What?“You can’t break up. You guys are so happy together.”
“Yeah, we are,” he says. “But I let myself get all up in my head about not being good enough for her, and kept trying to keep us from progressing because I thought if we did, eventually I’d lose her. And she decided that since I didn’t want to move in together, that meant I wasn’t really into the relationship anymore. And then she called me on it, and I didn’t react super well—”
“Oh my god. Are you guys okay?” I’ve always taken for granted that Jason and Emily are going to make it.They’re so perfect together, and Jason hasn’t so much as looked at another girl since they first met, even though it took Emily several days to get with the program.
Iftheycan’t make it, everyone is doomed.
“Yeah, we’re good now,” Jason says. “Though unfortunately we had that meltdown while we were filming the Real Not-Wives show, so a lot of it got caught on camera. And we had to do on-camera couples therapy with Monroe Coco, so there was that.”
“You had to do . . . what?”
“Couples therapy with a former Real Housewife. It was ridiculous, but weirdly it worked. So now we’re engaged, and—”
“You’re engaged? Wow.”
“Yep.” I can practically hear his grin from all the way across the world. “And we’re going to buy a big crappy house and fix it up, because apparently Emily wants eight kids and we need to be able to afford—”
“What? Emily wantseight—”
“Eight kids. Yeah. It was a surprise to me, too.”
I think someone wanting eight kids will always be a surprise, but now that I think about it, I could totally see Emily and Jason as parents to this big family, packing their kids along on all their adventures. “So that’s why you’re not hassling me about getting involved with a single mom.”
“Yeah, pretty much.That, and you’re really in love with this girl. I’ve never heard you talk like this.”
I assume he means he’s never heard me so unhappy, which is true. “Yeah, but she’s done with me. Now I just want this whole thing to be over so I can get back to my normal life.”Though I already know it’s never going to feel the same again. I hate how desperate I sound when I add, “I can still have my old job back, can’t I?”
There’s a long beat in which I’m suddenly afraid he’s going to reject me, too. But then he says, “Yeah, man. Obviously. But are you sure you’re not too cool for us, now that you’re producingPrince Charming?”
“Hell no,” I tell him. “I hate this job. It’s not just watching Becca date some other guy. I’m manipulating women for a living, and it’s awful. I’m going to finish out the season for the resume credit, but I’m not going to do another one.”
“Really?” Jason sounds relieved about this. He didn’t want me to do this show, not for ethical reasons, but because he never wants anything to change. “So . . . do you think you’d still be up for trying out some of those ideas you had? Pitching that high adventure show, and all that?” Now he’s the one who sounds a little nervous.
I blink. I’ve been bugging Jason to branch out for years now. He’s always shrugged me off, and he’s sure as hell never brought it up himself. “Yeah. Wouldyou?”
“For sure,” he says. “Emily and I have all these plans for the future, and now that I’m not afraid to think about them . . . You were right that we need to try new things, see if we can get our foot in the door somewhere besides YouTube. I was pissed at myself that I only realized it after you’d given up on me and moved on, you know? Not that I can’t still do all that shit, but I wanted to do all that shit with you.”
This is such a relief to hear that it physically hurts. “Okay. We’ll do that, then, when I get back. We can take a look at all the ideas we’ve tossed around and pick a place to start.”
“Sounds good, man,” Jason says.
I take a deep breath, staring at the dark ceiling of my hotel room. It hurts to think about a future without Becca in it, even though I don’t have any other kind. “Why does she have to be having sex with him tonight and not me?”
“Do you think she is?”
“Maybe not,” I say. “Probably.”
“Do you think you could forgive that? Like, if she slept with him, but then she doesn’t end up with him, do you think you would still want to be with her?”
Would I want to? Hell yes. Would I be able to look past it entirely, knowing she went back to him and had sex with him like I was nothing? “I don’t know. Do you think you could have forgiven Emily if she rejected you and went and had sex with some other guy?”
Jason is quiet for a second.
“Oh, ha,” I say. “Shediddo that to you.” When Jason and Emily first met, our friend Su-Lin tried to talk Emily out of dating Jason by telling her he was a player. Su-Lin was hell-bent on hooking Emily up with her cousin, and Emily went along with it for a while until Su-Lin’s cousin turned out to be a cheating asshole.
“That was before we’d slept together, though,” Jason says.Thoughtfully, which is not a tone I’m used to hearing from him. “It seems like that could make a difference.”
I think it does. It makes the hurt worse, anyway. “I think I could get past it,” I say. “If I really believed I was the one she wanted. But if she’s sleeping with him and not me, I’m obviously not.”
