“I don’t think you’re being strange. To be honest, I’m kind of relieved. Not that I would have balked if you’d wanted to be more open, but being less open, at least about this, suits me.”
“Good. Okay. Decided. So we’ll need a decoy date.”
They nodded. “I concur. Can you do Saturday afternoon again?”
“Sure. The Jenkinses will be gone if you want to come over to my place. We’ll have the run of the main house because I dog-sit when they’re traveling.”
“That sounds good. To be clear, I would have proposed getting together again even if we didn’t need a decoy date for The Love Study. We don’t really. We could just tell them, ‘Things are good.’ And then have people call in or something.” They pushed their glasses back with a knuckle. “I guess I’m just saying that my interest in seeing you again this week has nothing to do with YouTube.”
“Ditto.”
“Good.”
We ate the rest of our food and cleaned up what little mess we’d made. I filled them in on my work project and Dire Jack. They filled me in on a few more memorable characters at the grocery store (all of whom I already had in my internal cast list from talking to Mia). Just as I was getting ready to propose sex (again), they said, “How is the wedding planning going? I hope that Ronnie’s sister is still coming?”
For this horrible extended moment I was picturing Mason in his suit, and then his face when I couldn’t get out of the limo. It wasn’t a complete flashback, but it was definitely an emotional glitch where I could feel all those feelings as if it was happening again, like the word “wedding,” which I’d heard and said a lot lately, was this sudden portkey to the past and I had no choice but to be sucked into it.
It only lasted a few seconds and I tried to cover it up by enthusiastically recounting our fitting room event, but Sidney wasn’t fooled. They played along, letting me overact my anecdote until I kind of fell silent and waited for them to call me out.
My friends would have called me out. Gently. But persistently.
Sidney took my hand and led me back to the bed. We kissed and lay against each other and I closed my eyes when they wrapped their arms around me. Being held made it safe enough to speak. “Sorry. Mase made this joke the other day about the wedding, about how hopefully Mia and Ronnie go through with it because we—like, our friends—are oh-for-one. And I know he didn’t mean it to be cruel at all, but I think it got under my skin.”
“You still feel guilty?”
That was only the most obvious part of it. “I probably always will, you know? But I guess part of me still thinks if I’d been...stronger or something, we could have had that life we expected to have.”
“Hmm.” Their fingers trailed up and down my arm in this wildly soothing way and I tried to just feel it, every centimeter, every shifted arm hair, every goose bump from every shiver. “Do you wish you’d forced yourself to go through with it? I...didn’t get the impression Mason wished that.”
“No. He doesn’t. And realistically neither do I? But there are way better ways to break off a wedding than flipping out on the actual day of the wedding. I wish I’d figured it out sooner. Or maybe that I’d never thought it was a good idea in the first place.”
“Was it the idea of being married? Or the...what you said before? The life you expected to have?”
“I think that appealed to me.” I tried to sort it out in my head while they kept touching my arm. “Or just the idea that I’d have something other people recognized, you know? My parents paid for a lot of my college, and it’s not as if I grew up and became a doctor or a lawyer or something. I grew up and became a temporary office worker.”
“Which you like.”
“Which I like a lot, but it’s not what they expected from me. I’m queer, and they’re fine with it, but it wasn’t what they expected. They love Mason. They would honestly get us back together in a second. Us getting married was something they understood. We loved each other, we were committed to each other, of course we should get married.”
Sidney nodded, the movement brushing against my head. “It’s difficult to be always outside of that model. Any model, really. But that’s a potent fantasy for a lot of people, and not just for themselves.”
“Exactly.” I sighed. “That’s exactly right. I broke Mase’s heart. But in a way I feel like I broke my parents’ hearts, and even my friends’. Like we had this great thing that everyone celebrated and I screwed it up. Threw it away.”
“And you...said you go to therapy?”
“Ha. I went to therapy for a while. You think the wedding’s triggering me?”
“It would make sense if it was.”
“Even though it was six years ago?”
“I don’t think triggers come with expiration dates.”
“Yeah. True. Anyway, I’m sorry I’m all over the place.” I kissed their neck, which was the skin I could easily reach. I wasn’t quite ready to lift my head and look them in the eye.
“I’m sorry I asked about the wedding. I’ll leave it to you to bring it up if you want.”
“It’s going really well. Ronnie’s sister is still going to be the maid of honor or whatever, which is great. And they’re getting down to the wire since it’s Valentine’s Day.” That was enough change of subject. Probably? I lifted my head. “Are we still on for V-Day Eve next week?”
“V-Day? I’m not going to The Vagina Monologues with you, Declan.”
I blinked. “Wait. Is that a Vagina Monologues thing? Oh shit. I’ve been seriously saying that for years like an asshole! I meant Valentine’s Day!”
They were looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and laughter. “Maybe people took you as a crusader to end violence against women?”
“I am! I’m a crusader! I don’t like violence against women!” I collapsed over their chest and buried my face. “I can’t believe this. Where were you when I was in college and thought I was being cool?”
“I was probably in college going to The Vagina Monologues every Valentine’s Day and trying to sort out my complex responses to it.”
“Oh my god, right? Me tooooooo. I can’t even deal with this. My friends are going to laugh really hard at me.”
“It’s a reasonable mistake, I think. But to answer your question: yes. Unless you want to bring me to a theatrical production, in which case I might be washing my hair.”
“Noted.” I reached out to play with their hair, lying on the pillow. I hadn’t quite had the courage to ask if I could take out their clips earlier—it felt too soon for that; hair intimacy is different than sex intimacy—but I had asked if it was okay if I touched and they’d said yes. “The wedding is the day after our Valentine’s Date.”