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but still found myself in the dimly lit bar, bad rock music playing in the background, the back of my head woozy from the sip of vodka on an empty stomach.
“There’s something off,” he sighed. “I want something more.”
“Something more? What the hell do you want? You owe me more than this.” “No I don’t, Lucy.” He stared at me apathetically, his mouth a neat line. I glared at him. I hated him. I wanted to punch him in his smug, average Joe face.
“You’re acting like you don’t even care. After all this time. You act like I haven’t known you for four years.” “Do you really know me?” he snapped defensively, his eyes narrowing. “Do we really know each other?” “I guess you’re right,” I sputtered. “I really don’t know who the fuck you are. Two weeks ago you were telling me you loved me.” “Things change,” he repeated. “And you have no explanation for why?” “No.” His tone was clipped and curt. There was a trace of satisfaction in his voice, like he was glad to be inflicting this pain on me. Like I was a stupid, useless pawn. “Something about
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“You’re twisted.” “You want to make me out to be evil, go ahead.”
I hated him in a way I hadn’t before. He wanted to hurt me. He lied and lied and he didn’t feel guilt. He was sadistic at his core.
“Never Going Back Again” filled the car. The music was too much;
‘Been down one time, been down two times, I’m never going back again.’ ” She smiled. “I forgot how much I love this song.” Tears streamed down my face, so many that I couldn’t see. CJ reached over and squeezed my hand. “He broke your heart, didn’t he?” I couldn’t speak. “You loved him. I had the feeling you did, but I wasn’t sure until now. I’m so sorry, my girl.”
“Love—real love—isn’t something you construct or hope or imagine or plan for the future. Love is something you live and feel in real time, in every single moment, big or small. It’s reciprocal and often unglamorous. But we bank on it because it’s what gives life meaning.”
Anger seized me. I was brimming with a fury so intense I was shaking. I didn’t care anymore. The words erupted out of my mouth. The wrath of eight years.
“You slept with someone!” I yelled. “I saw you!”
were with Gabe Petersen.”
“Ugh. He’s married. This is great. This is just great.” “He’s engaged.”
“She’ll be fine,” Jackie says. “She just needs about six shots of vodka injected into her bloodstream.”
#BreecomingaDonovan.
“Where the hell did you guys go?” Pippa appears behind us, and I’m suddenly conscious of the rest of the guests beginning to fill the tent.
“The bridesmaids were supposed to ride back together. You left me alone with Bree’s Ohio people who think I’m a professional prostitute.”
He holds the tumbler firmly with the same fingers he’d used to hold the back of my neck when he
DeMarco’s a good friend of mine, sure, but he’s a dick. You’re a unicorn.” Wrigley touches the tip of my nose.
God, the way he’s looking at her as he spins her around and around in his arms, mouthing the words to the song. Every morning when you come downstairs Hair’s a mess but I don’t care
“It’s funny, I never cry at weddings.” I know who it is before I turn around—that voice could probably wake me from the dead—and a jolt of electricity runs up my spine. But I’m shocked at how calm I am by the time I complete the turn and clip my gaze into his—that impossible green. “Apparently I do,” I say. “Leave it to Lucy Albright to look hotter than the bride.” He raises his eyebrows. The comment, which would have, not a couple years earlier, drenched everything inside me with crack-like lust, now seems typical in a way that makes me sad.
At the Christmas party, he’d wedged away from Jillian long enough to say hi to me, and I’d felt so sick I’d nearly dropped my drink. There were too many things I’d wanted to say but of course he’d done the talking, touching on law school and his overwhelming workload, a two-minute surface-level conversation that demolished me with its lack of intimacy. Now, I realize, I have nothing to say to him.
“Ah. How was the rehearsal dinner? I heard Evan’s speech was very touching.” Even though the sarcasm isn’t obvious in his tone, I know it’s there. Stephen has always scoffed at Evan’s earnestness.
“So, Luce. You gonna make me jealous, strutting around with your date in that dress all night.” He looks me up and down, not inadvertently. He sounds a little drunk. “Stephen.”
“Sorry. Old habits, ya know?” He sips his Scotch and soda and gives me a coquettish grin. “Well, don’t worry. No dates even for bridesmaids unless we have something here.” I clutch my lef...
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“So that’s it?” He cocks his head, and the old girlfriend part of me wants to smack him in the face, not for myself but for her. Acknowledge your engagement! Acknowledge your fucking engagement! “That’s it.” “You don’t want to catch up more? Take a walk or something?”
I look into his narrow green eyes, his gaze as steady and uncompromising as ever, and instead of an internal collapse something quiet but true clicks within, and there is my answer. I can see now what I am to him, what I’ve always been to him, and the part of me that would be desperately thrilled to take a walk with Stephen and find out what would happen is no longer even subliminal—it’s just gone. In his amused, absorbed expression I can see the risk and the rush that talking to me provides him. It’s something that is not remotely about me. And then there’s a familiar voice echoing in my
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“I always meant to ask you…” I lock his gaze. “Did you know a girl named Macy Petersen in high school?”
“Why do you ask, Luce?” He doesn’t blink. I shrug, and that’s it. I feel him staring at me as I turn and walk away for good this time. Knowing he’s watching me doesn’t do anything for me anymore. Maybe
“Everyone has that guy, Luce. That one guy you think you’ll never be able to shake—the one who gets under your skin and epically fucks you up for a little while. I know I did.” “You did?” “Oh yeah. Cole Hammond. I’ve told you about him, haven’t I? I barely think about it now, but when it was happening, it was big-time. But guys like that, in the end, when all the smoke has cleared, just make you realize what you don’t want.” “Yeah,”
get that now. Talking to Stephen tonight, I understood that, to him, I was always just this source of entertainment—this thing—and that he sees relationships as just these useful things, and I would never want to be that to anybody, not in a million years. I don’t even hate him, not anymore. It was just sad or something.”
I don’t like my job, so that’s part of it. But I used to have all these dreams about traveling and writing and journalism school and I feel like at some point I just abandoned all of that, and I can’t exactly pinpoint when or why. I know I’m freelance writing a little bit, but I can’t pursue it seriously while I’m working in sales, and let’s face it—I’m not getting anywhere with editorial at The Suitest. I don’t know, CJ. I think I need to go and be somewhere else for a while. Figure out what I want.”
