Chapter Thirty-Two
Marci didn’t like the look of the envelope from the moment she pulled the bundle of mail out of the box. The blue inked handwriting was too fancy—some sort of calligraphy. And the thick paper of the envelope seemed expensive. She turned the envelope over in her hand, and her stomach dropped. What were Kristin’s name and some New York address doing on the back flap of the envelope? This couldn’t be good.
She tore open the envelope so savagely she sliced her finger on a sharp edge of fancy envelope paper, but she barely noticed. When she pulled out the silver and white card, she dropped all the other mail. It was a save-the-date card. Kristin’s name followed by Owen’s. A picture of their two pretty faces above the names only added to the taunting. Kristin. Owen. Kristin. Owen. Save the date. September twenty-third. Kristin. Owen. Owen. Owen. She tried to swallow over the lump in her throat.
“Are you okay?”
She looked up at the sound of a voice. One of her neighbors presumably who she didn’t recognize stood a few feet away. He probably wanted to get into his mailbox. Bobbing her head up and down, nodding a yes, she bent and grabbed the rest of the mail from the floor. She fled upstairs.
By the time she got upstairs, fumbled with the key until she was nearly in tears with frustration before she could get it to turn in the lock, and finally opened her front door, her chest was heaving.
“What’s wrong?” asked Ronnie from somewhere in the living room. She recognized Ronnie’s voice but held her eyes shut.
What was wrong with her? She did not cry over boys. Disposable boys. Slamming the front door shut, she clutched that day’s mail to her chest.
“Marci. Talk to me. I’m starting to get worried.”
But she couldn’t talk. If she tried, some awful wailing sound would come out of her that wasn’t a sound she wanted to hear herself make. Instead, she willed her eyes open and stalked across the room. Thrusting the save-the-date card at Ronnie, she threw the rest of the mail onto the coffee table and collapsed onto the couch where she proceeded to turn on her side and hug her knees to her chest.
“Oh no,” Ronnie murmured. She had to be reading the card, but Marci wouldn’t look over at her to confirm this.
Marci concentrated very carefully on breathing, trying not to give in to the sobs building in her chest. She heard movement behind her, and then Ronnie came into her field of vision. Marci followed Ronnie with her eyes as Ronnie knelt in front of her and rested her chin on the arm of the couch. Thankfully, that infernal card was nowhere to be seen.
Ronnie took one of Marci’s hands with both of her own. Marci didn’t pull away but didn’t squeeze the hand either. “Why would he send you this?”
“Damned if I know and damned if I care,” Marci muttered.
“Oh. Baby girl. You care,” Ronnie said in that cut-the-shit way of hers.
Marci felt the first of the tears leaking out as she stared at Ronnie in front of her. Ronnie reached over and gave Marci a hug at an awkward angle from where she knelt next to the couch. Marci scooted back on the couch, and Ronnie climbed over the arm and sat next to her. Ronnie gave Marci a better hug now that she was sitting next to her, and they sat like that for a long time.
When Marci had gotten all of that stupid weakness out of her system, she said, “I’ve cried more in the past few months than in…maybe…five years.”
“It’s good for you.” Ronnie patted her shoulder.
“I’m in love with him,” Marci said quietly.
Ronnie pulled back and looked Marci in the eye. Ronnie’s own brown eyes were as big and round as saucers. “It’s a friggin’ miracle.”
“Okay, so you and Tyler got there first. And maybe it was—is—the last thing I want to admit. But whether I own up to it or not, it’s going to be there. So I give up. This—that—whoever sent it. It made this real for me. Made me see…I mean. I even tried to…” Call him. “I love him, okay? I’m in love with him. I miss him like crazy. It burns me up to think of him with her. I had him, and I threw it all away because I’m fucked up. I act like I have it all together, I put on this cool front, but refusing to deal with your emotions isn’t the same thing as truly having a cool levelheadedness going for you.” The words tumbled over each other, falling out of her mouth.
“Finally!” Ronnie clapped her hands together. “I’ve been waiting too long for you to see this.”
“What good is it going to do me to realize it now?”
“Go for it.”
“Huh?”
“Go get your man.”
“He just sent me a save-the-date for his wedding.”
“Maybe that was a last ditch effort to see if you really did care. Maybe he was hoping for the very reaction you just had.”
Marci considered this for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think so. Owen doesn’t play games like that. Besides, Kristin is his ‘one great love’ or something. He has it bad for that girl. I can tell. I could always tell.”
“He has it bad for you.”
“No. He’s happy. I’m not going to try to come between them. Owen and Kristin have a history, and she’s perfect for him. They dated for years before she broke up with him. And now he has what he wants. He has her back.”
“But you’re the one he’s in love with.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why’d you call things off with him in the first place?” Ronnie crossed her arms over her chest.
“Because…he told me he loved me,” Marci admitted reluctantly.
“Uh-huh. Yep. That’s what I thought.”
“Even if I could get him back, I’d find a way to screw it up. That’s why I don’t bother with relationships. They never work out. It’s better this way.”
“Owen should have a say in this.”
“He’s made his choice.”
“You didn’t give him much of one. And you know, Jeremy says Owen seems kind of miserable these days.”
Marci thought of what Dante had said in the bar that night about Owen never seeming to be in a good mood since he got back together with Kristin. “Really?” That kind of wishful thinking ruins lives, girl. Remember what happened last time. Back when you almost lost your damned mind. “No,” she said. “I refuse to believe it. I believe that save-the-date card I got.”
Ronnie shook her head. “You ever think that maybe Kristin is second best? The best he thinks he can do because he thinks he can’t have you.”
“He chose Kristin first.”
“Doesn’t count,” Ronnie said. “When he chose Kristin the first time, he didn’t even know you existed. When he chose her the second time, it was after you rejected him.”
“I didn’t reject him.”
“Oh really? What do you call it then?”
Marci tucked her feet under her on the couch and folded her hands together. Staring at her hands, she said, “What exactly does Jeremy say about Owen?”
“That he hardly ever smiles. And you and I don’t know an Owen who doesn’t keep a smile on his face, now do we? Apparently, he snaps at people a lot more than he used to. He’s still polite most of the time, but isn’t very friendly. Can you imagine Owen not being friendly?” Ronnie sounded all smug like she knew she was right.
Marci tried to tell herself that it was over, that she’d killed her chances with Owen. Still, she couldn’t deny that Ronnie’s words had planted a seed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was early May, and finals were officially over. Marci was relieved to be done, and she celebrated by sleeping fourteen hours in her very comfy bed.
When she finally woke up around two in the afternoon on the Saturday after finals, she smiled until she remembered all the papers she’d agreed to help Ming grade. Her smile disappeared temporarily. It came back when she thought of how well she was handling the knowledge that she was in love with Owen. She hadn’t tried to break up his engagement or anything. She’d accepted that it was over despite Ronnie’s protests against this.
<
br /> She’d made plans to go out to Cali to see her mom and Tyler for a few weeks after she tied things up at school for the semester. She would have to come back to campus and get a jump on studying for comps well before classes started in August, but at least she would have a good long break first. And while she was gone, Owen would graduate. Her flight left to Cali on graduation day—she’d planned it that way. And hopefully, he would go to New York for the summer with Kristin. When she got back from Cali, all traces of him should be gone. All temptation should be removed. And that was for the best. She needed a fresh start, and she owed him one as well.
She sat up in bed and ran a hand through her curly hair. Man, she should have braided it last night. It was out of control this morning—or afternoon, rather. In fact, she’d let a lot of things get out of control over the past few weeks and blamed all of that on the stress from finals. Yeah, it was just finals stress, and now that the exams were all over, papers all turned in, and her reading list for comps had been approved, her life could get back to normal.
Your life won’t get back to normal until September twenty-third, or better yet September twenty-fourth, when you know it’s all over and done with, it really is too late, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to change the way things are, insisted a nasty little voice. The same voice that had been agreeing with Ronnie and tempting her to call Owen for the past few weeks.
Yeah yeah. That voice was going to have to take a break. At least until she got a pee in, could splash some water on her face, and had some coffee brewing. She definitely couldn’t deal with that voice pre-coffee. She yawned and stretched, reaching over to grab her phone from her nightstand. She frowned down at the screen. She had an obscene number of missed calls from Ronnie. Wondering what in the world the problem was, she called Ronnie back.
“You finally conscious?” was Ronnie’s greeting to her.
“Why in the world have you been stalking my cell phone? Is everything okay?”
“Depends on what you mean by okay. You need to get your butt over here. Jeremy has something important to tell you.”
“Why can’t you tell me over the phone? I’m not even dressed. I need a shower. I’m hungry.”
“We work at a restaurant, remember? There’s plenty of food. Wash your ass and get over here. This isn’t a phone sort of conversation.”
“Ronnie if this is about Owen, that’s finished.” She had no idea why else Jeremy would want to talk to her. “He’s getting married, he’s happy with her, and I’m staying out of it.” She’d had her chance, and she’d blown it. Game over. Case closed.
“If you don’t get over here, we’ll track you down after work. And we won’t bring you any food, either.”
The no food was the bigger threat there. She’d go over, hear them out. It didn’t mean she had to take whatever crazy advice they had for her. Besides, if they thought she’d done what they wanted, they might shut up about it—stop worrying her all the time about Owen. Because it had to be about Owen, whatever Jeremy had to say and Ronnie was planning to cosign.
“Give me an hour.” Marci sighed heavily into the phone.
“I’ll try.”
#
When Marci got to Schaffer’s, Jeremy and Ronnie took their break. It was a nice spring day, so the three of them went outside to the parking lot. A warm breeze blew against Marci’s neck as she followed Ronnie and Jeremy to the back of the parking lot. Everything was so fresh and green and full of promise.
Ronnie and Marci sat on the hood of Ronnie’s car, and Jeremy stood in front of them. Jeremy stared back and forth between the two of them. Ronnie made a gesture indicating he should get on with it, and he nodded.
“He probably doesn’t want me to tell you this. Okay. He told me to keep my mouth shut about it. But.” Jeremy pulled his lighter out of his pocket and began flicking it off and on repeatedly. “He’s packing to go to New York. This weekend.”
“He what?” Marci said, the news blindsiding her. First that damned save-the-date, and now this. “Who?” Because she was clinging to every last second she could stay in the dark. Without hearing Jeremy say it, she could pretend a little longer.
“Owen’s moving to New York. I mean, in the process of. He’s literally packing right now.” Jeremy flicked the lighter off.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Marci scoffed. “What, is this some trick to fool me into going over there? He wouldn’t leave now. Graduation’s not for another week.”
Jeremy’s lighter went on-off, on-off. “He’s coming back just for graduation day.”
“When did he decide he was moving to New York? If he really is.”
“Kristin wants to go back as soon as possible. The wedding crap is easier to handle up there, I guess. Besides, she hates it here. Owen is going to stay at her place and look for jobs up there until the wedding.” Jeremy continued to fiddle with the lighter. “Mom is devastated of course. She never liked Kristin in the first place, and now she’s taking Owen away.”
“I guess it makes sense. I figured they’d end up in New York,” Marci said quietly. “No point in delaying the job search.”
“According to Kristin, who rules the universe, they have to be there. She wants to work in fashion, and her internship is up there. According to Owen, it’s just ‘easier’ this way. And he says maybe it’ll be good. There are too many memories here.”
Marci couldn’t help but wonder if she was part of the “too many memories” Owen was talking about. And Jeremy probably wanted her to wonder that, the little sneak. That was probably why he’d thrown that choice detail in there.
“Well, it’s settled,” she said. Ronnie and Jeremy turned to her with pensive, eager looks. “What?” she said. They obviously had the wrong idea. She could tell that by looking at them. Time to set them straight. “He wants to marry Kristin and move to New York. That’s the life he wants, and that life has no room for me in it. When I’m done at CVU, I’ll be looking for jobs at universities in California. The opposite side of the country from him. Maybe that’ll be enough distance from the ‘memories’ for him.”
“He and Kristin fight all the time. Like almost every day,” Jeremy said. Although his eyes were green, the earnest look in them reminded her of Owen’s gray ones so very painfully.
“He asked her to marry him. She must be what he wants.”
“She’s what he wants if he can’t have you,” Jeremy said. “You know what he did for you over Thanksgiving? I don’t think he would’ve done that for Kristin.”
“Of course he would have.”
“Kristin demanded that he take the jeep and come get her from New York once when a snowstorm grounded all the flights, and she couldn’t get back to Virginia over winter break. She wanted to come back early. He wouldn’t do it. They were fighting at the time. Big surprise. When I asked if he was going to do it, he said he needed the break. He’d see her soon enough.”
Marci looked up at Jeremy. “This is different.”
“Sure,” Ronnie chimed in. “You’re different. Don’t you want to at least know what he’d say if he knew how you feel?”
Marci turned to her. Ronnie’s words resonated in a way she didn’t want them to.
“Please don’t let my brother make his own life miserable. None of us like her,” Jeremy said.
“Leave the decision up to him, okay?” Ronnie grabbed her hands. “At least tell him. And see what he has to say.”
“And what if he says no?” Marci realized that maybe she was hiding behind this martyr idea of not getting in the way of his happiness. Maybe she was afraid that he would hear what she had to say, shrug her off, tell her what she’d told herself—she’d had her chance and blown it—and he would still marry Kristin.
“That’s a chance you’re going to have to take,” Ronnie said. “Could you really stand not knowing?”
“Ronnie’s right,” Jeremy said. At least give him the choice. You owe it to both him and you.”
“I can’t just go ov
er there,” Marci said. “What if Kristin is there helping him pack?”
Jeremy burst out laughing. “Please. If you knew Kristin at all, you would know that’s impossible. She’ll meet him at the airport, but that’s about it. Besides, he helped her pack last weekend, and now she’s back in New York.”
“Helped her pack during his finals?”
“Right after he finished, but do you think she would have cared?” Jeremy shrugged. “Kristin is a very demanding woman.”
Marci nodded. “Seems that way.”
Jeremy pocketed his lighter. “I see her make Owen a little more miserable every day. Because, like you, he’s afraid to admit he’s wrong. He’d rather commit to some old, wrong idea he’s had about Kristin since forever than take the chance of being alone. He doesn’t like alone, in case you haven’t noticed. He’s been in a relationship with some girl or another since he was, like, fourteen. Maybe younger. I dunno.” Jeremy tapped his fingers against the side of his leg. “And I think he’s extra afraid of both not having her and not having you. I think he thinks he’ll feel the devastation of losing you all the more without a buffer.”
Marci remembered her paranoid thoughts over Thanksgiving that she’d been the buffer to Owen losing Kristin. Could it possibly be the other way around?
Marci stared down at her feet. In her mind, she went back to that Tuesday night before Thanksgiving in Owen’s room when things had changed. When she’d started to feel herself falling for him and had decided to fight it like hell. She’d felt herself becoming a little too dependent on him, and she hadn’t been able to handle that.
And then there was the icy day after Thanksgiving when he’d carried her across the slippery walkway to the jeep after telling her he loved her. The way he’d done so many things for her without being asked. Without expecting anything in return. Because when you loved someone, you bit the bullet. You sacrificed. You took chances. You at least gave them the opportunity to make the choice. This wasn’t just about her and her fear of rejection and her commitment issues. This was about Owen, too. Sometimes, love meant putting your fears aside.
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