Erica stared out the window.
“Is she unhappy about something?” Christine ventured more gently than Ivy had. “Maybe you can work it out. I mean, everyone goes through their ups and downs. Surely you can work out what—”
Erica made a sound that was half sigh, half groan. “She wants to get married.”
A brief pause ensued before Ivy dropped her bagel on her plate and thumped her hand on the table, rattling everyone’s plates. “Well, that’s just fucking unacceptable.”
Christine elbowed Ivy in her side. Her sarcastic humor had come through at an inappropriate time yet again, but honestly, she couldn’t help it. Anna was a beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated woman who not only adored Erica, but treated her like a queen. It was a shocker that they weren’t married already.
Blessed with more decorum than Ivy, Wendy lay her hand over Erica’s. “Oh hon, how is that a bad thing?” she cooed in a soothing voice Ivy couldn’t have imitated if she tried.
Erica’s face crumpled. “I don’t know,” she cried. “Anna was so damn cute last night, setting the table real nice, made my favorite meal, wore a pretty dress. It was all so perfect, and then she popped the question and I froze. Totally freaked.” She dropped her head in her hands and her shoulders started to shudder.
Ivy, Christine, and Wendy looked at each other. Ivy shrugged helplessly. This was so not her forte. In one way, she could totally understand. If anyone proposed to her, she’d freak too. But she was single and very likely staying that way. Erica and Anna were in a long-term committed relationship, the trajectory of which was headed straight to matrimonial bliss. But someone had to say something before hyperventilation ensued.
“Marriage is fucking scary. Of course you freaked.” The words were out of her mouth before they’d even fully formed in her head. What the hell, when in doubt, fill the silence with awkward and inappropriate comments.
Christine made a subtle cutting motion across her neck. Wendy scowled, shaking her head.
Erica looked up, eyelashes wet with tears. “Yes. It is. It’ssoscary. I mean, what if we fail? Things are so good right now. Why screw it up? What if marriage ruins us?” Erica hadn’t taken her eyes off Ivy as she spoke, as if Ivy held all the answers.
“Hey, donotlook at me. I am no relationship therapist. I can’t even fulfill my mission to find a fuck buddy, so I’m not the person who should be dolling out martial advice.”
Wendy fixed her full attention on Ivy. “You’re on a mission to find a fuck buddy?”
Why had she mentioned her mission? “Can we stay focused here? All I’m saying is I don’t know much about love or commitment. But from what I’ve seen between Hope and Gabe, I think marriage is one of those motherfucking scary things that you do only because the alternative is even scarier.”
“But why can’t we keep doing what we’re doing? Live together, love each other, and not be married?”
“Because that’s not making Anna happy anymore.” Ivy wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “She wants more. She wants the formality of marriage to seal her commitment with you. Which, when you think of it, is actually pretty damn special. And romantic.”
The silence that followed was deafening, and Ivy took in three sets of eyes staring at her as if she was a specialty showcase at the museum. “What?” she asked the blinking eyes.
“That was a pretty impressive speech,” Christine mused. “I didn’t realize you were a closet romantic.”
“I’m not!” Good Lord, she was the opposite. She was about as twisted and jaded as they came. Besides, she’d hardly call her quest for finding a fuck buddy romantic. “But I do think that what Erica and Anna have is once in a lifetime. Even I can see that. And if you ever have something like that handed to you, you should grab on. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Like you would do if someone dropped love in your lap,” Erica said with a knowing smirk, wiping a tear off her cheek.
“No one is dropping love in my lap, and this isn’t about me.” Ivy pointed at Erica. “It’s about you, and how you’ve got something pretty damn special that most of us only dream of.”
Truth was, Ivy didn’t trust herself enough to dream about love and a wholesome relationship. Her travel-blogging parents had all but abandoned her when she became school aged, finding Bali, St. Petersburg, and the African savanna far more interesting than raising the child they’d made together. By the age of five, Ivy was sent to live with her old-fashioned English nana in a suburb outside of Seattle so she’d have more ‘stability,’ which had felt an awful lot like ‘neglect’ to young Ivy.
As if her parents jet-setting around the world chasing the next adventure instead of being with their daughter hadn’t done enough emotional damage, the assault had happened and dissolved what was left of her self-worth.
Not that she’d had much to start. As a kid, she’d been scrawny and awkward looking, so she created a personality to match—insular and sullen at best, rude and sarcastic at worst. They hadn’t called her Wednesday Addams in high school for nothing. She’d earned her reputation. But mostly, she’d created that personality to protect herself from being hurt. If she came across as not caring, maybe no one would bother to hurt her.
The incident at college had pretty much flushed that experiment down the toilet, so afterward, as part of her great reinvention, she’d made adjustments. She’d moved to Portland, stopped dressing like a prep-school goth, started saying hello back to people she passed on the street, smiled once in a while. That kind of thing. Hanging out with Hope helped her have someone to emulate. Meeting Sean had given her a reason not to fake it all the time.
But none of that meant she was anywhere near ready to trust herself or someone else with a relationship. Sex. She needed to learn how to get comfortable with sex first, before she’d even entertain the idea of a relationship. If she could trust herself in that department, maybe she could trust herself in others.
Sean. She still wanted it to be Sean. Beneath her ribs, her heart sighed. How had things gotten so complicated between them? Regret washed over her. It was her fault for making things awkward and for hurting him in the process. She should have never asked him to be her fuck buddy, and the fact that she had was painful and humiliating.
“I think she’s in la-la land.”
“She’s daydreaming about her future fuck buddy.”
“She’s scaring me.”
