The Ex Vows

by Jessica Joyce

I’ll watch him test versions of nicknames with other friends, but mine will only ever be Peach. When I eventually ask him why, he’ll tell me it’s because he knew exactly who I was to him from the start.

My chest warms at the way Eli’s grin widens. It’s an addicting feeling, knowing I’m in the middle of meeting a person I’ll get to hang on to.

Years later Eli will tell me that he fell in love with me right then, and in this movie-like memory I always see it—how we can’t quite break eye contact, the flush along the shell of his ear when I sit next to him on the couch minutes later, the way his eyes linger on me when Adam and I bicker over control of the TV, the steady bounce of his knee. The beautiful, shy smile he gives me over the pizza we have for dinner later. He’ll hold on to it for years, but eventually that spark will become a wildfire. And then we’ll burn it all down.

Here’s the thing: 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.

I’m good at my job. I rarely make mistakes, and when I do, I own them. They’re never repeated; I make sure of it, because I have a Mistakes Never to Make Again list I reference often.

When you get back, you can tell me what you want to do.” That’s great. But who the hell is going to tell me?

Sometimes I swear adulthood is staring at your phone and wondering which of your friends has enough time to deal with your latest emotional meltdown, then realizing none of them do.

In my weaker moments, I think about what a fucked-up testament it is to the way we knew each other before: bone-deep, down to the marrow. And I think about how utterly heartbreaking it is that we’re using the same connection that allowed us to conduct a wordless conversation across the room to know each other in such a clinical way now. Like strangers who’ve seen each other naked in every way that counts, in all the ways that wreck you.

I might be messy on the inside, but I’m pathologically good at keeping it locked up tight. Except, unfortunately, when I’m not.

All I hear is, you won’t be around if you’re too much. It’s an old fear, refreshed on an endless spin cycle.

She grips me by the arms, assessing me. “You’re more beautiful than ever. Isn’t she, Eli?” I let out what’s supposed to be a carefree laugh; it sounds like I’m choking. “Oh, he doesn’t—” “Yes.” Eli’s response is immediate. His ear flushes a delicate pink as his gaze flicks to mine, and I swear something raw flashes in his eyes. But then I blink and it’s gone, if it was ever even there. “She is.”

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.

When I look over my shoulder, Eli is framed by the French doors leading into the kitchen. My heart leaps, even though I just saw him.

“I want some commotion for the hair, that’s all,” Jamie says. “It looks amazing.” I shoot a meaningful look at Adam and Eli. “No one else noticed.” “It looks brown.” Adam holds his hands up, eyes widening. “Was it not brown before?” “I noticed,” Eli says, moving closer.

“That’s her making-a-list face,” Eli interjects. I can’t help rolling my eyes. “I don’t have a making-a-list face.” “You do,” he says with a small affectionate smile, like this is real. “It’s one of your many faces.” “What, are you counting my faces?” “Got a whole list of them.”

I thought a lot about his attention when things disintegrated between us. 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.

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

“I had a protein bar,” he says. “We should get going.” His no-nonsense tone pulls at my spine. We have a job to do, and that job isn’t staring at his unfairly thick eyelashes. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“There you are.” A smile melts across his face, slow and sleepy. “Hey, Peach.”

I don’t know what I expect him to say, but it’s not, “You parallel parked on your own?” It took me four tries, but he doesn’t need to know that. Let him believe I’ve improved over the years.

Finally, he says, “It’s not what you think it is.” “It doesn’t matter what I think.” “It actually does,” he says, his voice low. “Very much.”

Panic could easily overtake me right now, but I’ll make this work, because I always make things work. And I’ll do it alone, because I always do it alone.

My pathological refusal to, as Eli so therapeutically put it, communicate my needs is something I’ve tried to move past with the help of my own (neglected, as of late) therapist. But in times of stress or triggers, it’s the first coping mechanism I cling to. I learned so young that other people’s needs were default, that mine had to be scheduled to be met, or, more easily, taken care of myself.

Sometimes his happiest smiles were his smallest ones, and his paper ring smiles were just the gentle upward curve of his mouth.

But while he was trying to fix what was broken in his past, he was breaking something that was right in front of him.

For a moment he’s quiet, jaw flexing. And then he says, “He’ll regret that someday. Having a daughter like you and not taking advantage of every minute.” My throat clogs. “It’s—” “Don’t say it’s fine.” His eyes are locked on me, his voice strangely hoarse. “It’s not.”

I just know that when Eli wraps his arms around my waist following a brief hesitation, it feels like coming home after the longest time away.

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

“Thanks again for digging me out of that mess,” I say, leaning against the door as he strides down the steps. He turns, shielding his eyes against the quickly rising sun. “Anytime.” “Well, hopefully never again.” I say it lightly, but I’m not joking. “Anytime,” he repeats, with emphasis.

“You overestimate me.” “You underestimate yourself.”

I lower my voice. “Okay, what do you see?” Eli’s eyes bounce around the room wildly. “A painting of Blue Yonder. A perfume bottle. A white dresser. Your overpacked suitcase exploded all over the floor.” He meets my gaze when I laugh quietly. His mouth twitches, even as his pulse continues to beat heavily in his throat. “You.”

He’s the same and totally different. 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.

He nods, eyes fixed on me. “Do you have any thoughts about that?” There are just two: thank god we’re in a better place now and STAY in that place however you can. Even if I go to Seattle, Eli will be closer, more present by default. Having him nearly three thousand miles away as a ghost was safe; this is not. “Should I?” His response is quiet, a small confession. “I’d like you to.”

Eli watches avidly as I throw the clip into my bag and rake my fingers through my hair. “I’m drawing the line at sexual favors, but I’m down for almost anything else.” I give him a look, and he flashes a little smile in return. “We’re out of options, Eli. If you need to get on your knees, so be it.” His smile turns into a full grin. “I love Adam and would do anything for him, but I won’t do that.”

“Don’t be smug about it.” “Not smug.” His mouth softens into a tender little curve. “I just like that I knew.”

I take a bite of cake. “Also, my singing isn’t that bad.” This is a patent lie, and the dying-cat comparison is Eli being generous. He used to sneak into the bathroom when I was performing shower concerts; I’d find him leaning against the counter when I pulled back the curtain, wearing a tender grin.

“Thank god she didn’t ask for a proposal story,” I joke, and he laughs, but it’s soft and strange. He wipes a hand across his rough jaw. “Yeah, well. I probably could’ve come up with something,” he says faintly.

“Not about that,” he says, his eyes moving over my face. “You’ve been quiet since we talked to Adam earlier.” I raise an eyebrow. “Keeping tabs on me?” “Always,” he says with a grin that fades quickly.

“I do,” he says, stepping closer. “Anyone who could leave you doesn’t deserve you in the first place.” He swallows hard, his eyes searching mine.

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

“So tell me what you want.” “I did.” “Say it again,” he demands. “You.”

“And I think we’re becoming friends again, and I…” I trail off as his eyes flutter shut. Uncertainty draws a hand around my throat. “Or I don’t know, maybe—” His eyes pop open, latching on to mine, clear of any emotion. “No, we are,” he says quietly. “We are.”

“You and I are going to have a reckoning, Georgia. It doesn’t have to be this week, but it’s going to happen.”

Enough to count. “I mean, of course it is. We’re not strangers. We’re…” “Us.” That single word fuses me to him. A tiny voice whispers, oh hell, but I push it away. “We’re us.” He lets out a soft, slow breath. And then he says, “Then that’s enough.”

“What were you thinking about?” “You.” He presses the word into my skin; it goes straight to my veins. “This. The way you taste and your sounds and your laugh. How well you fill my hands. What it would feel like to have you again.” A pause as his fingers flex into my back. He inhales, and then stops. “Several other things I’ll keep in the vault.”

And maybe it’s not stupid, I think as he presses me into the mattress in a way that feels vital, like I’m being consumed by him. Maybe it’s just like going back to visit a home that isn’t yours anymore. Maybe you don’t have the key, but someone lets you in anyway, and you stay awhile, and it feels so good just to be somewhere you once belonged.

His eyes move up to mine, his throat working before he speaks. “Goddamn. My memory never does you justice.”

Eli is the living embodiment of it’s always the quiet ones.

“I love it when you beg, Georgia. You never ask for anything.”

He doesn’t have to say the words for me to know it’s good, but he does anyway because he knows the praise will make me mindless.