F*ck Marriage Read online

  “We’ve already done that. We’re supposed to be moving forward with our lives.”

  “Five minutes,” he says.

  There’s something on his face that makes me step aside and let him in. He wanders into Satcher’s place and looks around like he’s seeing it for the first time. His eyes sweep the room, lingering on my nightgown, which is tossed across the back of a barstool.

  “Where do you sleep?” he asks.

  “In the bed.”

  I pretend not to notice the look on his face. He clears his throat and then reaches up to take off his glasses.

  “I ended things with Pearl.” Woods rubs his eyes.

  I stare at him, frozen in disbelief. “What?”

  One stubby little sentence and my insides are churning. I drift toward the window, my fist clutching the neck of my shirt, and stare out at the passing traffic.

  I feel like I need time to process, but Woods is waiting for me to say something.

  “Why?”

  He takes a step toward me. “After our conversation—”

  I hold his gaze waiting for him to finish.

  “After our conversation, I did a lot of thinking ... about myself ... you.”

  Thinking? Now you’re thinking? Years too late.

  “Okay…”

  I picture him skulking around Pearl and her parents on Christmas day, merely picking at his food. It’s a sad thing to imagine until you include the fact that he was thinking about me, maybe even wanting to be with me rather than his soon-to-be family. This news is still settling over me when Woods says his next words. I brace myself because the look in his eyes tells me something is coming.

  “I’m still in love with you, Billie.”

  His words hit me like cold water over the head. My shoulders jar with the impact of them.

  “Don’t freak out on me, okay, Billie?”

  He’s watching my face carefully, looking for approval. He’s still scared of me, I realize. His jaw used to lock up like that when he was afraid of my reaction. I let nothing show, and it’s not like I really have to try not to—my body has seized up in anticipation.

  “Okay,” Woods says. “This is…” He rubs a hand along his face, his mouth dropping open when his fingers reach his chin. “I tried to replace you with a woman who wouldn’t question me, challenge me, fight with me. Because it made me feel,” he looks away while he searches for the word and then comes back with, “—bigger.”

  Everything feels cold: my hands, my face, my heart. I don’t say anything because I don’t trust myself to speak.

  “I was just looking for an easier version of you. But that’s not what I want. I want the full version, the version that scared the shit out of me before.”

  “Woods…” I sound breathless. I am breathless. “I think,” I say slowly, “that our time has come and gone.”

  I don’t know why I say it. Didn’t I come back to New York hoping for this very thing to happen? Wasn’t it my plan to come between him and Pearl? So why do I feel such trepidation?

  “No.” He takes a step toward me.

  I’m shocked to see his tears, the determination on his face.

  “Billie, forgive me. I want to make things right. We belong together.”

  I don’t have time to respond. Woods drops to his knees in what I can only interpret as supplication and wraps his arms around my waist, pressing his cheek to my abdomen. I have nowhere to put my hands so I drop them gently to his head.

  And that’s how Satcher finds us: me standing in his foyer cradling Woods’ head against my belly, my face slack with shock. He fills up the doorway, his expression moving from surprise to anger. Our eyes meet and I hold them. I hold them not knowing what to say or do … begging him mentally to see the situation for what it is. But no, how could he? He sees what is clearly in front of him: two old flames embracing in an intimate and emotionally charged way. As Woods sobs into my belly, Satcher first rests a hand on the doorframe like he’s trying to hold himself up. He closes his eyes and I’m frozen to the spot, my heart aching, my reason tangling with my emotions. And just as suddenly, he’s gone. He doesn’t bother to look at me again, or close the door to his own home. His absence is startling. It feels permanent.

  I don’t see him again for a very long time.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  It’s four o’clock in the afternoon. My eyes are closed and someone is touching my face. Her voice is soothing, and I’ve been drifting in and out of sleep for the last twenty minutes. It’s the day before my wedding and my husband-to-be bought me a spa package. I know I’m supposed to be relaxing, but I’m wound so tight, a few minutes ago she had to tell me to relax and stop clenching my fists.

  “So let me get this straight. You came back to steal your ex-husband from the woman he cheated on you with, so you enlist his best friend to pretend to be in a relationship with you. Then you actually fall for each other, only to be thwarted by the woman he used to be in a relationship with who is also your friend.”

  “Yes,” I say weakly. “That about sums it up.”

  “Dang, girl. That’s messed up.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “And are you happy?”

  “Yes ... I don’t know. I’m confused.”

  “I’d say. This might be cold…”

  She slathers a thick, muddy substance across my cheeks that smells like grapefruit. She doesn’t speak for several minutes as the cold brush touches my skin again and again, her swipes brisk and experienced. When she’s finished, I hear her get up from her stool and move around the room. I don’t open my eyes; instead, I pretend I didn’t just share with a complete stranger all of my life woes.

  “So, tomorrow you’re going to marry your ex-husband. That’s something. You don’t hear a story like that every day.”

  “I know,” I say quietly.

  “I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but how do you know he won’t cheat on you again?”

  Of course her words hit me where I’m sore. Haven’t I thought that a thousand times? Once a cheater, always a cheater ... a leopard never changes its spots...

  “I don’t, I guess. He’s done a good job of explaining why it happened, but there’s always that worry in the back of your mind.”

  I have to bite my lip to keep from crying. She works in silence for a while, and I’m grateful for the chance to pull myself together. When she’s finished with her treatment, she touches me lightly on the shoulder to let me know she’s done.

  “I’m all finished. I hope everything works out for you, Billie.”

  Such simple words, but they sink deep. Me too, me too.

  Since the facial was the last treatment of the day, I dress and head to the front desk where the receptionist grins sleepy-eyed while she checks me out. Tomorrow I will marry the man I’ve loved since I was a girl in college. And sure, we’ve devastated each other, tossed our lives around like a salad, and dragged other less than innocent people into our mess. But, we’re older now, wiser ... more ready for the commitment ahead of us. I sign my receipt and slip my credit card back in my bag.

  “Don’t forget the ice,” she says.

  My head, which was bent over my purse, snaps up. She’s not looking at me. I swipe my hair behind my ear and look at her cautiously, my heart pounding.

  “What did you say?”

  She looks surprised to still see me standing there.

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking to you…” She jabs her finger toward the door where a girl in scrubs and a heavy jacket is exiting the salon. “Christmas party tonight. She has to get the ice.”

  “Oh.” I sound dumb even to my own ears. “Happy holidays,” I say meekly.

  I’m in my car heading back to my apartment when I notice that my shirt is on inside out. I burst into tears without really knowing why. I’m not crying because of the shirt; it’s a barely obvious faux pas. I’m crying because ... why? Because the last eleven months have been something like a summer snowstorm. Because I let everythin
g happen as if I were a mere observer of my life instead of an active participant. There has been a lot of scrambling, outbursts of emotion, and tears—bucketfuls of tears. I flew home to Washington right after Woods made his confession. Another example of me fleeing when I’m scared. God, I’m like the fucking cowardly lion.

  He followed me there in true Woods’ style, showing up at my parents’ house in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone, and valiant in his effort. Just the sound of his voice sent me into a panic. I hid behind the living room door while my father spoke with him and inevitably sent him away. My parents were disapproving of me. They loved Woods and here he was, chasing me, their wayward daughter.

  Woods, not to be deterred, drove into town and got a room at the Palace. It was my parents who convinced me to talk to him two days later, my parents who’d always loved Woods and didn’t know what he’d done. When I finally sat down with him (after swallowing my mother’s Xanax), I was stiff and milky-eyed from days of crying.

  “If you want to move here, I’ll come,” he said. He was sitting across from me in my father’s favorite armchair, leaning forward, hands clasped between his knees. “I’ll sell everything and come be with you.”

  I believed him. I snorted. The very last thing I wanted to do was live in Washington again: miserable, weepy Washington.

  “Billie, anything. I’m a changed man. I’ll do anything.”

  It took him another week to convince me to come back to New York with him, and I have a feeling it was his last hurrah before he left to go back himself. He’d come to sit on my porch, which was really just four feet of concrete with two rickety old chairs I’d found at a thrift store. I’d been sitting in one sipping tea when he’d walked the path from the main house, his head bowed against the drizzle.

  “Billie,” he’d said in greeting.

  “Woods,” I mimicked back.

  “Is there any alcohol in that?” he’d asked.

  I handed him the mug because there was. He took a few appreciative sips before passing it back to me.

  “Just give me one month,” he said. “You can come right back if you don’t want to stay—I’ll pay for everything…”

  I’d looked at the water dripping off his hair and made my decision. I couldn’t stay here. I could choose somewhere else or go back to New York, but I couldn’t stay here. I agreed, partly because I wanted to believe him, and partly because my old habits were settling in. Just that morning I’d been on Craigslist searching for a used treadmill. I needed to get away from the rain and the trees—a forest of trees pressing in on me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Give me skyscrapers any day, but trees were the thing that made me feel claustrophobic. My parents were starting to look at me in that dubious way that said they didn’t understand me. And I hated that—hated the feeling of not being understood. And so, I’d packed up my things on a Monday and by Tuesday I was sitting in the back of a cab speeding through the Midtown Tunnel with Woods holding my hand. You should be happy. The thought played itself over and over in my head as I tried to grasp this elusive happiness. Happy ... happy ... what was happy? Getting what you wanted?

  I stayed with Loren, refusing to go anywhere near the apartment Woods and Pearl had shared. Pearl vacated his life and home the day he left New York to retrieve me from Washington. He said he’d come home from work and confessed that he was still in love with me. She’d slapped him across the face and stormed out, taking his car. But Woods hadn’t cared about the car. He’d booked a one-way ticket to Seattle and caught a cab to the airport. By the time we arrived back in New York together, the only thing left of their relationship was the $10,000 credit card bill she’d left on the counter. Woods grimaced when he picked it up.

  “She went on a little post-breakup shopping spree,” he’d said.

  Since Woods’ lease wasn’t up for another few months, he stayed there until we found our own place.

  Jules, who has not spoken to me since Satcher told her about us, is still in her apartment. I imagine she turned her office into a nursery. I heard from Woods that she called me a snake and said she never wanted to lay eyes on me again. Though she had never wanted to lay eyes on Woods again after he cheated on me, and yet, she was divulging her feelings about me to him. Jules, who had been my friend when no one else was; I hadn’t meant to hurt her. I tried to reach out to her, but she sent my calls to voicemail, and eventually I was forced to write her an email. Even though I hadn’t known they were together before Satcher and I were, she didn’t want to talk to me. I was the reason they weren’t together; she blamed me for her lack of happiness. Their baby, born in September, was a boy. I saw a picture of him online, a tiny version of Satcher that they named Clive.

  I haven’t seen Satcher, not since that night he saw Woods and me embracing in his foyer. I’d sent him an email handing in my resignation for Rhubarb and apologizing for ... everything. My heart had dropped when instead of Satcher, Bilbo had been the one to answer my email, asking for an address where he could forward my things. The slight hurt, the fact that he’d rather Bilbo deal with me than talk to me himself. I didn’t know how he was, or where he was. Every time Woods and I were out together I looked for him: in restaurants, at bars, at the post office. I looked for his shoulders, his side part, his dimple. I looked with an aching heart, but the city I loved seemed to have taken his side and was hiding him from me. There’d been two occasions where I’d smelled his cologne: once had been in a restaurant, and the other in a bar. I’d spun around both times to search for him, but there had always been a stranger there instead.

  Don’t forget the ice.

  Woods brought home a puppy after three months of us being officially back together. He’s a Saint Bernard and already the size of a small suitcase. I balked when I saw him, which made Woods upset.

  “We talked about this,” he’d said. “I thought you were ready—”

  “I was ready for a ... Chihuahua,” I said, stroking the puppy’s silky head. “Not a dog giant. We live in an apartment in the city.”

  “I was walking past a pet shop.” Woods looked pained, like he desperately needed my approval. “He looked so sad in his cage,” he finished.

  Typical Woods. He liked sad women and sad animals. I’d summed it up to a savior complex. I didn’t mention the fact that this apartment was going to feel like a cage when the puppy was full-grown. I’d been out of work since I left Rhubarb, and despite my hesitation about being a pet owner, I currently had all the time in the world to adjust to it.

  “Okay,” I said. “What are we naming him?” He was already growing on me because he did indeed have sad eyes.

  Woods looked relieved as he sat down next to me on the couch.

  “Percy,” he said.

  I picked Percy up and stared into his eyes.

  “I’m sorry in advance for being a terrible dog owner, Percy.” He whined and licked my face and I was instantly in love.

  Percy, as it turned out, was a one-person dog. I was the chosen one and he rarely left my side, skidding around corners to keep up with me, and sleeping on my feet while I cooked. It was hard not to laugh at the wounded looks Woods gave the dog, like he’d been betrayed in the worst way. Woods whined about it too: “I’m the one who wanted a dog. I’m the one who saved him. And all he does is follow you around.”

  Three months into our dog ownership, Woods suggested getting another dog. His excuse was that Percy needed company, but I knew that his real reason was his need for favoritism. I spiraled into one of the worst depressions I’d ever experienced. Woods was temporarily silenced by my very poignant emotional plummet. This was who Woods was—it wasn’t even his fault. People were capable of changing small things in their behavior: being neat, eating healthier, and controlling their tempers. But there were core things like Woods’ propensity to look elsewhere for attention. That was not a behavior, but rather an innate flaw that led to the demise of our marriage. It was a much larger issue than remembering to put socks in the hamper, and
it put my heart at risk. When I finally emerged from a three-week darkness, Woods proposed to me. Again.

  He took me to the Bahamas, a vacation he said I desperately needed. We drank, we ate, we swam until our fingers wrinkled like raisins and our skin tanned dark. I felt ... better. And then one night after dinner, he got down on his knee in the restaurant and presented me with a blue box. Everyone was looking, everyone was cheering when I felt obligated to say yes. That night when Woods snored softly beside me I mentally berated myself for being too concerned with what people thought to voice my fear. Fear of marrying someone again after they hurt me so deeply, fear of never being enough to keep Woods tethered to our relationship, fear that I was trying to save something that died a long time ago.

  You wanted this, I remind myself. You came back for this. And then we got back to New York and everyone was so happy that we worked it out. They’d always thought we belonged together, they said. And so I was swept into this belonging, because I was convinced of it myself not that long ago. The wedding date was set. I got what I wanted.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  I’m locking up the apartment when a delivery guy steps out of the elevator. He has his tongue curled around his upper lip, and his head is bent as he studies the address on an envelope.

  “Oh shit,” he says when he almost runs into me. “Sorry.”

  He has one bud still in his ear, while the other is draped across his shoulder. I can hear the music playing faintly as his head moves up and down to the beat. He glances at the door behind me and then back at the envelope.

  “Billie Tarrow?” he asks.

  “That’s me.”

  He hands me the envelope. “Sign here and here,” he says, indicating the lines.

  I’m about to ask for a pen when he buffers one at me.

  “Thanks.” I scribble my signature on the lines, and he rips off the receipt before handing it back to me.