I grabbed Aldridge’s arm and pulled him to my eye level. “I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now.”
“Do you wanna leave?”
“I want to jump off of a bridge.”
Anika tossed her arm around me. “Nessa …” Her voice was a song. “You need to take some deep breaths. Dante’s going to be your brother-in-law. And eventually you’ll love him as much as I do.”
“Bitch you better be fucking joking.”
She looked to Aldridge for congratulations. “Are you happy for me Aldi?”
“If you like it, I love it.”
Anika gasped. “You can give me away. It’s going to be a family affair.”
I shrugged Anika’s hand from my shoulder. “Can you walk me to my car?”
“Sure.” Aldridge nodded.
I collected my things and headed toward the exit. “Don’t tell Mom I want to break it to her in person,” Anika called out.
We walked in silence through the outdoor mall for several minutes. “You’re pouting.”
“I’m not pouting.”
“Why are you so upset?”
“Because that’s not how this is done. Love is just not that simple.”
“Are you mad or are you jealous?”
I stopped in my tracks. “I don’t wanna marry Dante.”
“I think you know what I meant.”
“Okay, I feel like I’ve done everything right and Anika has done everything wrong and she always comes out on top. I’ve followed every fucking rule and made sacrifices, and I have zero to show for it. A few years ago, I was the one engaged. I was the one getting married.”
“What happened?”
Aldridge is what happened.“That’s not the point. I do think marrying Dante after just a few weeks is a bad idea. But at least Anika is living. Me on the other hand, I’m just stuck in place. Shit, I’m probably regressing. No man, a law school dropout, with a job I’m not over the moon about, back in the city I grew up in.”
“Wait, you didn’t finish law school?”
His question helped to feed my sense of inadequacy. “No, I quit because it was too hard, and I didn’t know anybody.”
“Okay, that’s okay. Everybody’s journey is different.”
“That’s the thing everyone is on a journey, but my mode of transportation is broke down on the side of the road.”
“So, get out and walk.”
“Stop, stop.” I held up a silencing hand.
“Stop what?”
“Stop trying to be sensible and let me vent.”
“Okay you’ve got this, the floor is yours.”
