“But you’re okay?” I touched her arms and looked over her again.
“Yes, I’m fine. I mean, I’m sad, and really fucking pissed that Tanner fucks around on his wife who clearly has mental health issues and then she’s the one who is going to jail tonight.”
“She tormented you,” I pointed out. “She broke in here with a gun.”
Billie shook her head. “It wasn’t about me. She’s not well.”
“How can youdefendher?” I shot back.
Billie always did this. She acted like a hardass, but she had the softest heart.
“What’s in the bag?” she asked, changing the subject, which she always did whenever we weren’t going to agree on something.
“Oh.” I forgot I had it again. I reached in and pulled out the ice cream sandwich and handed it to her. “I thought you might need this after tonight, even before I knew about all this.” I waved my hand.
She looked down at the ice cream sandwich, then back up at me. Tears started filling her eyes and her chin started to quiver. She took it and threw her arms around my neck, squeezing tightly.
“You tworeallyare married, aren’t you?” Bailey asked, almost in disbelief.
“Yeah, about that. Are you married?” Birdie sat up straighter. “Because you said, he’s my husband.
Billie sniffed as she stepped away from me and wiped her eyes. She held the ice cream sandwich, straightening her shoulders and cleared her throat. “We got married, but it’s not real.”
Her nostrils didn’t flare and I crumpled the plastic bag in my hand. It felt fucking real to me. Especially tonight. But if it didn’t to her, then maybe this was my reality check that it never would.
45
TWO MONTHS LATER
Billie
“What are you thinking, Billie?”Bailey’s voice was soft, but I could hear the way she was holding her breath. “This is too important. You actually have to say what’s on your mind.”
I stared at the divorce papers splayed before me on the lacquered white surface of my desk at Bliss Bridal, every page crisp and bright, as if the legal system had chosen only the most expensive paper for the slow-motion napalming of my personal history. The words floated in black Helvetica, as sterile and efficient as the end of a marriage deserved. It was officially ninety days. There was a countdown timer in the bottom right corner of my phone, ticking toward the date Adam Knight would no longer be, in any formal or legal way, my husband.
“He left,” I said quietly, my voice flat even to my own ears. “He stayed gone. How is that a man who loves me?”
There was a silence, brief but so dense it seemed to warp the air in the room.
Birdie and Bailey exchanged a look, the kind of look that comes from a lifetime of sharing a bathroom, a bedroom. Bailey was the first to break the impasse. “He was a kid.”
Birdie reached into her tote bag and withdrew a dog-eared copy of her issue of The Vow. She slapped it on the desk with a flourish, then opened it to the center spread. The page fell perfectly to the shot of me and Adam at the front of St. Jude’s, framed by the stained glass that looked like it had been pulled straight from a movie set. In the photo, Adam’s hand is on my waist, my hair is falling in a half-perfect wave over my collarbone, and there’s a split second before our lips meet where I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me like we’re the only two people in the world.
Birdie tapped the page with the tip of her lavender-painted nail. “Exhibit A,” she said. “That is the face of a man in love.”
“It was a photo shoot,” I replied, but even as I said it, my voice faltered. I could remember the way Adam’s thumb had pressed into the hollow of my back, the way he’d whispered something about how I looked like an angel.
“He’s not a model or an actor, Billie,” Bailey pointed out gently, as if I needed reminding. “He’s Adam Knight. The most literal, least performative human being on earth.”
I shook my head. “It was Zion Ash,” I said, referencing the world-renowned photographer, who was famously adept at capturing fleeting moments and making them look like destiny.
Birdie rolled her eyes. “Did you hear the way he burst into your apartment screaming ‘she’s my wife.’ That’s the definition of giving that’s-my-wife energy.”
“He was scared,” I dismissed his behavior and pressed my palms against the desk, willing them to stop shaking. “He’s always been protective.”
Bailey’s hands made their way across the desk and landed on mine, soft and warm and infinitely nurturing. “Billie, he’s beenmiserable since you moved out. He hides it well for the girls, but every time they’re not looking, or hethinksthey’re not looking, he looks like he’s dying inside.”
The alarm on my phone vibrated and I stood up. It was time to go.
