Chapter 27 Marsh #2
“Did you ever think I wasn’t happy all those years because I was in a relationship I didn’t want to be in?” I counter. “Mom, look at me now. I’m happy. I’m happier than I ever have been. I have moved on. She has moved on. We’re both in a good place and it’s better this way.”
“So, you’re telling me you have it all?” my mom says unconvinced. “That you have everything you need?”
I let out an exasperated breath. “Mom, sometimes not having everything is the answer. Riding the rainbow is more fun than sitting with a pot of gold.”
My mom stands there speechless, and I’m thinking that maybe for the first time she’s really understanding what I’m saying.
“Now,” I say and offer my arm, “let’s go find a seat, okay?”
She doesn’t say anything. She just loops her arm in mine and we find a place with everyone.
The actual ceremony goes by fast. There’s nothing about it that’s noteworthy. It’s an event that I could have gone without seeing the rest of my life, but now that I have, I believe that I needed to see it.
Later in the evening, when the sun is finally down, and after the speeches and the dinner, the band starts playing their rendition of Top 40 music.
Quinn grabs Oliver’s hand, forcing him to the dance floor, and Lucy and I follow.
My mom is somewhere, chatting with my dad’s old college friends, and the four of us find ourselves in a circle, lip-synching to Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life.” At some point in the song, Lucy and Quinn hold hands while jumping up and down.
A thrum travels up my abdomen into my heart at the sight.
Lucy then moves closer to me and gives me a hug. “You know…” she says over the music.
“Mhm?”
“Given the circumstance, I think this is probably the best wedding I’ve ever been to.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, I think you’re right,” I say.
Lucy looks up at me, her eyes mischievous. “In-N-Out closes at one-thirty a.m…. Are you hungry?”
A breathless laugh escapes me. After a three-course meal of some of Palm Springs’ best food, of course she’s asking if I would want burgers.
“You know…I weirdly am.” I glance at my watch and see that it’s almost eleven p.m. “I’m going to squeeze one more drink in.”
“Perfect.” She gives me a high five and then finds her way back to Quinn while I head toward the bar.
After ordering, I clock my mom willingly making conversation with Lucy.
It’s her, Lucy, and Quinn sitting and laughing.
I even see my mom admire Lucy’s rings. I want to give them both space to form their own relationship, so I mosey over to the front of the hotel and take a breath away from everyone.
The sky is a deep black and there’s a chill in the air.
Out here, away from the city, the stars are so much more visible. I admire the shimmery dust above me.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says behind me.
“Hey,” I say without turning around, knowing exactly who it is. Julia appears to my left and I feel nothing. “Congratulations. It’s a beautiful wedding.” My gaze falls to where her hand is, sitting on her stomach that’s not yet showing. “Congratulations times two.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Is this where I thank you for inviting me?”
“Marsh…”
I take a sip of my drink. “Shouldn’t you be inside?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” she says, and I motion my glass to her to allow her to keep talking. “I’m sorry things happened the way they did.”
“Jules”—a breath of air shoots out of my nose—“I think it’s a little late to have that conversation.”
“Come on, I’m serious.”
“I am too.”
“I just…” She shifts her weight to the other foot.
All I think is it’s sad. It’s sad for her to be here on her wedding night with all her friends and family a few hundred feet behind her, her new husband waiting, and she still needs closure.
“I just want you to be okay, Marsh. I want us both to be okay.”
“I am,” I say sincerely. “Are you?”
“I am. I really am,” she says, and I don’t even know if I believe her. But it’s not my job to read between the lines anymore.
“Mm.” I take another sip of my whiskey, letting the distinct ginger flavor sit on my taste buds.
“Chad loves me very much.”
“Are you telling that to me or to yourself?”
“Maybe it wasn’t right of me to rub all of this in your face…but I want you to have this too. I really do, Marsh. All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you.”
Despite what happened between us, I believe her. I don’t think Julia deliberately hurt me. I think she made a decision that had consequences, but I don’t think there were ever malicious intentions.
“Lucy and I are in a really good place,” I say. “I feel good about it.”
“Lucy?” she says incredulously.
“What?” I frown.
“You don’t even know her…” Julia gives a pointed look. “What she’s like.”
“I actually know a lot about her.”
“She’s not the person you think she is,” Julia says.
“Are you talking about last night?”
She looks down. “She told you about last night?”
“Yeah, because we don’t keep secrets from each other,” I say, knowing that it might sting.
“Is that why you told her everything?” she spits back at me and then lowers her voice. “How could you?”
“Because I’m with Lucy now and I want our relationship to be open and honest—”
“Marshall,” Julia snaps. “You’re never going to be happy with someone like Lucy.”
“Who’s someone like Lucy?” I repeat.
“Come on.” She gives me a doubtful look. “I get it. She’s young, and hot, and exactly what you want out of a rebound. But you can’t settle down with someone like that.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I spit out, offended in more ways than one.
“What she writes about…” Julia warns.
“Okay…” I shrug. “And?”
“And you graduated at the top of your class at USC; you’re one of the best news reporters in the city. You want to be with someone who writes about what she does for a living?”
“Sex and relationships?” I squint, making sure we’re talking about the same thing.
“Sex,” Julia corrects me. “She’s a sex writer. She writes about sex. I’ve read her articles. She doesn’t write about relationships. She’s not even capable of writing about relationships because she’s never been in one.”
I begin to feel hot underneath my collar. “She actually is in one, Julia,” I say sharply.
“Oh please,” Julia scoffs again. “She’s probably using you to write her latest set of stories. It’s going great right now but you’re just another dildo to her. Lucy’s going to chew you up and spit you out.”
“The way you did?” My pulse thunders.
“I loved you, Marsh,” she says, and the words out of her mouth feel more like an insult than anything. “Lucy will never love you because she’s incapable of love…and you know it.”
Julia’s words feel like arrows that were just shot at me and now I’m standing speechless with holes through my body.
I don’t know what to say. Julia doesn’t know Lucy the way I do, the intricacies of Lucy’s relationship with love.
But I can’t deny Julia just said out loud something I’ve been wondering: Would Lucy and I really work?
The answer is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter to me.
I no longer want to connect with another person on the sole indicator of “Will it work?” All that matters is “Do I want to try and make it work?”
While I could easily spit back and say nothing but equally hurtful things at Julia, I won’t.
Because I don’t have anything to prove to her right now.
It takes a certain kind of person to find their ex and say hurtful things on their own wedding day, and it takes a certain kind of person to cheat on their partner of nine and a half years.
I’m not entertaining this, and it proves nothing by doing so.
“Yeah, well.” I nod. “If that’s what loving me looks like then I think I’ll be fine.”
“I just don’t want you to waste more time,” Julia says earnestly. “And I know we could have the same conversation over and over again about who wasted whose time…but when it comes down to it, I don’t want to see you give yourself to someone again and then have them hurt you.”
“Julia.” I look at her, not even able to trick my mind and see anything other than someone mean in a wedding dress.
“I appreciate you trying to look out for me. I really do. And maybe you’re trying to get my forgiveness before you start this next chapter, guilt free.
If that’s what you need, Jules, then you got it.
Go. Start your family, live your life with a clear conscience.
Because in all honesty, you did something I was too much of a coward to do.
You ended it. So, for that, I thank you. ”
With that, I turn around and end my final conversation with Julia.