“Everything okay?” I ask, a curl of anxiety tightening my chest.
Eris nods. “You and Matt must have had a good talk.”
I grin, putting my arm around zis waist. “Yeah. Hope Allie wasn’t too hard on you.”
Ze shakes zis head, not leaning into me the way ze did earlier. “She’s funny. Got a dark sense of humor for someone so bubbly.”
“What’d she say about me?”
Eris replies in a string of Spanish, none of which I can follow in my inebriated state.
“En Ingles, por favor?”
Eris snorts. “She says you’re self-centered and conceited.”
“Shut up!” I laugh. “She did not!”
Zis smile doesn’t quite reach zis doe eyes, but that’s all the reply I get.
“Oh, by the way, I hate you.” I elbow zim as we walk into the chapel, where all Siggys are supposed to want to get married. As a born and raised atheist, I haven’t been here much, but Allie’s parents insisted she get married in the same chapel they did. “Really? My lock screen?”
That at least gets a true grin on Eris’s face, but ze only offers up an unabashed shrug.
Catching Eris’s hand, I lace my fingers between zis as we follow everyone into the church, finding a pew near the middle. Like any other Minnesotan small town, anyone who isn’t family sits as close to the exit as possible, so the back rows are full. “Hey, can you drive us to the reception after?”
Eris leans in to loudly sniff me, examining me in amusement, but still distant. “I dunno. I might get contact high from sitting next to you.”
I laugh half-heartedly, my chest tightening. “Well, it’s not too far to walk if we need to.” I’m not sure if the weed is making me paranoid, but it wasn’t that hard to make zim smile this morning. I hate being that person who always thinks everyone is mad at me, but… Is Eris mad at me?
No, it’s probably just the weed talking. Eris simply isn’t on my level; I’ve smoked a quarter of Matt’s “CBD” and drank most of a bottle of champagne. I wrap an arm around zis shoulders, wincing as I try to get comfortable on the hard wooden pew after last night. A reminder that even if Eris is acting reserved now, ze was desperate for me last night.
The wedding is beautiful. Matt and Allie cry and laugh together as they exchange their vows and rings and kiss, their visible anxiety endearing. The two of them are blissfully perfect, like I knew they would be, the way I’ve been dreaming about since freshman year.
For as long as I had deluded myself into thinking I belonged with them, I’m where I’m supposed to be today: Watching them with love and support in my heart, and then returning to my new life, decidedly larger and louder than the quiet one they want to build together. More stressful and more free, and justmore. A place where all of me fits, instead of being constrained by social norms I never understood and could never follow, because I wasn’t meant to.
Hopefully, Eris wants to be part of that place, too.
Atthereception,westay unobtrusive, though Jessica looks like she might slip arsenic in my drink if she gets too close. I ignore her, focusing on Eris, who still seems closed off. However, ze quietly talks shit in my ear and clings to my hand enough to reassure me that I’m overthinking everything. Zis presence keeps me grounded during dinner when, thankfully, we’re seated with old acquaintances from Sigurdsson who knew me as Allie’s roommate or Professor Ryan’s kid, not as Matt’s ex. The Jacobsens avoid us like the plague, though Allie’s parents’ greeting is polite (though brief).
After the first dance, Jessica finally works up her courage. She corners me as I exit a bathroom stall (I prefer the women’s because it’s generally cleaner, and I know the rules there). “You have some nerve. If I were you, I wouldn’t have even come to the ceremony, and yet here you are, still showing your face at the reception. Shameless.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I must still be a little high, because the water makes my hands tingle as I wash my hands, and I can’t come up with a better response.
“You disappear with the groom before the wedding, get him drunk, and come back with a hickey on your neck and hanging all over him.”
I frown, but force myself to pause. I can see how that might look bad. “Look, my best friend had some pre-wedding jitters. I was there forplatonicmoral support,” I reply without looking at her; I’m already irritated by her implication without the sight of her pinched expression. “Allie handed me the bottle herself and told me to bring it to him. Ifshetrusts me, why are you so paranoid?”
“My sister matters more to me than anyone in the world,” Jessica hisses, edging closer as I dry my hands on the towel. “She needs someone to have her back because she’s too blind to think you would ever do anything wrong—”
“Jess.” Allie opens the handicap stall with a bang, hauling her giant poofy skirt through the stall door. “Shut up.”
“You were supposed to tell me when you needed the bathroom!” Jessica whines, rushing over to fluff Allie’s already fluffy skirt. “That’s my job!”
“I can piss like a big girl all by myself. The detachable skirt is the whole reason I agreed to get this obnoxious cupcake dress!” Allie exchanges a deadpan look with me as she washes her hands. “Enough. Leave Blake alone.”
“But she—”
“Theyare my good friend, who both Matt and I want at our wedding. They came here to support us, not to get harassed by you! I don’t need you to stand up for me, or fight battles I don’t want fought.” Allie dries her hands and throws the towel in the bin, putting her hands on her hips. “I didn’t ask you to be my maid of honor to help me use the bathroom, or to make suremy best friend doesn’t seduce my husband, or to make executive decisions about who to invite to my wedding. You’re my maid of honor because I trusted that my twin would put me first. And yet, everything is fucking pink! My favorite color is seafoam green!”
