Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Arden
The memory of Will's words on the street still rings in my ears, ‘the universe put a giant gold frame around the tapestry of our future.’
My phone feels heavy in my pocket, I've been wanting to call Stella all morning, needing to process everything that happened.
Straight to voicemail, of course.
"Hey Stells, it's me, again. I know you’re probably…” I pause and release a breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “I actually don’t know anything.” And hang up. We’ve been playing this game of friendship ping pong for too long now, and it’s becoming less and less tenable.
Thinking about last night, after everything settled. How Will and I ended up back at my place, how he held me like I might disappear if he let go. His brother's words should have scared me more than they did. ‘You're just the latest girl in his bed helping him pretend.’
But there’s nothing about him that’s pretending. We both agreed to what this is. We set the expectations from the beginning. Which means we absolve ourselves from any pretending.
His brother's intrusion could have been the excuse I needed to bail, to protect myself from getting in too deep. Instead, it showed me just how deep I already am.
Will: He’s gone. I won’t let that happen again.
Will: Let’s celebrate tonight.
Me: I’ll grab the champagne?
Last night, after we got back to my place, we lay in bed talking until the sky started to lighten. About his brother, about his family, about the life he’s choosing, instead of the one that was planned for him.
‘They just want you to be successful,’ I said .
‘I am. Just not the kind they recognize.’
The afternoon stretches ahead, filled with meetings. The Thompson challenge isn't just a proposal anymore, it's become my personal crusade. My calendar glares at me from my computer screen. Three more meetings, two client calls, and a mountain of emails to scale before I can even think about escaping. But for the first time in forever, I'm not looking for excuses to work late. The presentation can wait until morning. The world won't end if I don't respond to every email in my inbox tonight. It's a strange feeling, this shift in priorities, like watching the tide change direction.
"Working late?" Brent asks as he passes my desk, his tone suggesting he expects nothing less.
"Actually, no, I have plans." The look of surprise on his face is almost as satisfying as the confirmation on mine when I see him sit down at my desk as I walk away.
I pause around the corner, counting his predictability like heartbeats. One, two, three... and there it is. The soft click of my mouse, the subtle shift of his weight in my chair. Through the reflection in the glass partition, I watch him navigate through my desktop with the kind of entitlement that makes men think they can take whatever they want.
He finds it exactly where I knew he would, the file labeled ‘VULCAN-Presentation.Final-final-really-final.pptx’ sitting right there like a gift-wrapped trap. I bite back a smile as he clicks it open, practically salivating at the thought of getting his hands on weeks of my supposed work. Work that I stopped sharing with him around the time I realized there never was any ‘synergy’ here. I give him another minute to dig himself deeper, to feel that surge of victory as he thinks he's gotten the upper hand as he occasionally scans the room for bystanders.
And I turn and walk away, leaving him to his petty corporate espionage.
Because I really do have plans.
We show up to the bar hours late, just in time to meet Ethan and the latest love of his life . It’s magical to watch really, the way Ethan just dives head first like he knows there’s a body of water waiting to catch him. I don’t know how long their soul-mate ship will last, but he seems happy for now. And in some ways, happy for now, is really all any of us ever have.
This comingling of friendship is an inner circle of intimacy. Though in some ways, that happened before we ever did. Ethan and Will have become closer in a way I wasn’t able to predict. Will’s friend Simon stopped by with his girlfriend Rosalie, old friends from prep school. Simon is so much like Will in that he seems to reject a lot of the people associated with that life.
I scratch my nail into the bartop, the wood is old and soft, and takes the imprint of the half moon easier than I’d expect. Will watches me, he sees me, I don't think just at this moment, but as he has from the beginning. A hyper vigilance to any move I make.
The music that fills the bar overtakes the conversation, and we all turn our heads at once to see the bustling near the front where two microphones and a screen are being set up. The problem with your local bar being your local bar, is that the locals don’t always change. Many of them cycled out in the last few years, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, but I’ve never run from places the way I’ve run from people. Places hold memories and they are easily replaced by new ones, people? You can’t replace the feelings caused by people as easily.
An emcee makes his way to the front, calling the attention of the bar-goers in a fashion that feels like it should be reserved for a camp counselor, but it makes me laugh as he rallies the crowd for what sounds like it’s going to be a lively round of karaoke.
It’s the round of tequila shots that motivates us all to put our name on the list. I’ve never hidden from a microphone, usually more to say something clever or punny with a red-solo cup, singing is not my talent, but can anyone really call karaoke singing? The first man stumbled up to the stage with his beer in hand, and as soon as the first note came on, I knew his rendition of ‘I Will Always Love You’ was going to be a complete shit show. Seems like he learned the same lesson so many women are encouraged to learn early on. A shit show is still a show, and a show means people are paying attention, which, for women, is one of the things you're meant to crave.
"How are you with late-80’s one hit wonders?" Will whispers into the crook of my neck.
"I guess we’re about to find out."
It’s when he raises the microphone to his mouth, the smile that broadens across his face is another promise.
‘ … When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you. When I go out, yeah, I know I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you. If I get drunk, well, I know I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you….And If I haver, hey, I know I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you.’
For a song that’s cheesy and a performance that’s cheesier, he’s singing it to me. It’s packed with humor and has me laughing from the dark corners I normally hide in. It’s so much more than humor though, and it’s not even a full verse before I’m singing and dancing with him on the stage unaware of everyone else. As we always seem to be devoid of any awareness of anything but the moment we exist in together.
You would think we rehearsed it. But you can’t rehearse this kind of joy.
Simon spent a good half hour talking to me about some of the technology of his company and the joys of start-up life, all the while turning back to the quiet woman tucked into his side, with remarks like ‘It’ was all Rosie’s idea’ or ‘she’s the real brains.’ I see why Will likes him, they are similar in that way, the disregard-the-status-quo way. Choosing happiness as their measure of success. I wonder if it's harder for men like this to choose happiness? Knowing that it sometimes contends with success as we know it. But as they laugh, something tells me it’s the reason they are friends. Because regardless of outcome, they wouldn't change the joys in their life.
That’s why he stood there, stood down his brother, stood up to me. Because the things he finds valuable are in moments like this. The ones where we are tangled in each other, where he’s making a cup of tea in the kitchen, or texting me mid-day to tell me about the latest thing he learned about a piece of art. It’s the way he looked at me when I woke up with my cheek pressed against his skin, like I was his best friend. And every morning when he leaves for his run, it’s the kisses he presses across my skin.
I’m watching Will at the bar as he orders us all another round. He’s cool in a way that is commanding the attention of more than a few women here. And they haven’t even heard him open his mouth. He’s attractive in his own right while there’s a casualness to it that feels like you know him, while at the same time, he’s unlike anything anyone has ever seen.
Ethan says something and I have to tear away my focus from where it has become glued to the back of his head. As the two of us sit together like we don’t have our own ancient history mere paces from us now. I told Ethan the whole thing as quickly as I could when we had a moment alone earlier, and clearly he’s been waiting to get to the meat of it. But he was there the last time. He saw me get so wrapped up in someone that I was left hanging upside down as the world went on without me. He’s seen me love someone, and he’s seen someone love me, and neither time did he have as much to say as he does now as Will and I just cling to the parts of each other that don’t require the severity of love.
"We’ve been friends for a while. You’re one of my favorite people in this world, and I’ve seen a lot of it. I love you, kid." I’m a bit taken aback by this expression of more emotion than we normally exchange. It’s not new information. Our friendship may have had the kind of origins that only a show on the CW would indicate is possible to sustain, but somehow we have. Which is why I believe him, I trust him in what he’s gearing up to say.
"Yeah, E. I love you, too." He places his hand on top of mine and squeezes and I think back to that night in Greece years ago where we sat in a dark corner not too dissimilar to this.
Despite the city, country, or year, you can always find somewhere to run and hide. I had been chatting with some young Greek college student who looked like a god and had a name like Stravos, or Nikos, or something that would have been especially good for the Good Boob Years memoir. But when he backed me against the bar and tried to kiss me, I panicked. I blinked as quickly as I could to be sure my vision was clear. I pushed him back in a way that Ethan was able to spot in the small bar, and he intervened immediately when Mr.-Athens-2008 threw his hands in the air and backed off without another word. Except for what I imagine equated to ‘crazy bitch’ in Greek muttered under his breath as he walked away.
We sat in the back corner of that tiny Greek bar, and I don’t know how, but he knew. Maybe it was because despite the numerous offers, I hadn’t so much as kissed anyone since that night. I think in the beginning he assumed it was Reid. That my heart remained so broken. But the more time we spent together, culminating in that moment, where he looked at me like he knew it was more than missing someone. ‘ Do you trust me?’ he asked that night. ‘ Of course I do .’ I replied. ‘ Why didn’t you tell me?’ ‘There was nothing to tell…’ I replied. ‘ Then why does that nothing give you nightmares?’ he asked. There wasn’t a way to explicitly say what was wrong. I’d thought so much about it in a way I could never even explain. Apparently so much so that my subconscious in the smallest windows of sleep screamed for help. We never talked about it again. But I wonder if he’s always had this sad awareness since then.
But right now, he’s gearing up to say something. Deliver a point that he often would have reserved.
"I know you’re afraid. But for the first time since I can’t remember when, you seem like you’re living your life. I get you’re afraid of what it means, but you love him. You’ve been treading water for a long time now. It’s like you forgot that you actually know how to fucking swim."
"You can’t know that." I yank my hand from under his, as if it will disconnect whatever source of information he is drawing from.
"Sure I can." His eyes soften with a shrug like it’s obvious.
"Why, because you’ve seen it before?" I press firmly. Rolling my eyes in a way to hopefully dismiss the accusation I’m not in a position to accept.
"No, because I’ve never seen you like this before."