It’s like watching somebody fall through the ice in the middle of a lake: you run out to save them, but the closer you get, the thinner the ice becomes, and you have no choice but to slow down and back away.
I don’t want to back away when I see him watching me from across the dance floor.
I want to run towards him so fast my arms and legs turn into spinning wheels like I’m in a cartoon. I want to tackle him to the floor and tell him over and over again how much I miss him. I want to feel his arms around me and hear him telling me everything is going to be all right.
He looks so handsome tonight. His hair is combed back, and his beard is trimmed short enough to have that sexy stubble look. He’s wearing a black suit with a white shirt and bright pink tie. I know he can’t have picked it to match my hair; we’re not even talking, and it’s the kind of dorky thing Zach would wear on his own anyway, but a lump still forms in my throat when I realize it’s just the right colour.
I’m still propping Monroe up, and Zach looks like he’s in the middle of a conversation with some guy beside him, but everything else goes blurry and muted as we watch each other.
He looks like he’s in pain. He looks like he’s aching, and I want to tell him I am too. I want to get down on my knees if that’s what it will take and just beg him to let us fix this, beg him to let this go back to the way it was.
If we could just pretend the past few weeks never happened, I could stop imagining. I could stop dreaming. I could stop wanting. I want him so much. I want my friend back so much it hurts, but then I look at him, and my fingers are trembling to touch him. I don’t know how to have both those things, and somehow I’ve ended up with neither.
“DeeDee?”
“Huh?” It feels like my head turns in slow motion when I look back at Kay.
“I asked if you wanted champagne.”
Monroe is drying her eyes while Kay lifts two champagne glasses off the tray of the waiter beside her. I didn’t even notice him show up.
“Oh. Yeah. Champagne sounds good.”
Booze in general sounds good.
I take a glass from Kay, and she grabs a third for Monroe. The three of us cheers to the happy couple. I down my glass in two sips.
Kay wags her eyebrows at me. “Ready to party, eh?”
I nod. “Always.”
“Coooooole!” I grab Roxanne’s boyfriend—no, husband—by the shoulders so he’ll stop spinning. Everything is spinning. “Stand still. I need to talk to you.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not moving, DeeDee.”
I let go of his shoulders and pat his arm instead. “Ha. Of course. You know what, Cole? You’re pretty funny. Everyone thinks you’re really scary because you don’t talk a lot and you look sort of...uh...grim! That is the word. Grim. I think you’re pretty funny, though. I’m not scared of you.”
He nods. “Uh, okay. Do you want some water or something?”
“I want to know how you knew you were in love with Roxanne.”
He looks over his shoulders like he’s trying to find someone in the crowd. “Do you need to, uh, sit down or something?”
“Bonne idée!” I pat his arm again and then head over to the nearest empty table. “Come sit with me, Cole.”
I lost track of time—and champagne glasses—a while ago. A lot of guests have headed out already, and the crowd that’s left is divided into party animals going wild on the dance floor and people falling asleep or having deep conversations at the tables and chairs.
My heels are killing me from dancing for so long, so I figure it’s time to take a break from being a party animal.
Cole sits down on the edge of the chair farthest away from me at the table.
“Tabarnak. I’m not going to bite you, Cole. Come closer. We have important things to talk about.”
He moves one chair over.
“Good enough.”
I sit there blinking at him while the room keeps shifting around behind him.
“DeeDee?” he says after a minute.
“Quoi?”
“You said we have important things to talk about.”
“Right!” I smack the table with my hands. “We do. Um, hmm, what were they?”
There’s something I’m not supposed to be thinking about tonight. I know it got easier to ignore with every glass of champagne. I can still feel it floating around at the edge of my thoughts, like an annoying bug trying to bite me. I swat it away.
“Do you have something stuck in your hair?”
“What? No.”
“Why are you doing that?” Cole starts waving his hands around the sides of his head to imitate me.
“Oh. Whoops. I meant to do that in my head.” I burst out laughing.
He just looks as stern as ever. “DeeDee, I’m going to tell you something you probably don’t want to hear. You’re pretty drunk. Should I get someone for you? Do you need a cab?”
“Attends, attends!” I motion for him to stay still. “I remember. I wanted to ask you how you knew you were in love with Roxanne.”
I don’t remember why I wanted to ask him, but I’ll figure that out.
“Ah. Well.” The corners of his lips twitch. I think that’s as close as he gets to smiling. “If you really want to know...Figuring out I loved her was the easy part. She scared the shit out of me in a way no one else ever had, and that’s how I knew she was the one.”
I blink. “What the fuck?”
Cole makes a rumbly sound. I think he’s laughing. “I know that’s not, you know, what they say it feels like in poems and songs and stuff, but when I met Roxy, it felt...big. Powerful. Inevitable, even. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but the second I saw her sitting outside that bus station all those years ago, I...It wasn’t love. Not yet. It was this pull—this force, and it was terrifying. When I look back now, that’s how I knew. What I felt for her was bigger and scarier than anything I’d ever felt before.”
“Wow. I’ve never heard you say that many words in a row.”
He makes the rumbly sound again. “Well, you’re drunk and probably won’t remember this.”
“Do you really think love is supposed to be scary?”
He looks past me and out onto the dance floor, his eyes following the shape of someone I can’t see. “To be honest, I don’t give a fuck about what love is supposed to be. I look at her, and I feel it. That’s enough for me.”
I rest my chin in my hands and watch him watch her. Cole is a wise man. He has some secrets figured out, and maybe if I watch him long enough, I can figure them out too. Maybe I can figure out why seeing him and Roxy dance and laugh and be in love together makes me feel like crying happy tears and punching something in the face at the same time.
Or maybe I’ll have more champagne.
“Oh, hey.”
I know that voice. It comes from over my shoulder, but I don’t have to turn my head to know who it is.
Now I remember what I was trying to forget.
I’ve spent all night avoiding Zach. I’ve also been staring at him every time I’m sure he’s not looking. I just want to pull him onto the dance floor and jump around doing stupid moves. I want to ask him what he thought of the ceremony, if he cried, if he likes my dress.