Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
HAPPILY EVER DURING
Arden
"What’s a better word for cock? And please don’t say ‘member’ again." Heads turn from all corners of the coffee shop and converge right on our table, not clearly as tucked away and remote as we thought.
"First of all, I have absolutely never said ‘member,’ and second, you do realize we’re still in public, right?"
“And when has that ever stopped you?"
Both are rhetorical questions. Mine, because we have been at this same table nearly every Sunday for months as Amanda writes her seventh contemporary romance novel. Hers, because our friends have all us sneak off to find moments of sanctuary together regardless of crowds.
"Fine, Arden, you’ve never said member, but I’m not going to whisper the word cock when half the people in here have them." She shakes her head with a light laugh and looks back to her computer as she continues her original thought. "It’s just that, I don’t think she’d say cock when this scene is melancholy. Cock is just so aggressive, it’s like COCKK." She says the word again, this time with additional emphasis on the harshness of the hard K. The sound that bookends the word to prove her point, in turn earning a few extra glares in our direction.
"Is this the breakup scene?" I empty the rest of my mug, sipping down that end-of-cup-was-once- hot-coffee and sugar mixture.
"Yep! Breakup sex scene to be specific. It’s more them accepting closure this time, but something isn’t quite right yet. I need more perspective, preferably from a male point of view. And considering I can’t go back to the source on this one and ask my ex..." She’d said she was most excited about this book, because it was inspired by her actual love story.
"I always welcome more inspiration if you want to share whatever’s got your mind churning." Amanda tips her chin up and replies with a wink. She’s not wrong; my mind is churning with the memory of Reid that I haven’t thought about in years.
I was nineteen. We hadn’t been together that long, but it was an important relationship for me, until he ended it one night after a few too many drinks and external influences pushed us to be the worst versions of ourselves. And at that point, he decided I was never going to be enough. Too young, too immature. And even though he granted me the one-last-time I asked for when I showed up at his door hoping he would take me back, we eventually moved on.
Reid had never been one to mince words, or hold back what he means. So after he dumped me, I never rehashed the breakup, or reminisced over our time together. No matter how long I spent thinking we would end up together. I never told him, terrified of what would have happened having him reject me a second time. Eventually, that thought became as distant as the person I was when I met him.
He had so much more impact on how I viewed love than I ever really admitted. Both in the good and bad. Making me feel both easy to love, and then not at all, was something it took time for me to unravel. And while for a time I skirted from relationship to relationship keeping them casual enough for him to come back, I lived in a constant state of anticipation. Every relationship felt like holding a door open with trembling arms, waiting for him to walk through. I'd catch myself imagining the weight of his footsteps approaching that door I held open with such desperate hope. It terrified me how much power I gave him, how I'd built my romantic life around the possibility of his return, I measured every new connection against the ghost of what we had, keeping everyone at arm's length so they couldn't take up the space I was saving for him.
Eventually, I met someone who showed me all the ways loving someone is not a choice and all the ways it is. And Will has continued to choose me, and I him without question, ever since.
"I was just thinking about when I was dumped." I wince as I say it, because in your thirties, who would want to think about their college breakup? My early twenties were enough of that. "Aside from being the only time I’ve been broken up with, it’s also my only reference for breakup sex. The rest of the time I was doing the dumping, and at that point the last thing I really wanted from any of them was sex. Reid is the only reference." I shrug.
"Don’t hold back..."
"For starters, I spoke to him recently."
"Okay, now I’m even more curious!"
"It’s far from what you think. He had something at work and was curious about an alternative approach. It’s just something we’ve done on and off for years, reaching out for perspective on different projects. It’s not a big deal."
"Not even to Will?" she asks clearly in disbelief. "You guys just chat without any of the old feelings burning through?"
"Nope, not even to Will. Those old feelings burnt out when we were children. He’s engaged, there’s nothing left in the space between us except friendship." I know so. They’ve even met once. I’m not sure who it was more clarifying for. Will had no doubt at the time, but I think walking away from it he could see that there was nothing left besides some old camaraderie and shared work-experiences.
"Okay, Amanda. I’ll prove it. You want a male perspective on the breakup sex scene? I’ll text him and ask Reid."
me: A friend of mine is writing a book, and it has a big plot point around breakup sex as closure. I offered you up as a male perspective on the topic about when you ended things between us! Hope you don’t mind sharing your thoughts!
I don’t have time to worry about a potential miscommunication over one too many exclamation points, and he doesn’t read that much into anything. I set my phone back down on the table, ready to pick up a different conversation while we waited for his eventual reply. I used to obsess over just every comma and word. Is my tone too much. Am I coming on too strong. But not anymore, not considering our very full lives. I saw his engagement post six months ago, someone he works with, and he liked the recent photo of me sitting at the piano with a new puppy seated next to me on the bench, the one I captioned 'Barktoven.'"
Reid Jennings: Arden, what are you talking about when I ended things?
I drag my teeth across my bottom lip. Is he kidding? Trying to be avoidant? It’s been years and while we have never actually talked about our breakup, surely he remembers it.
me: I know we’re getting old, but try and remember 2008 ;) I told her about how you dumped me when we were in college because I thought it would be helpful for her book
Reid Jennings: got that part, AB
Reid Jennings : but I didn’t dump you
It’s Amanda who finally breaks the silence, slowly closing her laptop. Forgoing her own writing in this moment exchanging it for the real life dramedy playing out in front of her.
"What are you texting back?"
"I-I’m not... I mean, I don’t..."
Seriously, though. What did I just step into? Was it too bold to outright text him about our relationship, about our breakup, about our breakup sex? This was outside the bounds of our normal conversations, but I trusted him and the friendship we have built over the last 14 years. It was a friendship based on mutual respect and time. More than anything else, I respect myself, my marriage.
He drew clear lines around who we were post breakup, and I never crossed them. Never crying to him that I missed him, except almost once, and I never made that mistake again. Erasing all drafts of him I had saved so long ago I don’t even remember what they once said.
Besides today’s text which I shot off without too much forethought, he had texted me a few months ago looking for some advice about a potential acquisition of a small company.
Our careers sometimes overlapped. Had similar starts too, but eventually after feeling like I was in a rat race of men only to get a pat on the head, I left to focus on somewhere that I could define. Rather than climbing a ladder where everyone behind me was just trying to look up my skirt while beating me to the top.
I look between the phone and back to Amanda. My best friend was staring at me like she just struck romance novelist gold, her big brown eyes absolutely on fire with the possibility of what was about to play out in front of her.
"I don’t really know what to text back to that. I don’t even know what to think about that."
His initial response shocked me; his follow up paralyzed me. And now I am flooded with the doubt that bringing up our romantic relationship wasn’t wise. We had never directly discussed it. We had never indirectly discussed it. Not until enough time had passed and we started more seriously dating other people, at which point we would casually throw out an inquiry, a litmus test to ensure our boundaries were still firmly in place. They always were.
We give it a few minutes, but his response never comes. Yep, that’s Reid. So we move on to the next plot point until it’s time to go.
"Same time next week?" Amanda asks as we both gather up our things to leave the coffee shop. The same people who were offended by the colorful language and explicit conversation are now leaping for our perfectly positioned table. I always could pick a good seat.
"You got it!" I kiss her cheek goodbye and grab a couple croissants to bring home with me, though they usually don’t make it out of the car.
"Will?" I call out as I push open the door and drop my bag on our entryway bench—a flea market find that Will swears was ‘liberated’ from the university sometime in the 1960s.
"In here!" He responds from the kitchen, and I follow his voice through our gentle maze. And there he is, standing over our kitchen sink, hands slightly soapy, wearing a university sweatshirt we both would have sported when we were actual students, but now, he’s been upgraded to professor.
Now a fully tenured professor teaching some of the same courses we both took, how full circle.
"How was coffee?" he asks as I join him at the sink, throwing my hair into a messy bun atop my head.
"Well, you actually wouldn't believe it..." I start, grabbing a dish towel and falling into our choreography of wash and dry while I begin to tell him how today’s session of drawing out sex scenes for the practicality of them, shifted into mind fuckery I didn’t see coming.
"Okay, walk me through this again," Will says, handing me another plate. His mouth is doing that thing where he's trying not to smile too much at my predicament, but the corners keep twitching upward anyway. The late afternoon sun streaming through our kitchen window catches on my wedding ring as I gesture trying with all my might to explain, sending little prisms dancing across our cabinets.
"You just casually texted Reid… about your breakup… for Amanda's book?"
I groan and bump his hip with mine, nearly knocking over the tiny potted succulent that's somehow survived three months on our windowsill despite my best efforts to kill it with neglect. Though given Will’s history, it very well could be an imposter.
“When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous."
"That's because it is ridiculous. Gloriously ridiculous, and very you." He reaches over and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his hands still slightly soapy. A drop of water rolls down my neck, and he kisses it away.
“What does that mean?”
“Arden, objectively speaking, people don’t stay friends with their exes like you do. And they definitely don’t ‘casually text’ them about what is arguably the greatest romantic fumble in history asking for details about a sexual encounter that happened more than a decade ago… And now he's saying he didn't break up with you?"
"Right?" I set down the dish towel and hop up onto the counter, legs dangling. From this perch, I can see into our spare room-turned-office, turned-nursery, turned-back-into-an-office, turned-cautious-place-we-are-storing-everything-until-it-becomes-a-nursery.
"I mean, I was there. I lived it." I say returning to the conversation between us, recapping the one from earlier.
Will abandons the dishes entirely now, coming to stand between my knees.
"And you're absolutely sure about this memory?"
"I mean..." I start picking at a loose thread on his sweatshirt, the logo is so faded it's barely legible anymore. "I was nineteen. And there was a party, beer pong, and that questionable kind of punch that was served out of a giant plastic tub. I vaguely remember gummy worms. But still! "
"The plot thickens!" Will throws his head back laughing, and I'm momentarily distracted by the way the fading light catches on his jawline. Even in marriage, he still sometimes catches me off guard with how stupidly handsome he is.
"So you're telling me that the great breakup of freshman year might have been a tequila-induced hallucination?"
"You're enjoying this way too much," I pout, but I'm fighting a smile too. He fills our apartment with laughter the same way he fills it with art, deliberately and with absolute devotion.
"I'm just trying to picture nineteen-year-old you showing up at his door for breakup sex, possibly tequila-fueled, after he maybe-didn't-actually break up with you." He's grinning now, full and unrestrained.
"Stop," I groan, hiding my face in his shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of his laundry detergent mixed with the warm amber musk he wears. "This is insane enough without you narrating it like it's the plot of a bad romance novel."
"Sounds like a pretty good romance novel to me… I bet Amanda agrees." His hands find their way to my waist, thumbs brushing the strip of skin where my shirt has ridden up. "Girl mistakenly thinks boy breaks up with her, has dramatic breakup sex, goes on to become happy, successful, marries the love of her life… " his thumb rubbing my stomach means so much more now. "The way I see it, we're here because of all of that, not in spite of it. Do I actually want to talk about my wife's sex life before me? No. But that was a lifetime ago. We were different people then."
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his expression softening, but I lean in, and his kiss tastes like mint tea he has sitting on the counter.
I'm about to respond when my phone pings again. We both freeze, staring at it like it might explode. But it's just Amanda, asking if there are any updates.
Will sets the phone down and takes both my hands in his.
"Well, first of all, you're going to tell Amanda she owes you big time for this plot twist. And second..." He pauses, and I can see him choosing his words carefully, the same way he does when he's trying to explain why a particular brushstroke in a Monet matters. "Maybe it's time to finally clear up whatever happened that night. You're not nineteen anymore, Arden."
He gestures around our kitchen, with its mismatched mugs and the vases full of champagne corks from celebrations we've shared, the takeout menus magneted to the fridge next to paint swatches for the accent wall we keep talking about doing but haven't gotten around to yet.
"Whatever he says doesn’t change who you are now, maybe just how you got here.”
It’s going to be a long Monday; I can feel it already. Especially after the last 24 hours and yesterday’s great revelation.
I’ve been obsessing over what I can control about this pregnancy, nausea and heartburn not in the I can control this column, so instead, I’ve been fixated on preparing for my departure from work. There was a time when I was afraid that if I wasn’t the hardest working person in the room, that no one would see my value. But as with most things, that view changed with age and the awareness that men often reach for bronze and treat it like gold because it gives them the chance to win without setting expectations too high. Whereas for me, I spent years being an overachiever thinking it would be noticed, but instead it became the floor of what was expected of me.
This morning when I settled in at my desk, looking around my office at the collection of items, photos, moments of my life I have around me. I’d be lying to myself to say I didn’t also think about Reid and his message. I hadn’t come up with anything to say in response to his ‘but-I-didn’t-dump-you’ text, and he didn’t seem to have anything else to say either. So we left it where we leave all of our history. In the past. And in all the places my mind is wandering, there’s no path that isn’t landing me at my very own front door.
Nineteen year old me might be incredibly impressed with the career I’ve made for myself, so would twenty-three year old me, but none of that will matter if I let this all turn into a dumpster fire right before I take parental leave. I draft an email to get some clarity around this latest mess, at work, not my personal life , in the hopes some of it can be resolved without too much pressure or worse, more delay. Because someday soon, this still modest protrusion from my middle may have my arms out of reach of a keyboard.
I reach them out in front of me to imagine just how big that would be.
Team,
Let’s discuss incentives or resources needed to rectify the latest hurdles. We cannot afford another three-month delay.
- ABS
Arden Bancroft Sterling
President they let me email with the power of a man. A habit I started a long time ago– the anonymity behind initials, protecting a bit of yourself, and also, as Will once told me, it ‘just sounds cool.’
Like most things, they have a history of their own. I sink a bit more into my chair, thinking about the day Reid scribbled them onto a scrap of paper and used it to knight me with a nickname that stuck around longer than he did. And just like that, Reid’s email pops into my inbox like the memory I’m not ready to decode.
Subject: Different sides.
Laughable subject line, but really, what else could he have put? The ‘I’m sorry I miss you’ that I spent years waiting for would be unwelcomed now, and he must know that. After Will and I moved in together I heard from him. He was coming back to Boston and we met up for the coffee that became less and less frequent as time went on.
And while we had stayed up to date about relationship statuses thanks to social media, I think he knew as well as I did, that this time was different. His only response at the time, ‘that feels fast.’
But now, after yesterday, I’ve spent time trapped in my own mind, thinking through absolutely everything that I remember, and worse, the parts I don’t. I don’t often deep dive on social media anymore looking for ghosts of best fucking friends past, but for my own sanity it felt like it was the right time. Looking through every character that might have been cast in our original play, where we were the main characters of our downfall. And everyone, including Reid, is exactly where they should be.