Fifty-Two
Stacy
Tashia looks sheepish in my doorway. She’s hugging herself, her head low as she glances up at me through thick lashes.
Her bottom lip is sucked into her teeth as she rocks back and forth on her heels.
The early March wind rips through the breezeway of my apartment complex, an icy chill splicing through the air, but I’m too shocked to move as I stare at Tashia’s remorseful face, my jaw unhinged.
Finally, Tashia whispers, “Can I come in?”
It takes me a solid few seconds to recover before I nod, stepping aside and opening my door wider to invite her inside.
She trudges in, kicking her boots off at my door and perching on the edge of my couch as I turn to face her.
We mimic each other’s body language as I hug my arms around my torso, keeping my distance and hovering by my front door.
The silence is piercing before Tashia eventually says, “I told Evan.”
My brows pull down as I lower myself into the chair situated diagonally from my couch. “Told Evan… what?”
“The truth.” She worries her lip again. “The truth that you deserve. The true version of what went down between Reece and me on New Year’s Eve.”
“I don’t…” I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have a doubt in my mind that Reece told you his version of our conversation at lunch.
And…” Tashia hesitates, her mouth ajar as she drops her voice.
“That’s the true version, Stace. Reece never said a word about getting back together, he never talked to me about calling off the wedding, that was all me.
And I…” She trails off, a couple tears sliding down her cheeks as she shakes her head.
I wait in stunned silence, my eyes glued to Tashia’s square face as her lower lip begins to quiver.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Her voice cracks as she bats away her tears.
“I could give you some big sob story about daddy issues and how my dad left when I was a kid so now I crave validation and attention from everyone but the truth is, that’s not a excuse.
The truth is I’m just… kind of fucked up. ”
I continue to stare, my heartstrings tugging slightly at Tashia’s distress. She may be fucked up in some ways but god knows I’m not much better.
“It may not seem like it but I’ve wrestled a lot with what happened between Reece and me,” she goes on.
“Just because I act happy doesn’t mean I don’t regret what I did.
I hate that I hurt Reece, I hate myself for it everyday.
The worst part is, I can’t even defend my actions.
Reece did nothing, nothing to deserve what I did to him.
He was a perfect boyfriend but I needed more attention than he was able to give me with cheer and classes.
You could say I’m a little high maintenance.
” A faint, sad smile passes over her face as her eyes stay glued to my coffee table.
“Reece was so busy with your competitions and school and his friends .
And maybe part of me resented him for that because I always only had Lily and Reece could make a friend anywhere.
Maybe I resented him for having things in his life besides me that were important.
“When I started talking to Evan, he was just settling into his new job post-grad. He had just moved back to Cincinnati, he was getting used to having a career, he didn’t have a lot of friends in the city besides Brayden and he was…
there . He was attentive and he didn’t have the distractions of college and sports like Reece so I started talking to him more and more when Reece was at practice, at a football game, at an after-party, with Miles or Drew.
He invited me to everything, to all your parties and out to bars and to watch you all cheer but I felt like I would be…
I don’t know, stepping into a role? It felt like he had one life with me and one life with everyone and everything else and I don’t think I knew exactly how to fit into his life like he wanted me to. ”
I nod as Tashia takes a steadying breath. Her voice cracks as she tries to speak again and I find myself murmuring, “It’s okay.”
She glances up at me with watery eyes and bobs her head before continuing.
“I felt like an outsider looking in on Reece. This amazing, spectacular, friendly, funny, bubbly boy who everyone loved. He never meant to make me feel that way and I know I should’ve talked to him but instead, I pulled away.
I talked to Evan. We texted, talked on the phone, sent each other funny videos or songs that made us think of each other.
He made me feel seen, I guess.” Tashia shrugs and I swallow a lump in my throat.
“Do you want some wine?” I ask gently.
“So much wine, please,” she answers immediately.
My lips tick up as I amble up and over to the kitchen.
I hear Tashia shuck off her jacket behind me as I pour us two hefty glasses of red.
When I turn around, I see Tashia curled up into the side of my couch, her knees pulled to her chest, and something in my own chest tightens.
I’ve been intimidated by Tashia since we met, this strong, self-assured, beautiful woman who Reece used to be oh so very in love with.
But now I can see how fragile she really is. Her blotched cheeks, her watery eyes, her trembling lips.
She’s just another broken girl like me.
I plop down next to Tashia, on the couch this time instead of the chair, handing her a glass while taking my own drag of merlot. “Go on,” I tell her before going in for another sip.
She sighs and takes a healthy gulp herself before continuing.
“I’m sure Reece has told you the story of our affair by now.
Evan and I were drunk the first time we slept together and we both freaked out for a long time afterwards.
I felt so guilty, so disgusting and I think my guilt caused me to pull away from Reece even more.
As I pulled away from him, I gravitated towards Evan.
We were both sick about what we did and we couldn’t tell anyone else so we started talking more than before.
We almost… bonded over our guilt, which sounds so incredibly fucked up when I say it out loud but it’s true.
“The lines of my relationship with Evan became really blurry really fast and, if I’m honest, I’m not sure if it was an emotional or physical affair at first. It ended up being both, obviously, but I have no idea when everything spilled out and fell into place and we really fell in love.
But we did though.” Her voice catches and she has to take a few seconds to collect herself.
“I never wanted to hurt Reece, Stacy. I know that’s hard to believe and I don’t deserve his forgiveness or his grace but things got out of hand before I could figure out what to do.
Then we broke up and I started publicly dating Evan and I… ”
Tashia hesitates as I grip my wine glass like a lifeline. I pull my knees up to my chest as well, mirroring her before nudging her shin with my foot. “You can tell me.”
“I was okay. I was better than okay, I was genuinely happy with Evan which made me feel even worse. But then you came along.” She gestures to me with her wine glass. “And I looked at you and saw everything I ever wanted to be with Reece.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you fit into his life. You seemed to slip into a perfect rhythm with Reece that I could never quite manage. You had his full attention, you shared friends and hobbies and social circles and I was jealous . Not even that Reece had moved on, I don’t think.
I was jealous that he found someone who fit with him the way I always wanted to.
He was my first real relationship, you know?
The first guy I ever fell in love with and I wanted for us to work.
I wanted for us to work so bad and when I saw it working for him with you, it just…
stung. It shouldn’t have, it’s not logical. But relationships aren’t logical.”
“Hear, hear.” I raise my glass.
Tashia snorts slightly, touching her glass to mine before taking another big gulp.
“I think seeing you two together made me question a lot of things. It made me question what would’ve happened between us if maybe I’d tried a little bit harder to fit into his life.
What would’ve happened if I pushed to hang out with his friends, went to his games, accepted his invites to parties and bars, you know?
And when we were in Nashville, everyone kept talking about the wedding and marriage and forever and I just… I freaked out, Stacy.”
“Yeah, typically marriages and weddings mean forever.”
She gives me a droll look and forges on without making a comment.
“I started wondering if I’d made a mistake.
My relationship with Evan didn’t necessarily start on solid ground and sometimes that makes me question a lot about the stability of us as a couple.
So, I decided to do the dumbest shit I’ve done so far in my life, which is saying a lot, and, well, you know what happened.
After our lunch, I got so drunk and so panicked that Reece would tell Evan so I told Lily all about it but twisted the story so maybe I’d have an alibi if Evan confronted me.
I thought I could turn it around on Reece if it came back to bite me in the ass but…
” She shakes her head. “It bit me anyway when I realized I couldn’t lie anymore. ”
I nod at Tashia as she goes back to her wine, sipping consistently in a way that makes me think her story is over. My fingers tap the bowl of my wine glass, regarding the teary-eyed girl on my couch as a million different emotions flow through me.
Confusion, however, seems to be the most prevalent.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I finally ask.
“Reece is a good man,” she answers immediately. “He deserves the world. He deserves happiness. He deserves a hell of a lot more than me.” She pauses, her face softening. “He deserves you. And I’m so sorry I drove a wedge between you two. I’m so sorry that I fucked things up.”
I blink away the tears blurring my eyes. “You didn’t,” I tell her .
Tashia whips her head to me. “What?”
“You didn’t,” I repeat. “I mean, you definitely made things a little rocky, but I… I had a lot of my own shit to sort out. If anything, what you did made me realize that I needed to work on myself before I could let Reece love me. In a way, maybe I should be… I don’t know, thanking you?”
Tashia huffs out a watery laugh. “Trust me, you should not be thanking me.”
I give her a half-hearted smile before an earlier comment circles back into my mind. “You told Evan?” I ask, my stomach dropping ever so slightly.
The mild humor disappears from Tashia’s face. Her lower lip starts to tremble as she grinds out, “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”
“And?”
Fresh tears stream down Tashia’s freckled cheeks. “And we’re… working on things. But I’m not so sure there’s going to be a wedding in May.” Her voice breaks and for the first time since she showed up, I glance down and note the absence of an engagement ring on her left hand.
Almost out of reflex, I reach out and put a hand on Tashia’s knee. “I bet you two will work it out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure.” She gives me a bitter laugh.
“When you build a relationship based on lies, there isn’t a lot of room left for trust. I think telling Evan what I said to Reece…
pretty much destroyed whatever ounce of trust he had left in me.
We haven’t officially called it off but, uh…
I haven’t been wearing my ring. I haven’t been staying at his place.
” Tashia pauses, pressing her mouth to the back of her hand to stifle a sob before she looks at me with tear-stained eyes. “I’m scared,” she whispers.
“Of losing Evan? ”
She nods. “Of losing Evan. Of ruining Evan’s relationship with his brother. Of myself and this disgusting, bad person I’ve become. It’s why I had to come talk to you. I can’t live like this anymore.”
Her sobs ensue again and I squeeze her knee. “Hey,” I whisper. “Sometimes good people do bad things, Tashia. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.”
She regards me before mumbling into her hand, “You think?”
I bob my head and stroke the denim of her jeans slightly. “I know. Because I did some bad things, too. I acted out before hearing Reece’s side of things. I walked away from him. Sure, maybe I needed that space to figure myself out a little bit but I hurt him really , really badly.”
Tashia seems to be processing this information, her eyes glued to my rug before she murmurs, barely loud enough for me to hear, “Don’t let him go.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t let him go,” she repeats, tearing her gaze away from my floor and back to my face. “Don’t let Reece go. I might not get my forever with Evan but that’s my own fault. If there’s still a chance for you to have that with Reece… Take it, Stace. You deserve it, you both do. Please .”
Swallowing, I notice a tight lump forming at the base of my throat. I try blinking back the stinging in my eyes but it’s no use as tears start to fall down my face. “I, uh, think I need to find Reece.” I nod, mainly to myself as a moment of clarity settles over me. “I need to talk to him. Now.”
The fog from the last two months seems to clear from my brain as I see it all in front of me.
A future with Reece. A long, beautiful life together.
A tiny, one-bedroom apartment in the city while we figure out our careers, a dog or cat from a local shelter, Christmas Eve at my parents, Christmas Day at his.
Anniversary celebrations at overpriced steakhouses, Friday nights on our couch binge-watching our favorite TV shows.
Takeout, grocery shopping, vacations, mundane Monday’s mixed with the exciting, big moments that make permanent imprints in our brains.
A bar that becomes our bar with friends that become our friends.
The big, bad stuff, the wonderful high’s, and all of the tiny, minuscule moments in between.
I want it all.
A little light comes back into Tashia’s eyes at my comment. She sets her wine down, rising up on her knees on my couch cushion and angling her body towards me completely. “Can I help?” she asks fervently, reaching over to grip my hand that’s not wrapped around my wine glass.
I worry my lip, my mind racing until my eyes land on the letter from Reece. Everything goes still as half of a plan formulates in my mind. A cheesy, stupid, ridiculous plan, but a plan that Reece will find utterly, nauseatingly adorable.
“Actually, you can.” I tear my eyes away from the note and back to Tashia. “Can you call Lily?”