My mom’s words, about this relationship ending, mock me.
He looks like I’ve struck him, and then his jaw firms. “I shouldn’t have said— No, you know what? This is your thing, right? Can’t get hurt if you never try and go the distance. Never give someone a chance. Run when it’s hard.”
“I gaveyoua chance!”
“It’s your decision what happens with us, so…” He runs his hand through his hair again and turns away before swinging his gaze back to me. “So, yeah. Fuck it.Your decision.” His gray eyes are wintry. “I’ll try not to make things awkward, seeing as how we’re going to be neighbors for a very long time.”
I laugh. It’s a tense, ugly, unhappy sound. “You’re lucking out there. I haven’t gotten my raise yet, so I can’t afford to buy my place.” I’m a wounded thing, lashing out, trying to inflict some of the pain I’m feeling on him. “Maybe your next neighbor won’t be a relationship fuckup, so you can get with someone you actually respect.”
Jack opens his mouth and closes it. I don’t slam the door on him this time. Instead, I close it slowly, still hoping he’ll pour the right words—the ones that will suck the venom out of this wound—through the opening before it shuts on us for good.
32
I pick at the scarred wooden armrest of my chair and glance over at Margie. There are, surprisingly, tears in her light-brown eyes as she watches the heart-eyed couple at the front of the room. I guess being in love does wild things to you.
“By the power vested in me by the State of New York…”
I flinch when the duo standing in front of the Justice of the Peace, a mature couple flanked by what appears to be their children from other marriages, launch themselves at each other, kissing with a jubilance so potent I could roast marshmallows on it. I rub at my chest, at the bite of a smoldering ember hidden somewhere in the blackened crater that was my heart.
Margie leans forward in her chair, clapping along with the rest of the people waiting their turn in the yellow-walled City Clerk’s Office. Avery’s handsome profile comes into view in the seat next to Margie’s. He pushes his glasses up his nose, an ear-splitting grin perma-etched across his face as he releases Anna’s hand to clap for the couple.
I’ve had to watch two of these depressing unions so far.
“Avery Vaughn and Anna Craig,” someone intones. We all stand and move to the front of the room, with Anna leading the charge. She races to the Justice’s dais and turns to us, beaming. Her mahogany hair is pulled back in her trademark tight bun, perfectly setting off her delicate features. Avery joins her, taking her hands in his. Watching them, something inside me pitches.
Margie cracked a joke when we got here, saying that Avery got his hair cut twice for today. He looks as neat as always—not a hair out of place, not ever—but he’s lost the hot-librarian look we always tease him about. At least, he has to me. I tilt my head, analyzing him. I’ve seen Avery with girlfriends in the past, but I’ve never seen this look in his forest-green eyes before. That’s what it is. There’s a fierceness, an intensity there, that would’ve had me sighing if I hadn’t just had my heart broken.
They look perfect together. Tall as Anna is, she still just comes to Avery’s shoulders. He bends his head to whisper something in her ear, and her cheeks color.
Margie and I stand as their witnesses. Since there aren’t a ton of couples waiting behind them, the officiant lets Avery and Anna say a few words to one another.
“Anna, I’m not impulsive. I’m not.” Avery shakes his head emphatically. “I research everything. I deliberate. But for the first time in my life, I’m going with my gut because Iknowsomething… I just knowit.”
My eyes well, watching him, one of my dearest friends in the world.
“Avery, I love that you love me so much,” Anna says, lifting his hand and lacing her fingers through his.
A fleeting frown, a match of my own, passes over Margie’s face.
Anna looks to their joined hands and says, “I don’t have to fight for your time, or chase you, or twist myself into a pretzel to make myself fit into your life. You’re…a grown-up, and kind, and I’m so happy you’re mine.”
Then they speak the words that bind them together, and the waterworks begin in earnest for me. Margie is crying, too, so I don’t have to explain why I’m a sniveling mess. Anna hugs me, shoving her makeshift bouquet at me. I gaze down at those flowers before handing them off to Margie.
We head to La’s for a celebratory drink, and Anna squeals, delighted by my story about refusing to give away the time or place they were getting married to Jack. I leave out the part where I spent hours in her brother’s arms, convinced I’d maybe found something my mother always insisted didn’t exist.
“He’s the family’s keeper. He got a job at a gas station near our house when he was sixteen after my dad started his chemo, and he would give my parents his paycheck every week. He ratted me out for throwing a party in high school, even though his friends were invited! Rule-follower was doing thelaundrywhen everyone showed up. He kicked them out. It was like he felt guilty having fun or whatever, and so he’d lecture me when I just wanted tolive. And I already told you he worked two jobs in college, even though he had a full ride, and he gave every dime to my parents, right? Which was nice and all, but… He just has to fix everything for everyone. Martyr complex. It’s so fucking basic,” she says.
“It’s not good to try and control—” I start to say.
“It’s not even about control. He’s like a jigsaw junkie. Thinks he’s got to pick up everyone’s pieces and help put them back together, whether they want him there or not.”
A spark of loyalty flares. That sounds like caring to me. Love. And I don’t know all of their history, but Anna definitely came to Jack with her pieces in hand, begging for his help to put them together again. “But I mean, you went to him when you broke up…” I trail off. It occurs to me too late that I probably shouldn’t mention her breakup on her wedding day.
A queer look—a cross between anger and anguish—flits across her face, but it’s there and gone again in a blink. I rush to change the subject, drawing Margie over to shoulder the burden of conversation.
Not long after, Avery and Anna say their goodbyes and rush off to do very newlywed things. I find myself fighting off rising panic as I watch them leave. Jack called me once, when I was in my Lyft, causing the air to squeeze from my lungs when “Demon” showed up on my screen. I promptly blocked him, his remembered words bringing a rush of anger. I think of that call now. The thought of going back to my apartment, of maybe seeing him, or not seeing him, has me freaking out.
La and Margie are whispering to each other. I turn to them, standing silently until they stop canoodling and notice me. Then, with minimal prompting: “I slept with Jack, and I thought it was going to work out, but how could it when he thinks I’m an Anna? So I broke up with him.” A surprise sob catches me off guard. La wraps her arms around me.
