The Ex Vows

by Jessica Joyce

The first time I walked in, something unraveled in my chest; it felt like home, not a place where two people lived with sometimes intertwining lives.

He’ll hold on to it for years, but eventually that spark will become a wildfire. And then we’ll burn it all down.

I’m a list girl. I learned the magic of them long ago—the way they can streamline tasks and expectations. Needs and emotions. How they can take a messy, chaotic thing and make it manageable. They’ve been my coping strategy since I was a kid. They quiet my mind and untangle my emotions so that I stay cool, calm, and compartmentalized. So I’m not a messy, chaotic thing.

A friend. My best friend. My boyfriend, college and then live-in when he asked me to move to New York with him. Then, fifteen months later, a stranger again.

When he kisses me for the first time on my twenty-first birthday, just after I blow out the candle on the cupcake he bought me, seconds after I wish for him— Right before he tells me he loves me a week later—

The praise sings through me so strongly it feels like relief. God, I need to be needed. To be held on to any way I can get it.

His addiction to his job is so indelibly tied to his anxiety, and I know the cause—the instability of his dad’s career has always felt like the catalyst for his previously perfect family falling apart. He’s been starving for something solid half his life. But that knowledge has never made it hurt less.

With the real Eli, work always comes first. And with the real me, showing people I need them comes last.

When we were friends, and especially after we became more, I felt like the only person in the world. Like I belonged to someone. He picked up every detail of my life like he was ravenous for it. I wondered a lot, alone in our bed while he pulled another all-nighter, when he stopped being hungry for me.

“Of course you would. You’d do anything for the people you love.” The way he says it is rough and nearly affectionate, a fuzzy approximation of the tone he’d whisper in my ear, press into the side of my neck. Against my mouth. I don’t know why that ties a knot in my throat, but suddenly it’s hard to swallow. I would do anything for the people I love: move to New York. Pretend to be friends afterward. Save a wedding. “But I will, too,” Eli continues. “So we’re going to have to do this together. We can split up the tasks, but I’m not staying behind.”

I was most careful with Eli, maybe because deep down I knew a fracture between us would shatter me. When we fell in love, I hesitated before I took the leap, even though I was sure about him. I’d have more to lose—not just a best friend, but everything: my Person, now my boyfriend, someone who could give me forever, a thing I craved so deeply, but only if I played my cards right. In hindsight, I see how easy the first two years of our relationship were, how effortless it was to not ask for too much, because Eli was giving me everything anyway—attention, love, time. It wasn’t needy if I didn’t request it, right?

Needing people like that had only ever hurt me in the past. It was easier to shut down.

It’s a gift to know someone when you’re in love with them, and a curse when you’re out of it.

“Well, I saw the way he was looking at you when you came in.” Sarika shoots me an encouraging smile. “It was like you were the only person on the planet.”

made the right choice, Georgia. You’re not good at communicating your needs, especially when you’re drowning.”

“You absolutely said that.” “Well, I didn’t mean it.” “You said it but you don’t mean it?” Eli asks. “I meant it,” I amend, “as a term of endearment.” A grin curls at his mouth as he squints up at me. “Yeah, I’ve heard that’s a real up-and-comer for endearments.” I give him a pleasant smile in return, with lots of teeth. “Right up there with buddy.”

“In thirty seconds, you’re not going to want this, and I can’t pull away, so you’re the one who has to.”

“There’s this grounding technique called five-four-three-two-one. Amari, my therapist, taught me in one of our first sessions. You focus on five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.”

“Iced tea. I stole a sip when I dropped yours off earlier.” “Excuse you.” He laughs, shoulders shaking. “Delivery fee.”

The fifteen-year-old boy I liked and the twenty-year-old man I loved, and the twenty-eight-year-old I have to keep right here, because at one point he was the twenty-three-year-old man who broke my heart.

The flash of grief I feel is real, though. The part of me that I sealed off when I left New York feels the pain acutely, wishes that we were having this conversation sitting in the bed we bought, in the apartment we rented. What would we be doing right now instead of this if we hadn’t barricaded ourselves from each other?

“Should I?” His response is quiet, a small confession. “I’d like you to.”

“She had fake pepperonis all over her face, and she was still the most beautiful person in the room. She rearranged everything in my body when she ran into me. Again, literally and figuratively.” His voice is quiet, eyes on Tai, but I can feel his awareness of me like a tether between us. One corner of his mouth picks up as he takes a bite of cake. “Mmm. This one’s my favorite.” Tai beams. “I’m so glad you love it. I have a bias toward peaches.” “Me, too,” Eli says with a brilliant smile. “That wa— it’s my nickname for Georgia. Peach. I called her that the night we met, and she called me Ninety-Nine because I was the ninety-ninth person to try that nickname on her. I wasn’t very original.”

wished for him,” I admit, my heart in my throat again. “Then I blew out the candle and the wish came true. That’s how it’s been ever since.” Eli’s eyes finally meet mine, dark and sparking, and he keeps me there. He remembers, too. The memory is so alive between us it’s touchable.

I should be okay on my own, but I can’t help searching for that feeling of belonging. It’s so hard for me to find my place—when I do, maybe I hold on too hard, but it’s only because I know what it’s like to lose it.

He’s laughing out loud, a beautiful sound I missed so much it momentarily stops me.

know you’re scared. I mean, fuck if that’s not the human experience,” she says quietly. “But you deserve to let yourself feel whatever you need to. You can be messy. A disaster, if you need to. The people who love you will accept every single piece of it, I promise you.”

“Because I care about you.” It’s such a weak version of my actual feelings, only enough to release the barest pressure in my chest. “Because I wanted you to have a second chance so you can stop trying so hard to prove yourself. Because you’re good enough, even after you fall short.”

“It doesn’t matter.” “It does,” he says. “It’s not the time.” “It is the time, because you’re feeling it right now. Why are you crying?”

“I’m a slut for miles,” Adam says. “I have an entire credit card devoted to getting miles.”

We all surge in. Eli pulls me close, and I end up halfway smashed onto his chest; his heart presses against mine, racing. I close my eyes, knowing I might not be able to touch him like this again this weekend. Not until we have some distance and that reckoning fades away. “I love you all,” Adam says, and for the first time today he’s choked with emotion. “We haven’t found an officiant yet, so I don’t even know if Grace and I are going to be officially married today, but whatever happens, thank you for everything you did to make the good parts even better.”

“I’m in love with you,” he repeats, calmer now.

“Again?” He’s not smiling, but his mouth is soft, his eyes are soft, this word is soft: “Still.”

“When I say I’m still in love with you, I mean the first time I saw you and right now. I mean every second in between.”

“That’s why it matters. Because I’m so in love with you that I feel like I can’t breathe. I think it every time I look at you, every time you let me in or you laugh or you look at me like I mean something to you. I know it’s fucking messy, and I know you hate that, but it’s also true.”

“And with you. You were always enough for me. I wasn’t enough for myself. I had to get there, and I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you along the way.”

Because you smiled at me. You looked happy for a second. I can’t dig myself out of this anxiety, Peach. The only thing that makes it go away is work. But it’s the thing that makes it worse, too. Why can’t I tell you that?

It’s a privilege to have someone trust you enough to show you those pieces of themselves, the most vulnerable and tender, the least polished. It’s a show of trust to let you see them first thing in the morning, in the middle of a panic attack, right after they’ve cried. To give you a shaky smile after a messy fight. To come back to you again and again with their heart in their hands.

“Thank you for marrying me.” His hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb moving over the curve of my cheek. I lean into his touch, lifting a shoulder. “I mean, I had nothing else going on.”