“Whatareyou saying?”
He ponders it for endless seconds before speaking again. “I don’t want to play games anymore. At the wedding, I thought… I don’t know. I still didn’t really believe it. This guy is a stranger and it all happened so fast. But now… You look so happy with him in the pictures, almosttoohappy. So tell me, is it real between you two?”
Maybe one day I’ll explain why I took all of these pictures, how much I needed to rub them in his face. Actually, I probably won’t. If we get back together, if I get everything I want, then I will learn to let things go. To move on from whatever happened before. I’ll forget about Olivier, will never mention his name again. Darren and I will be happy together. We will be happy and that will be it.
But we’re not there yet. When I came back home with Olivier, I thought Darren would be jealous. I figured he’d fight for me. I wasn’t going to dump Olivier until he did. Is this what he’s doing now? Is it enough?
“It’s not that simple,” I say, cautious.
“I thought he was the perfect guy. Handsome, rich, ambitious.”
“He was. He is.”
“Okay,” Darren simply says.
He sounds so sad that I want to hug him. I hate Paris and everything about it.
“What if I wanted to come home now?”
“What about him?”
When I announced our wedding—oursurprisewedding, with three days’ notice—I thought that would be it, Darren’s last chance to make a move. He had to act or risk losing me forever. And he did dosomething. He came and even made sure we had a moment alone before the ceremony. He told me he was sorry for not being there for me at my father’s funeral. He really wished he could have come, if only I’d told him. We both knew what it meant. If he had, I wouldn’t have met Olivier. But he didn’t say that out loud. I waited for something more. A declaration of undying love. A plea to not go ahead with the wedding. Him getting down on one knee, sayinghe’dmarry me instead.
But none of that happened. I was already standing in a white dress. I’d bought three turquoise chiffon bridesmaid dresses at a local store, the only color left over on the sales rack. I’d begged Brianna to put together an extremely last-minute bachelorette party for me. I’d paid for the flowers, the fucking cake. Almost everyone I knew—all thirty of them—were in my living room, waiting for me to walk down the aisle and marry a man they thought was so much better than me.
What was I supposed to do?
In the moment, it felt like there was only one answer. So I married Olivier for the second time. I told myself I’d drown my sorrows in Paris. By the time we were on the plane, I found a renewed urge within me. I’d rub it all in his face. I’d rub every moment of it so hard that Darren would cave eventually. I had more tricks up my sleeve: the French honeymoon might do it.
“Let’s pretend Olivier doesn’t exist for a second,” I say, my heart twitching. Why is this so hard? Why is everything always so fucking hard?
In truth, the Paris trip wasn’t only about Darren. That prissy little bitch who pretends to be my sister always thought she was French. When we were kids, she talked about nothing but going to Pareeeee, where her daddy would be. She carried that embroidered blanket with the French lettering everywhere, claiming he had given it to her. People thought it was so endearing, that little girl who dreamed of her foreign family, after all she’d gone through. In truth, we all knew her mom was a junkie and her dad was French like I’m Kim freaKing Kardashian.
It wasn’t until much later, when she was on her deathbed, that Mom told me snippets about Taylor’s family. She was barely coherent by then, whispering half-formed sentences in between extended breaks of loud breathing.
Wish she could have met him
Denis, his name
No current address
In Paris, maybe
Didn’t want
Her hopes up
I was angry then, angryalways, when it came to Taylor. Mom was dying, and that’s what she was thinking about? That’s what she wanted to waste her breath on? I never knew if she told Taylor this or just me. I’d never admit out loud that Taylor was maybe—probably—right about her dad all along.
When I met Olivier outside my father’s house, all I could think about was that Taylor would keel over with jealousy when she found out that I’d met a handsome guy from Paris. I didn’t care if he was actually from there; he would be in my version.
Darren sighs, bringing me back to our conversation.
“I can’t tell if you’re messing with me,” he says. “Please tell me, because I think I’m still in love with you.”
My heart melts. This is what I’ve wanted to hear all along. Below me, cars honk and bicycles swirl in and out of traffic. It’s rush hour, and I keep an eye out for a dark-haired man dressed in navy slacks and the ridiculous white sneakers he cleans every night with an old toothbrush. He tries so hard with the little he’s got. He tries and he fails.
And then I admit it out loud: “I love you too.”
