I’ve spent the last two days packing. After the semester ended, I bounced around: I finally ended up at Victoria’s stepfather’s house, checking inon him as he recovered from heart surgery. (Mostly, we just heckled CNBC stock shows together.)
Turns out, packing is easy if you never really unpacked, so I arranged for shipping using the debit card Brayden gave me to cover expenses, grabbed my two biggest suitcases, and hopped on a cross-country flight east.
I spend the last hour of the flight watching the sunlight refract through the large yellow stone of my ring.What am I doing?I think for the thousandth time. There’s no turning back.With our marriage certificate came an even more important document: a health insurance card.
People get married for a lot of different reasons.My dad married my mother for love, and his next wife to help close an acquisition of a rival company, and his wife after that because they were seated together at the same table on a weeklong cruise to Alaska.Business sometimes makes strange bedfellows,he likes to say.
I just hope Brayden has a second bed because I’m definitely not sharing with him.
When we get to Atlanta, I disembark, claim my baggage from the carousel, and haul it onto a rented luggage cart with a stiff back wheel that squeaks as I push it through the airport. Somehow, I’d envisioned Brayden here, carrying my bags, maybe even kissing my cheek. Convincing people we’re actually together would be easier if we were actually together.
The only thing from him is a text message that comes in as soon as I take my phone off airplane mode to tell him that I landed.
You’re meeting my family tonight.
Said like there isn’t any other option.
My iced coffee sloshes in my stomach as I push the cart. Around me, half the stores are selling Peaches jerseys, black or white with pink and green lettering. Many haveForsythstitched on the back…but not with Brayden’s number.People here must really miss Blake.People, except seemingly for Brayden.
I round a corner and come face to face with Brayden—not him, but a decal of him stretching up one wall. Brayden, leaping through the air to make a spectacular catch, back thumping against the outfield fence. Only they clearly didn’t measure correctly when they put up the picture, because they ran out of space. Half his body is cut off, his face peering out through onelarge gray eye before it ends abruptly in a clean white line of the intersecting wall.
Still, I take a picture and send it to him.
Me: You’re bigger than I remember
Brayden: That’s what everyone says
I roll my eyes.Everyone. How manyeveryones has he been with since we got fake-engaged? I have no right to be jealous. I’mnotjealous. Just…how am I supposed toimprove his imageif he doesn’t stop doing the things that damaged it in the first place?
A group of tourists walks by me, splitting like a stream around my luggage cart. One of them smells like he just took a bath—in a bottle of cologne. My head gives a throb.Please no.Please no.Ever since I stopped working at the hospital, my migraines have been less frequent. I’ll be fine—I don’t really have another option, since I’m meeting Brayden’s parents tonight. I just need to clear my head.
Outside, the air hits me like a solid wall. Heat, exhaust,humidity. How can air possibly be thisheavy?My makeup starts melting. My hair started to frizz. So much for my blowout.
I push the cart over to the cab and limo line. Brayden sent me the address: a house too new to be listed on Streetview. The sooner I get into a rideshare, the sooner I can be in air conditioning, which we only rarely turned on in San Diego, but now seems like an absolute necessity.
I stand under one of the mounted metal box fans above the cab line, but it really just stirs the hot air around. A queue of people stretches in front of me, most of whom look like they’re happy to be on their way somewhere else. A few women are holding little portable fans and gently blowing sweat off themselves. Clearly, I needed to do more research before moving here.
For now, I settle for pulling the waist band of my sweatpants—emphasis onsweat—out from my side to introduce a slight breeze. I can already feel thigh chafe coming on.This is not going well.
The cab line moves slowly. People greet each driver like old friends and make chitchat as they get their luggage settled in the trunk of the taxi. Southern hospitality doesn’t seem so hospitable in this inhospitable heat.
Then a long dark town car pulls up. A driver gets out holding a printed sign that saysPickup for…Under whichAtlanta Peachesis written in neat handwriting.
Oh, thank god, Brayden did send someone after all. Maybe he doesn’t care about me, but he cares about appearances, and right now, that’s good enough.
I rush out of the rideshare line and wave to the driver, an older gentleman with white hair and a deeply lined face who looks like he should be driving an old-fashioned horse and buggy. “Hi, I think you’re here for me,” I say.
He glances down at the sign in slight confusion. “Are you sure, ma’am?”
“Savannah Burke. Well, now Savannah Forsyth. My husband plays for the Peaches.” I sound breathless—I am breathless from having pushed the luggage cart through the airport, from being in this heat—and he must take pity on me, because he unlatches the door of the town car and ushers me in.
A cold blast of A/C greets me. I’m never going to take mild weather for granted again. The car suspension bounces slightly as he loads each of my suitcases into the trunk. This is familiar: riding in the backseat of a luxury car with tinted windows. Letting someone else do the literal heavy lifting for me.
A bottle of smartwater sits in the cupholder. I unscrew the cap and take a long, grateful sip. I’m in the process of pullingout my phone to tell the driver Brayden’s address when the back door opens again.
This time, it’s not the driver.
It’s a man who’s staring at me in surprise.
