“If you don’t stop bouncing your leg, I’m going to stab it,” I said, looking up from the textbook I had in my hand.
We were supposed to be studying—him for the LSAT, me preparing for a Genetics final.
“I’m just . . . sorry. I’m just dealing with a lot of shit right now.”
I put the book down and leaned back in my seat. “Talk.”
He closed his eyes and breathed out through his nose, long and heavy. I didn’t know what to expect him to say. Maybe he’d failed a class. Maybe he’d gotten a girl pregnant. Maybe he got himself a hamster. With Vic, there was no telling.
“She’s engaged,” he said finally.
“Okay?” I drew out slowly, waiting for him to elaborate.
“Estelle,” he said, his brows bunching up. “She got engaged.”
A couple of things happened at once: my mouth dropped, the air left my body, and the barista dropped the coffee she was making, causing a stir in the coffee house.
“She’s what?” I said.
He nodded, raising his eyebrows like we were on the same wavelength. Little did he know, while his wavelength was down where the familiar territory lay, mine was leaping into the mountains where warning bells rang. I felt like huge claws were squeezing around my neck. Estelle was engaged. My Estelle.
“To who? I didn’t even know she had a serious boyfriend,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, trying not to get upset, because then my ears would get red and he’d know something was up. Where the fuck have I been? Where the fuck has . . . why hasn’t anybody told me anything?
“She’s been dating that painter, Wyatt, on and off for a while now.”
“Yeah, more off than on though, right?” Was I crazy? I’d heard it wasn’t serious. Or maybe I just assumed that.
Vic shrugged. “Well, it’s fucking serious now. They’re moving in together, engaged . . . it’s just . . . she’s my little sister, you know? One thing is for Junior to go and get engaged, but when Elle does it, it’s like . . . I don’t know. I feel like I’m going through a midlife crisis.”
I couldn’t even laugh or joke about what he’d said. I was too hung up on
Estelle is engaged.
Estelle is moving in with somebody—somebody that’s not me. Somebody that obviously has his head on his shoulders and was smart enough to not let somebody that perfect pass through his life without locking her down.
“Aren’t they always breaking up?” I said again.
“I guess he wants to make it so they don’t,” he said, biting on the tip of the pencil in his hand. “He’s such a pompous dick, too. He thinks he’s better than everybody.”
“Really? And Estelle is moving in with him?” I looked down at the discolored wood between us on the table.
“She says she loves him.”
My chest squeezed, but I nodded and made a sound to show I was listening.
“She says she’s happy with him and that he’s taught her so much. I think she’s just comfortable with him. I mean, he’s older, he has all this success, and they’re opening that gallery together.”
“They’re opening a gallery together?” I asked. This couldn’t be going any worse.
“Dude. I haven’t shown you the pictures?” Vic asked, taking out his phone and scrolling through photos. The one he landed on happened to be the picture they used to announce their engagement. Estelle had her hand over the guy’s chest, and they were both smiling widely for the camera. He had long blonde hair, like mine . . . a beard, like mine . . . and a girl that should have been mine. Estelle had her dark hair down in loose curls that winded down the front of her thin frame. Her hazel eyes were as wide and smiling as her beautiful mouth. I looked at the rock on her finger and quickly looked away. It felt like a boulder on my collarbone. I couldn’t breathe. I put the phone down and looked the other way.
“So I guess she’s happy,” I commented, picking my book back up. I could feel Vic staring at me from across the table. I half expected him to call me out on why I was acting weird. I prepared myself a little speech where I would tell him that I was in love with his sister and that I knew he didn’t approve, but I didn’t care. I said I would do it. Call me out, I begged, but he didn’t. He sighed and leaned back in his seat.
“I feel like an old man. My sister getting married—”
“Engaged,” I corrected. “A lot of people get engaged and don’t get married.”
Was I a dick for wanting that? Was I terrible for hoping the engagement would fall through? Why did it bother me so much anyway? I hadn’t been there. I left. I left. I had nobody to blame but myself.
“You wanna come to the engagement party tonight?”
He might as well have asked me if I wanted to wear a pink leotard to a football game.
“What? You might as well keep me company,” he said, laughing at the look on my face.
Because I needed to see her despite the circumstances, I agreed. Of course, I agreed. I would go and ask her not to marry that stupid painter. Or maybe I just needed to see her to make sure that she was truly happy. To make sure that the spark between us no longer existed. Maybe whatever we had in the past was gone now that she had something real. Maybe I waited too long. Of course, I waited too long. Every second it took to get ready to go to Vic’s house became the countdown to doom. I changed my clothes five times.
Five.
I felt like Sophie. On that note, I called my sister. I’d never told her about Elle because I knew she wouldn’t approve, but I needed to tell somebody, anybody. I needed to lay it out there for the universe to hear me, and maybe telling Sophie would make it real. Maybe telling her would stop the engagement . . . stop the wedding—I don’t know.
“If you’re not calling to tell me you’re coming over to feed Sander, your voice is not welcome right now,” she said, sounding completely wiped out.
“Soph, I fucked up.”
She stayed quiet for a long moment. “Did you . . . okay, I can’t think of how you would fuck up, so enlighten me, oh perfect one, what did you do?”
“You remember Estelle, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, we kind of hooked up in the past. A few times . . . more than a few times,” I admitted quietly.
“Ohmygod don’t tell me you got her pregnant.”
“No! God. No,” I said, my voice slightly defeated. Would that be the worst news ever? For me to have gotten her pregnant? Normally I would have said yes, but today, I wasn’t so sure.
“Okay, so? Victor caught you and gave you a black eye?” she guessed again.
“No!” I said, groaning. “She’s engaged!”
More silence. The only tell I had that she was still on the line was Sander’s cooing.
“And you’re upset about it because you can’t hook up anymore?” she asked.
“I’m upset about it because I think I’m in love with her,” I said, my voice quiet. I hadn’t even admitted that to myself. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but I think,” I added.
Sophie laughed. “Well, this is . . .” she sighed. “This is something . . .”
“Sophie!”
“Bean, you call me in the middle of feeding to tell me that you’re possibly—but don’t know for sure—in love with the little sister of your best friend from third grade and that she’s engaged to be married to somebody else. I mean . . . I have no words. When did this start? When did you figure this out?”
“It started years ago, but it’s never been anything real, you know?”
“Only real enough for you to freak out when you hear she’s engaged?”
My eyes screwed shut.
“How can you not be sure you’re in love with her? Do you guys keep in touch?”
“No. No. We haven’t spoken since . . . in a while. Since I came home last time . . . and even then, it was quick hi and bye—awkward because I was leaving a restaurant with a date, and she was getting there to meet hers.”
“And now?”
“And now . . . she’s engaged to some prick.”
Sophie laughed again. “And you’re Prince Charming.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’m going to her engagement party, and I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re going to her engagement party?” she said. “Are you crazy? What do you think she’ll say?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping she’ll take her ring off and throw it in the guy’s face.”
“Ollie . . .”
I groaned. My sister only called me that when she was about to cajole me and say something I didn’t want to hear.
“Maybe you should let her go. Maybe she wasn’t the one.”
“She was! She is!” I said, pacing my room.
“If you feel that way, why didn’t you try anything sooner?” she asked with a sigh.
“Do you remember what it was like when Dad left?”
“Dad didn’t leave. They got a divorce. There’s a difference.”
“Whatever. Do you remember when that happened? What he would say? How he felt like he was unaccomplished and couldn’t provide Mom with anything?”
“Oh my God. You actually listened to the crock of shit Dad fed us when he was probably drunk?”
“Of course I did! I was a kid! He was my dad! And all my friends were so . . . I don’t know. I just had this vision of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be successful so that my wife didn’t have to work unless she wanted to.”
“So you planned out this entire 1950’s reality for you and your future wife without taking into account that life actually moves on with or without you?” she said after a long pause.
I let out a harsh breath. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I spewed, kicking the wall beside my closet.
“Well, that’s my cue,” she said when Sander started crying. “Good luck tonight. And Bean?”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes we let the first ones get away, but it teaches us to cherish the second ones that much more.”
I mumbled a yeah, thanks, and promised her I’d visit tomorrow. I couldn’t deal with the idea of letting Elle get away. Was it so bad that I wanted to keep her? I finally stuck with what I was already wearing and left my house. Instead of taking my car, I walked to Vic’s. I needed to think about what I was going to do once I got there. Thinking didn’t help. If anything, the rustling wind in my ear confused my thoughts that much more. When I finally got there, I didn’t know what to do. Normally I went in through the back door, but today I wasn’t here as Victor’s friend, I was here as Estelle’s . . . something . . . so I used the front.
Thomas, Victor’s dad, wore a shocked expression on his face when he opened the door for me.
“I don’t think you’ve ever used this door,” he said with a frown.
“I figured I should, since it’s been a while.”
“You’re still our boy, no matter how old you get or how many lives you save, Doctor.” He laughed the same laugh Victor had, with his shoulders quaking and his perfect, straight teeth shining.
“So, big day,” I said.
“Big day . . .” he agreed, looking around. There were only a handful of people there, but I figured this was only the beginning. “Vic is in the game room with Mia’s brother, and Estelle is in the kitchen. Her fiancé is . . . around.”
I had no intention of meeting him, but as soon as the words left his mouth, the fiancé from the photo appeared in front of us. I sized him up quickly. He was definitely older than me, skinnier than me, a bit shorter than me, but he had a smile that demanded attention. I knew that smile, because I saw it on my own face when I looked in the mirror. So evidently, Elle had a type. If he hadn’t given her the ring on her finger, I would have smiled, too.
“Wyatt! This right here is Oliver, one of Victor’s oldest friends,” Thomas said, swiveling around and signaling at me.
Wyatt looked at me with the most serious brown eyes. At first, he frowned, then, as if something dawned on him, he smiled. “Of course. Oliver! I’ve heard a lot about you. Good to finally put a face to the name,” he said, offering me his hand, which I took and squeezed a little tighter than I normally would have.
“Interesting. I just heard about you today, and I guess on that note, I must say you’re a lucky bastard,” I replied, earning a raised eyebrow from him. I should have probably toned down the mirth in my voice, especially being that Elle’s dad was standing right there, but the filter over my mouth was nonexistent.
“You know what they say about the early bird,” he said, and with a wink, walked away. I wanted to clobber him.
“What does she see in that guy?” I muttered under my breath, low enough that I thought Thomas couldn’t hear me, but his healthy chuckle rang out. He clapped a hand on my back and walked me toward the game room.
For what seemed like an eternity, I watched Robert and Victor play some stupid video game where they shot up everything that walked by. Such pointless garbage.
“I’m going to grab a beer. Want something?” I said, getting up.
“You sure you don’t want to play?” Vic asked, even though he knew I would only play Madden. When I didn’t respond, he shouted for me to bring him a beer.
I walked to the kitchen and greeted the people I knew. Mia, who was having an argument on the phone, managed to roll her eyes and signal at me in a way I understood was code for
can you believe this shit?
I saw her mom and Elle’s, hugged them quickly, and talked to them about Berkeley. I spotted Wyatt through the window. He was outside on his cell phone, smoking a cigarette. I paused. Elle was marrying a smoker?
Every hint I caught from this life of hers seemed the opposite of what I would have guessed it would be. I pictured her painting, making her beautiful sculptures, eating those granola things she liked to eat, and drinking lattes. I didn’t picture her with . . . this guy. Maybe there was nothing wrong with him. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to hate him, but I didn’t like the way he’d greeted me as if he knew me. Like he’d heard every stupid mistake I’d made when it came to Elle, and he’d righted all my wrongs.
When I rounded the corner to the kitchen, I finally saw her and paused at the doorway. She was definitely one of those women who got better with time—like a good scotch. She was wearing an ivory dress that reached her knees, and it hugged her body like a glove. Her shoes were gold with spikes on the heel. Her hair was down her back in natural waves, but the front was cut shorter, and every time she bent over, she had to blow it out of her eyes. I waited for her to stand upright before I barged in, because when it came to us, that’s what we did. We didn’t knock, and we didn’t ask for permission. We just invaded.