“I wouldn’t know.”
“I guess we’re going to get a divorce now. I’m not sure how these things work.”
Taylor looks down at her fists, which are clenched tight. “And he’s okay with that?”
“What does that even mean?” It wasn’t my intention to snap, but the last twenty-four hours have been a lot, to say the least. It’s not every day that someone tries to kill me. “Of course he’s okay with that.”
“I thought he was so in love with you he couldn’t wait any longer to propose.” She’s sitting so still that if she wasn’t talking, I’d wonder if she’d turned into wax, like a lifeless doll.
“He was.” I catch myself. “Heis.”
Olivier’s words from last night come back to me.We’re in love.But that was a sick joke, right? Something he said to hurt me. There’s no way. No way…
Suddenly, Taylor gets up. She pats the pocket of her pants and pulls out her phone. “I need to…” she says, already halfway to the other side of the room.
“Not now, please. There’s more…”
She looks from her phone to me, takes a moment to think it through, then comes back to sit down. Taylor has always liked to feel needed. She loves it when it seems like we will all fall apart without her.
“I know I don’t always show it,” I continue, “but I appreciate how you’ve always been there for me in the hard times. When Mom died…” I trail off, pressing my lips tight. I want to cry and scream and throw things around. What happened to me? When I dare a glance at Taylor again, she looks stoic, expressionless. I move on. “As soon as we got to Paris, Olivier was acting a bit funny.” That’s the nicest way I can put it. The asshole was planning on murdering me. I know it.I know it.“He started talking about how much he missed it. He used to live there, you know?”
“How would I know?”
Her tone is sweet and cutting at the same time.
A few days away from her, and it takes me five minutes to remember why I hate her so fucking much. “So, as I was saying, Olivier started asking if I’d ever see myself living in Paris. Like, maybe not forever, but for a few years.” A spark of anger flashes in Taylor’s eyes. Shit. Wrong thing to say after she never got to go on that trip. “And, um, I’m not you. Paris is nice. I mean, it’s beautiful and everything, but living there? Not for me. People don’t even speak English that much. Plus they have stairs and dog poop everywhere.” My face twists in disgust.
I expect Taylor to argue on that point, to grumble about how I married a French guy and now I don’t appreciate what I have. And why do I alwayswant more? Because that’s what people do, Taylor. We. Want. More. Not everyone can be content with scraps. And most of us don’t have to. Instead she just nods, her head bobbing up and down. She glances at her phone again, then presses it against her thigh, facedown. What is up with that? Taylor doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t have a life. Does she?
My mouth feels so dry, but I can’t stop now. “It was a big surprise at first, but then I remembered that when we met, he was talking about moving back to France. So I told him if he really wanted to be there, I shouldn’t be the one to stop him. I could have seen that coming, but we fell in love and—” I stop there, because there’s only so much bullshit one person can make up, even when that person is me.
“Oh right,” Taylor says like something has clicked in her mind. “So, after you met, he stayed in the States for you. He never wanted to be here.”
I shouldn’t have talked to her as soon as I got home. I waited for hours in the airport; there were no seats available for most of the day. And then I still had the whole flight to think about it, but I haven’t ironed out my story enough yet. Ironed. Bad choice of word.
“Anyway,” I say, ignoring her comment. “Last night, he told me he was unhappy.”
A sick smile forms on Taylor’s lips. “With you?”
Bitch. But point taken. I shouldn’t say that Olivier was unhappy with me. That won’t work. “Not withme, with his life in general. We talked for hours.”
“I thought he was out with his friends. Didn’t you have a night to yourself in your honeymoon suite? That bath looked amazing. At least that’s what you posted on Instagram.”
A burst of satisfaction courses through me, but it doesn’t last. Taylor was watching, and carefully. Maybe too carefully. “We didn’t literally talk for hours. It was more like snippets of conversation we had since we landed in Paris. But in the end, it was very amicable. A super healthy breakup, in fact. And then I figured I should go home.”
“Why?” Her tone is cool, but I can see how tightly her hand is gripping her phone. “You were havingsoooomuch fun.”
Can’t she let anything slide? I shouldn’t have to justify myself to her. “Excuse me if I care too much about doing the right thing, but if we’re getting a divorce, then it felt weird to stay on my honeymoon. Even if Olivier wanted the breakup, too. I mean, ‘wants’ the breakup. It was mutual, is what I’m saying.”
I try to shake the image away, but it pops into my mind anyway: Olivier lunging at me, grabbing the iron from the board just as I was trying to. The raw scream that escaped my mouth. How I managed to wrangle it out of his hands, and then…
“So where’s your husband now?”
Who does she think she is, interrogating me like this? Leave it to the police, Taylor. Wait, no. Not the police.
“Why do you care?” The question slips out of my lips, and Taylor recoils. I force a smile. Fuck I’m so tired. “We still had the room booked for two nights and I didn’t want to leave him in the lurch. I told him he should stay there, and then he’ll find somewhere else. He has friends in Paris, obviously. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
We’re silent for a long while. The old wooden clock Mom liked so much ticks on, making a more excruciating sound with every passing second. Taylor stares off into the distance.
