Her teasing smile fades. “Yeah,” she says, softer now. “You’re not wrong about that. When you plan weddings for a living, you start to think you’ll find the fairy tale too. Thenpoof, one day your boyfriend moves in uninvited with his beanbag chair, and the next he decides commitment is not his thing.”
Michael—the guy who checked all the right boxes on paper and then casually tore Annabelle’s heart to shreds. She doesn’t talk about him much anymore, not unless he comes up accidentally.
“Freaking Mike.” She forces a tight smile as she pokes at the edge of her laptop. “He who taught me a valuable lesson about red flags.”
I sigh, knowing she’s trying to brush it off; the truth lingers in the quiet space between us. “Listen. We all make mistakes, but those mistakes are lessons.”
“I know that,” she agrees. “But admit it—he was a waste of time. Three years down the drain for what? To get dumped because he needed ‘room to breathe’?Please.”
I wince. “At least you got to keep the apartment?”
“And pay the rentby myself.”
Yikes. “I’m sorry. You deserved better than that. Plus it’s not like I’ve been killing it either.”
Annabelle’s gaze sharpens. “You mean Parker?”
“Shh! We’re not saying his name anymore, remember?” I drag a hand down my face. “Why do you always bring his name up?” She’s banging someone. Meanwhile, I haven’t had sex in months—the least she can do is be more sympathetic!
Rude.
“Because Parker was a learning experience for all of us.” Annabelle sits up in her desk chair, and I feel a lecture coming on. “Seriously, you were into him. And he—what?—disappears for a week to ‘find himself’ without telling you? For seven days, you thought he’d been abducted, remember? You made me help you check the local police reports like a lunatic, thinking you’d find his face on a missing-persons flyer.”
I did do that. Turns out Parker was at a mountain lodge, finding inner peace with a bunch of strangers and organic smoothies.
Annabelle continues ranting. “Uh. Didn’t he give you some bullshit line about ‘silence speaking louder than words’?”
“Yes and it is by far the stupidest thing a man has said, in the history of men saying stupid shit to me.” I plop down on a kitchenstool and continue to complain. “I can still hear his ‘wisdom’ echoing in my brain. I have nightmares. Silence speaks louder than words? You know what speaks louder? A damn text message saying you’re not dead!”
I laugh, and my bestie joins me, our memories of men gone wrong equal parts ridiculous and infuriating.
To this day, I want to poke Parker Mitchell’s eyes out.
“You dodged a bullet.” Her hands hover over her keyboard again. “Imagine being married to a guy who takes off wherever the wind blows him, whenever he feels like it. Like, ‘Hey, babe, can’t do dishes today—I’m heading to the wilderness to become one with nature.’”
My face contorts as I shout “Welivein nature!” I gesture wildly toward the window. “There’s nothing but nature around here. We’re in the mountains, Annabelle. By a lake!Literally!”
Annabelle shrugs, completely unfazed. “Still. You were so into him.”
Head over heels, actually. And that’s the part that stings the most—how much I let myself fall for someone who made me feel like a backup plan.
“I need you to stop reminding me.”
“Let’s be real,” she continues, ignoring me. “He saved you from spending more time on someone who didn’t really want to be there. The way Mike saved me from the same thing.”
I glance up at her, meeting her gaze.
We both know what he put her through—three years of promises that added up to nothing. At least I only dated Parker for nine months.
“And at least we have each other,” she adds with a small smile, reaching out her foot to nudge my leg. “You and me, babe.”
I look down at my mug, tracing the rim with my finger. “It’s not like I expect a fairy tale or anything, but I’d at least like someone who shows up. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, it’s not,” Annabelle says firmly, sitting up straighter. “And don’t let Parker oranyguy like him make you think it is. Mike’s beanbag chair haunts my dreams.”
“Beanbag chairs are a blight on humanity,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.
“They are,” she says solemnly. “They’re a metaphor for men who refuse to put in effort. Uncomfortable, shapeless—andalwaystake up too much space.”
