed by processing her own breakup through journaling, which eventually led to self-publishing her debut novel. The overwhelming success of her first book, marked by its viral status on platforms like TikTok and its acquisition by Sourcebooks, underscores her ability to engage a wide readership. Her forthcoming novel, "How to Find Love in the Cereal Aisle," is highly anticipated and promises to continue her exploration of complex emotional themes.\n\nReaders of DeRogatis’s work benefit from her candid exploration of love’s challenges, finding both solace and validation in her narratives. Her bio reflects a commitment to authenticity, making her an influential figure for anyone seeking honest depictions of modern relationships. Her representation by Creative Artists Agency and active presence on social media further amplify her impact, allowing her to reach and resonate with a diverse audience.

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