“Is he a contestant onLove Island?”
“Apparently! But he’s not the only problem—it’s me, too.Everything he does annoys me. Like,everything. The way he puts on this bad posh accent with my parents that sounds like Michael Caine inBatman, but every time we fight he sounds like Michael Caine in real life. How he makes me watch endless YouTube videos on his smudged phone screen. And you know that his eyes do a full-body once-over of every woman he meets. The time he did it to you, I dreamed of him cheating on me with Gritty, and the image was so alarming, my subconscious forced me to keep you two apart.”
Lainey couldn’t help but feel a little offended by the Gritty comparison, even though she knew that wasn’t the point.
“I hear myself snapping at him all day long over the most ordinary things, but I can’t stop myself. So last night I was soaking my massive feet in a bowl of salt—as one does—reflecting on how my best friend is falling madly in love for the first time, and it was suddenly so apparent to me that Colin and I will never have that.”
Hearing her relationship observed that way from the outside, as something existing between love and madness, was both validating and heartbreaking. It was nice to have proof that what had happened to her was real. That it hadn’t all been in her head. She knew some of it had been a lie. But part of it was love, and Bree had seen it, too. It helped as much as it hurt.
Bree turned off the highway onto a narrow road surrounded by tall grass. “So then I told him that I didn’t think we made sense together. Romantically. And I couldn’t callyoubecause the idea of staying with a happy couple made me want to cry. And I obviously couldn’t tell my parents because they have been foaming at the mouth to say ‘I told you so’ since I got pregnant. And the resort is booked up, so yes, I moved into your grandmother’s guest room.”
She pulled into a space in the familiar parking lot and cut the engine.
“I’m so sorry, Bree.” Lainey reached over the console and pulled her friend into a tight hug. “And I’m really sorry you didn’t feel like you could come to me about it. But, in case you missed it,myrelationship happens to rest atop a bed of lies, so, you know, silver lining: I have a spare bedroom now. Well, until he divorces me and leaves me with nothing.”
“Oh, I’m way ahead of you. We’re spending tonight here so I can pack and then tomorrow morning I’m moving in.”
Lainey raised an eyebrow at that. “You weren’t even planning to ask?”
Bree shrugged. “Do you have other plans? We’re both onCrappy Relationship Islandnow.”
“Ah, the little-known follow-up toLove Island.” Lainey stepped out of the shiny black car and shut the door behind her.
Bree followed with an unsteady wobble and beeped the locks. “It doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves on social media.”
“So are you getting a divorce?” Lainey asked, a bit more casually than the question probably called for, but howdidone ask about the dissolution of a marriage while cutting through a shuffleboard court?
“Can’t,” Bree responded. “He’s here on a spousal visa.” Words prickled on Lainey’s tongue, but she kept her lips pinched all the way shut. “There’s a way to switch it to a work visa eventually, but he also works for me, so that doesn’t necessarily uncomplicate things…” Bree trailed off, catching wind of whatever energy was vibrating off her friend’s body.
Lainey gathered up every ounce of her restraint, and yet…
Bree groaned. “Just say it.”
“How are you just as stupid as me?” she burst, then promptly clapped her hand over her mouth.
“No, I’m not.” Bree’s ankle shook on an unstable paver as they made their way to Gran’s door. “My situation is completely different.”
“This has never happened to us before.”
Bree wagged her finger. “It still hasn’t.”
“Are you married for reasons that once sounded perfectly logical and are now absolutely breaking your heart?”
“Yes,” she whimpered pitifully.
“We’re the same!” Lainey practically bounced. It almost made up for the way her heart was shattering into a million pieces. Almost.
“Fine. We’re the same. Now, are we going to watchHeartburnwith your grandmother or not?”
They did just that. And Bree only compared her current situation to the events in Nora Ephron’s semi-autobiographical classic a mere seven times.
The sounds of women selling portable photo printers on the Home Shopping Network played softly in the background of Gran’s bedroom. Her room smelled like her—a musky floral perfume she poured into the same Chanel N°5 bottle she’d been gifted years ago. The head of her adjustable bed was lifted for prime television viewing, and still Bree had managed to fall fast asleep in the space between Lainey and Gran.
“I’m sorry about you and your…Elliot,” Gran whispered over Bree’s head. “I know it takes a lot for you to like someone.”
Lainey shrugged. “It is what it is. We’re better on our own anyway.”
Gran tsked. “No, don’t be like me.”
