Chapter 33
33
It’s so nice to have lunch with Ginny again. To hear their voice and see their smile. To make them laugh.
This is what Elsie wanted.
She wanted to be friends with Ginny.
Obviously, everything they did on the honeymoon messed up their friendship. So they’re doing exactly what Elsie suggested three weeks ago: pretending the trip never happened and going back to being friends. They’re both stronger now, more sure of themselves, so the friendship will be better, too.
They make plans to do lunch again. Not until Monday, which is fine. They don’t have to do lunch every day to be best friends. It’s fine. It’s great. It’s what Elsie wanted.
So it’s a little harder than she expected to pretend the trip didn’t happen, but that’s fine. So she has to hold back the feelings that want to burst out of her, the way her heart skips a beat when Ginny touches her. She can handle that. It’s worth it.
Valentine’s Day comes and goes—unsurprisingly, it’s not a busy day for the store—and by Saturday morning, the brand refresh is an official project. They might not get to do everything Elsie wants—shit’s expensive, after all—but her dad has at least committed to changing the sign out front. He’s been remarkably easygoing about everything. When Danielle revealed she’d been budgeting more for a brand refresh than he’d agreed to when Elsie graduated, he didn’t even glower—he chuckled.
Elsie and Danielle shared a look of bafflement, but neither voiced it. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
Which is why Elsie doesn’t say anything but thank you when her dad clears a tiny corner of his desk. For her. The rest of the office is a disaster, as always, but there’s just enough room on the desk for Elsie to set up her laptop and work. Because this is part of her job now, working on her laptop in her dad’s office instead of staffing the register. It makes her want to scream with joy, but she holds back. Stays professional. Does her job.
She’s gathering quotes for now. Potential costs for tinkering with her logo, updating their signage, redesigning the website. She makes spreadsheets. Color-codes them. Feels like she’s back in school again, but in a good way.
“Elsie to the register, please. Elsie to the register.”
Elsie sighs at her mom’s voice over the intercom. Of course she can’t have even an hour to focus.
It turns out she’s not actually needed at the register.
No. It’s worse. Or if not worse, much stranger.
Derrick is standing in the checkout lane chatting with Elsie’s mother. Elsie hasn’t seen him since before Santa Lupita. He made himself scarce when she moved her things from the apartment to her parents’ house and left her key on the kitchen counter.
“Here she is,” Elsie’s mom says, and Derrick looks up at her.
His smile still makes Elsie’s heart flutter. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Elsie says.
“He wondered if you could take a break and get coffee,” Elsie’s mom says for him. “I said that was fine.”
That’s not exactly her decision to make, but Elsie is too baffled by Derrick’s random appearance to complain.
“Sure,” she says. “But I don’t have long.”
They go to the coffee shop across the street. Elsie has always wished she could up her queer cred by drinking only iced coffee, even in winter, but while it’s an unseasonably warm day for mid-February, she still orders a hot red velvet mocha, their Valentine’s special. She takes the cardboard sleeve off the cup so her chronically cold fingers can benefit from direct heat.
The conversation is surface level— Hi, how have you been? Crazy weather, huh? Damn climate change —until they sit at a table in the corner with their drinks. Derrick clears his throat, then, and looks at his hands, big enough to make the cup in them look small.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking since you broke things off, which you were totally right to do, by the way. I did not give you enough consideration when I planned the wedding. Or when I proposed, for that matter. Your graduation should’ve been about you. I’m sorry I fucked that up.”
It’s so unexpected, Elsie’s brain lags in processing. This is more reflection than Derrick did the entire time they were together.
“Thanks?” Elsie says, and it comes out like a question.
Derrick chuckles sheepishly. “Sorry, that’s not even what I wanted to say, just something I figured out in therapy recently.”
“Therapy?”
“Yeah, it’s super helpful. Cash totally calls me on my shit, and it’s like—I’m not even doing this stuff intentionally, I just need someone to point it out. Like when they asked about the proposal, it took me a while to understand what they were getting at, but now that I figured it out I feel so stupid.”
They? Does her ex somehow have a nonbinary therapist? Elsie has no idea what’s happening.
“I know intent isn’t as important as impact,” Derrick says, “but I do want you to know I never meant to steal your spotlight. I was thinking it was a great time to propose because I wanted all your family and friends to be there and share in the joy, but obviously it should have been about you, not us. I’m sorry.”
What. The. Fuck. (Complimentary.)
“Okay,” Elsie says. “Thank you.” It’s not a question this time. She does have one, though. “You figured out all of this in like three weeks of therapy?”
Derrick laughs. “Yeah. I told Cash I needed tough love and, uh, they sort of shoved me off the deep end.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “But anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Or, like, it’s part of it, I guess. But yeah. The reason I asked you to coffee is—I totally understand if you don’t want to. No hard feelings either way.”
Elsie has no idea what he’s talking about. He makes eye contact, holds it.
“I want to give us another shot. Like, as a couple.”
“Oh,” Elsie says.
Derrick keeps going. “Not like let’s be engaged again, but even just dating. I love you, Elsie. And I can see a lot of things I did wrong. Probably not everything, because I’m still learning, obviously. But I want to learn with you. I want to be better with you. If that’s something you’d be open to.”
Elsie has barely thought about Derrick since she ended things.
“Sorry,” he says when she doesn’t respond immediately. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like this. But it felt like something I had to ask in person.”
He’s showing more emotional intelligence in one conversation than he ever has before. But his emotional intelligence, or lack thereof, wasn’t what made her end things.
Last month, Elsie thought life was simple. She thought she knew how things were going to go. How they were supposed to go. Simple seemed nice. And she could still have it, if she wanted. She could say yes. It’d be easy.
Simple and easy isn’t particularly romantic.
“I know you aren’t sure what you want.” His voice isn’t quite as strong as usual, like he’s realized he’s fighting a losing battle. “But I thought maybe we could figure it out together.”
“I am sure what I want,” Elsie says. She didn’t know until right now, but she is. “I’m sorry, really. But I’m not interested in getting back together. I have to go.”
She should explain more. She should let him down gently. She should go back to the store, at least to tell someone she’s taking a longer break.
But Elsie doesn’t care about should.