“Here you go ladies.” Dad dumps the street corn in the waiting bowl beside the shrimp. “Hot dogs coming up.”
“Thanks Mr. M,” Alex says and snags a crab from the pile. She holds it up and spins it around, then frowns. “Did these get smaller?”
A pang of hurt hits then, a memory of a similar moment from not long ago. Of a summer when Brian and I had decided to move in together and when Mason was still here. I was missing Alex, then. Now I’m missing a time when things were simpler and everyone I ever loved was all seated around this table.
Before heartbreak and death and regrets.
Once the food has been eaten and mostly everything has been cleaned up, Alex and I claim our favorite swings while Chloe stretches out like a cat along the slide.
Alex uses her toes to slowly push herself back and forth, and after a stretch of silence, loudly groans. “I ate way too much.”
“You always eat too much,” I remind her.
“The hot dog might’ve been a little excessive,” Chloe adds.
“I had to. For Mason’s honor.” There’s another flash of sadness, softened only by a smile when she glances in my direction, as if she’s saying it wasn’t meant to bring down the mood but to keep his spirit alive. I return her smile, the pang of hurt easing.
“Did you leave room for cake?” I ask, already knowing her answer.
“Nope. But like that’s ever stopped me.”
Chloe turns, wearing her oversized sunglasses and seeming as if she’s eaten a little too much as well. “Please don’t puke.”
Alex groans again. “That wasonetime.”
Chloe’s phone buzzes against the slide, and she immediately perks up. “Oh, it’s Dom.”
She hurries toward the hammock for a little bit of privacy. She’s protective of her new relationship, and she glows in a way I haven’t seen on her before. It looks nice.
“I’m so glad she found Dominic,” I say, doing my best to keep the heartache from my voice. I refuse to let my breakup prevent me from being happy for her. I clench the chains on the swing, noticing the nakedness of my ring finger. Not that I miss having it. The diamond never quite felt right. It was heavy. Like a burden.
But still, I can’t help but think of Brian’s face when I placed the ring in front of him. How he stared at it without saying a word. Without putting up a fight. Four years and he didn’t even ask me to stay.
“You okay?” Alex’s soft spoken question snaps me out of the memory.
“Just thinking.”
She nods, and we swing quietly for a moment before she kicks at a rock halfway stuck in the dirt. “Wanna talk about it?”
“I didn’t even get to go dress shopping,” I say with a humorless chuckle. It’s funny to be disappointed in such a thing after realizing I didn’t want to get married in the first place. “It’s for the best, really. Pretty sure Mrs. Prescott would’ve insisted on something traditional and gaudy. I would’ve hated it.”
She exhales as if she’s the one holding on to unpleasant reminders of things that aren’t going to happen. “Jules, I’m sorry.”
I shrug, because what else is there to say? It is what it is, I guess.
We fall into another stretch of silence, the air a little thicker than it was before.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks, still staring at her feet. I hum, letting her know she can. “Was I…” She trails off, clearly struggling to figure out how to ask what she wants to know. “Was I the reason for your breakup?” I tense. Not because it’s an inappropriate question, but because the answer is…complicated. She scrunches her nose sheepishly. “That came out way more pompous than I meant. I justmean, I said some things I probably should’ve kept to myself. I sent you that song. I just feel like it’s my fault.”
She may have acted as a catalyst, but not because she did anything wrong. But it also wasn’t a single moment that made me realize getting married would be a mistake but several, all piled on top of one another until they became too much to ignore.
“He changed. Once we were engaged. Or maybe I did, I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, we stopped being partners. It’s like we were living together but parallel to each other, nottogether, you know? When I looked ahead at our future, all I could see were dinner parties and fancy restaurants and being stuck at home while he was working late and traveling to meetings. It didn’t make me happy. I loved him, but I’d stopped loving the life I had with him.” I release a shuddering breath. “I suppose that doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes sense,” she says quickly.
“I feel guilty. And selfish. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to communicate my needs and expectations instead of waiting for him to figure it out on his own.” Because that’s what you’re supposed to do in a healthy relationship, right? Communicate, not expect.
“First of all, you shouldn’t feel selfish for prioritizing your happiness. Second, if he didn’t take the time to ask what you wanted out of your life together, then you weren’t a priority. And honestly, maybe he didn’t deserve you.”
