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She paused for a moment, seeming lost in the past. I reached out and squeezed her hand. It was a gentle move of sympathy on my part, but she jerked at the contact, jerked awake from whatever memories had momentarily imprisoned her.
“Naturally,” she continued, “I jumped at the first opportunity to get away from them. That opportunity came in the form of Marcus Henry, my high school sweetheart. We were so in love. Seriously, Kate, you wouldn’t have even recognized me. I was out of control. The world revolved around Marcus. The sun rose and set with him. And when he wanted to get married straight out of high school I didn’t even think twice. I saw an opportunity to get away from my parents and bonus, I would be married to the man of my dreams.”
“You got married at eighteen? I thought I married young! Holy shit, Kara!”
She dropped her face into her hand, “I know,” she groaned. “It’s embarrassing. I have no idea what I was thinking. And looking back now I realize how stupid I was. I wasn’t in love, I was infatuated. And there just wasn’t enough substance between us for anything to last.”
“What happened?”
“Well, we got married without my parent’s knowledge. We just snuck off to the courthouse and called it good. I didn’t even change my name. I didn’t know I had to! I thought it would be like an automatic thing.”
I smiled at the eighteen-year-old version of my friend.
“Anyway, my parents were furious, as you can imagine. No, they were beyond furious. I have never in my life seen them so outraged. They cut me off completely, and for the first time in my life, I was introduced to the real world. Marcus was equally furious. Apparently his young and in love plan included living off my parents’ wealth. His parents were a little more forgiving, and let us move into their basement, but they couldn’t help us beyond that. All of our plans for college were abandoned as we went to work full-time at crap paying jobs and tried to navigate our lives as newlyweds. My parents are crazy, don’t get me wrong. But I had a promising future, even if it wasn’t the one I would have chosen. I was suddenly faced with a life I didn’t want and a boy I didn’t love… I wasn’t even sure I liked him anymore.
“It took exactly eighteen months for us to decide that neither of us was willing to fight for happiness in a miserable marriage that was headed nowhere. And then… then he started cheating on me. He didn’t even try to hide it. I think he wanted me to know or find out. I think he wanted out but didn’t want to be the one responsible for ending it. Not that he didn’t play his part. But he was like that. He never took responsibility for his mistakes. He couldn’t keep a job for the same reason. I put up with the cheating longer than I should have. I don’t know why. I knew my life had sunk about as low as it could go, but I was afraid of what else could happen if I left him. At least with Marcus I had a roof over my head.”
My heart broke for my friend. I wanted to give her a hug, but I could sense that she did not want to be touched right now. Her back was stiff and her shoulders painfully held back. She was just barely holding herself together. If I did anything to spook her, she would lose it. “What did you do?” I asked carefully.
“The one thing I swore I would never do.” She gave me a sad, defeated smile. “I went back to my parents. I begged them for their forgiveness and for their help.”
“They gave it to you,” I concluded. She spoke to them now and it seemed very much against her will.
“They did,” she confirmed. “They helped me with the divorce, or I should say, a
Sensing that their help cost her deeply, I whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
She waved off my apology as if it wasn’t necessary. “I got my way in the end, though. They thought they were giving me a practice with my degree, something they could brag to their country club friends about and recommend to all of the miserable trophy wives they know. They never saw the whole guidance counselor at an i
We shared a victorious smile. “I wondered why you were so much older than me.”
She stuck her tongue out. “Only three years. It’s not like I have tenure.”
“Thank you for telling me that.”
She shrugged self-consciously, “I just wanted you to know that I mean it when I say it gets better. It hurts. God, it hurts. But it doesn’t always.”
“I need to hear that. Keep telling me. Don’t stop.”
She gave me a sad smile. “It’s kind of nice, though.”
All of my breath whooshed out of me and I thought for a second I would start choking. “What?”
“Nick. At least he’s putting up a fight for you. Marcus didn’t. Or at least I never heard about it if he did, but I’m almost one-hundred percent positive he just signed whatever papers my parents shoved in front of him and never thought about me again. We weren’t right for each other, don’t get me wrong. And what we did was so completely stupid. But looking back… I don’t know… it would have been nice if he fought for me. It would have somehow soothed my ego after all of this time. I wouldn’t feel so… discarded.”
A million of my own thoughts tumbled around in my head, but I put them aside for now and said, “You’re not discarded, Kara. He was an idiot. You guys were so young. He was too young and immature to realize how amazing he had it.”
She tilted her head to stare out the window. “I haven’t been able to look him up since. Not once. I know he’s on Facebook because I see our mutual high school friends comment on his posts sometimes, but I’m too afraid of what I’ll find. I know what I want to find. I want him to be alone and miserable and working a dead end job or still living in his parents’ basement.” Her pretty lips turned down in a frown. “But I’m too afraid that he’ll be happily married with a yoga instructor for a wife and six perfect kids that model for Gap.”
I let out a surprised laugh, “He’s not married to a yoga instructor and if he has six kids then they’re all from different moms.”
She wrinkled her nose, “I like that.”
“You’re a catch, babe. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”
Her gaze found mine again and her gray eyes sparkled like silver from unshed tears. “You too, Kate. Whatever happened with Nick does not define you. There’s a better relationship out there. You’ll find it.”
“Maybe,” I whispered. But what I really thought was no. There wasn’t a better relationship out there. I’d been given a good one… a great one and I’d mismanaged it. I’d poisoned it.
I’d destroyed it.
I didn’t deserve a better relationship after how I’d treated this one.
“Well, if it isn’t the shrieking harpy effectively destroying my brother’s life.”
The harsh, guttural tone came from above me. Feeling the coffee I’d just finished swirl and churn in my belly, I slowly lifted my eyes to stare up at the very last person on earth I wanted to see.
Jared Carter. Nick’s little brother.
“Hi, Jared,” I smiled patiently, despite the rotten feeling inside me, despite the urge to run screaming from the coffee shop, waving my arms over my head like a lunatic.
Jared looked so much like Nick; it actually hurt to see him here. Although, where Nick’s muscles had always been lean and lithe, Jared’s were bulky and compacted. Nick had run college track, Jared had played football at a division two school, where he hit people so his teammates could score points. They had the same light brown hair, though, highlighted by streaks of the sun. Jared’s eyes were a darker blue than Nick’s too. Nick’s eyes looked like blue flames and Jared’s were so dark that you had to lean close just to be sure they really were blue. Jared was also younger by five years. Nick’s body had filled out with manhood. Jared’s, just like his attitude, was still working on it.