The Ex Vows

by Jessica Joyce

For past me, who didn’t give up, and for future me, who will look back on all of this and be so proud.

I hate thinking about the way it ended, but sometimes I think about the way it began:

“Oh. Hello,” I say brilliantly. His mouth pulls up, which is wide and meant for the toothy smiles I’ll discover he doesn’t give away easily. He’s prone to quiet ones, or shy, curling ones, like he’s giving me now. “Hey.”

the glint of a fragile gold chain.

fml

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.

I glance at Adam. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I won the nickname portion of this adoption process.” 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.

my closest friends have fully shifted into phases I’m not in—falling in love, cohabitating, building social circles with other happy couples that make me the extra wheel, a feeling I avoid as resolutely as Trader Joe’s on a Sunday. My time in Seattle only made it more obvious, and I hate that there’s no checklist that’ll pivot me off this path.

here. 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.

“Think about it while you’re out. Weigh the pros and cons with one of your lists, then enjoy the wedding. 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.

Luckily, I’m used to dealing with the messes in my life alone.

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.

and the raw flash of shock on Eli’s face when he saw I was alone felt like an additional detonation in my chest.

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.

Eli’s breath is mint and chocolate; it stirs the hairs at my temple. Soap lingers on his skin, layered under recirculated air. Beneath that is the spice of his cologne. I used to spray it on my finger and press it behind his ears, drag the scent down his throat while he watched me with hooded eyes.

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.

“Georgia,” he says, with more emotion than we’ve given each other in years. It’s half exasperation, half request, with a pinch of amusement, because Eli always gives 110 percent.

He lifts his arm, exposing that Georgia-shaped spot. One corner of his mouth quirks into the easy smile I haven’t seen in private for years, executed perfectly. “Come on in,” he says, like he’s inviting me into his home. The hug doesn’t last long, but I can feel every point where Eli and I are connected, the way his fingers tighten around my ribs. I swear I feel his breath stutter against my hair, but maybe it’s the breeze. I breathe out slowly, not wanting to inhale any piece of him.

“I noticed,” Eli says, moving closer.

There’s a beat where we’re all frozen, but then the room explodes with sound. My tear ducts figure it out before my brain does—I’m crying seconds before I say “Oh my god.” A hand goes to my back as I stand. I assume it’s Jamie or Blake, but no, wait, they’re already hugging Adam and Grace. It’s Eli beside me. For a beat I think he’s getting me out of the way, but his hand doesn’t leave that tingling space between my shoulder blades.

In reality, I lay in bed for hours, my roaring thoughts too loud

I tempered myself, never asked for too much, made sure I gave more than I took.

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?

Eli’s always been an early riser, even before his job demanded it. In college, I’d stay the night at the apartment he shared with three other guys and wake up with him wrapped around me, absently stroking my hair while he gazed up at the ceiling or out the window with soft, sleepy eyes.

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

He shifts in his seat, angling toward me. In a flash, his palm is shaping my cheek, then palming the back of my neck to bring me closer. And it’s not warmth now, it’s heat. Something that will burn me if I don’t pull away. But I can’t. “There you are.” A smile melts across his face, slow and sleepy. “Hey, Peach.”

“You definitely had something,” he mutters,

with her arms crossed. She looks like she’s about to eat you. Then his eyes slide to the tray of cake, straight to the slice that’s been touched. He frowns. “Did you eat the van—” My hand slams down on his thigh. On instinct, I slide up to squeeze the thick, hard arch of muscle. My animal brain remembers exactly what kind of touch robs him of speech and I need him to shut. Up. But my animal brain forgot why it robs him of speech, and so my heart leaps into my throat when his pupils blow wide with shock and heat, when his palm covers the back of my hand, fingers wrapping around mine. He holds us there for an unbearable smattering of seconds, his jaw flexing. And then he moves my hand down to his knee; it’s a slow scrape until I hit the warm skin just below his gray shorts.

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.

“Because I know it’ll kill you to disappoint him.” He gives me a small, wooden smile as he pulls his phone from the pocket of his backpack, nestled next to his suitcase. “And because I’m used to it.”

Crying

Beyond a border of lavender plants, an old picnic table sits at the perimeter of the vineyard. I don’t have to look to know my initials are still carved into the tabletop alongside Eli’s and Adam’s.

I loved Blue Yonder, but it didn’t belong to me yet, and that feeling always left me anxious. It wasn’t until Eli joined us the following summer that I started to truly feel the homelike shape of it; then it became rooted in my veins.

I set my phone on the counter as Adam chatters on, picking up the ring. The paper is smooth and thick, layers folded meticulously by Eli’s attentive fingers. When he used to give me these, I’d be so careful slipping it onto my finger—my index or middle, or, after we started dating, my ring finger, but the right one. He’d trace a path behind it, help me push it down, then look up at me through his lashes, grinning. Sometimes his happiest smiles were his smallest ones, and his paper ring smiles were just the gentle upward curve of his mouth. “Looks good, Peach,” he’d murmur, bringing my finger up to his mouth. He’d bite down on my knuckle, hard and messy until I laughed, then softer, just the scrape of his teeth, until I shivered.

He visibly deflates. “Okay, good. I would’ve taken care of it for you, but I would’ve cried.”

Damn i love him so much

A hot tear rolls down my cheek. Eli’s expression morphs from confusion to surprise to intense tenderness so fast it hurts, right beneath my ribs. He steps closer, over the threshold, and for a second I think he’s going to take me into his arms. For a second, I want it so badly I can hardly breathe. Instead, his fingers graze mine, gone before I can really feel them. “Okay. Let’s go figure it out.”

I nearly forgot how hot Eli being ultra-competent is, a misstep on my part because he’s the most competent person I know.

Eli looks down at it. I look down at it. Then we look at each other and the thirteen years of memories that silly little paper ring holds settle between us.

I have no idea what I’m doing, and my heart starts beating fast at the thought of having to call a plumber in. As if he hears me spiraling, Eli says, “You’re doing great.”

last five years torturing myself with it, so maybe it’s for the best. 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.

I should say something. Instead, I press my face into the curve where his shoulder and neck meet,

Eli’s nose brushes against my cheek, his stubble scratching at my skin. An accident the first time, I think, until he does it again. I pull back until the corners of our mouths are nearly aligned. This is a bad, very horrible idea, my brain screams, but my body presses closer. Eli’s arms tighten, fingers digging into the small of my back. “Georgia,” he whispers,

And it’s easier to be alone, but that doesn’t mean it’s what I want.

It’s just that I’ve only ever fully fallen into things with him: friendship, love, turning him into a stranger. I have to be careful to keep myself right here—in his arms, fine, but only for this moment.

want to live in this liminal space where there’s a heart beating hard against mine, someone who reaches for me first.

Tai beams. “I’m so glad you love it. I have a bias toward peaches.” “Me, too,” Eli says with a brilliant smile.

I still remember how carefully he lit the single candle, his palm curved protectively around it afterward. I wanted his hand exactly like that against my neck, cradling it before he kissed me. He sang “Happy Birthday,” eyes on me, that deep, beautiful brown lit up with flame. I was so scared. I wanted it so much. “I 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.

“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.

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.

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

this is Eli, I have him. Look at the way he needs me; look how it matches mine. What a revelation it is.