For a split second, I can actually hear his voice from that night — cold and impatient, ushering me out of our apartment.
I pictured Sarah’s hand instead. When we were looking at rings. That’s how I knew.
Jesus Christ.
Aaron notices me first. His face shifts through surprise and something like discomfort before he pastes on a smile that makes me want to throw the wooden block our bread had arrived on at his head.
“Carly.”
Sarah turns, sees me, and her expression does the same fake-bright smile she’d done the first time she’d met me.
I could keep walking. Ishouldkeep walking.
Instead, I stop, because apparently, self-preservation is not one of my stronger qualities.
“Aaron,” I say, and I’m proud of how normal I sound. “Sarah.”
“Wow,” he says. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
I want to tell him that I didn’t expect to see him either, that I especially didn’t expect to see the woman he’d been cheating on me with wearing a diamond larger than my last shred of patience. But I don’t.“Yeah, I, uh, I’m here.”
Smooth. Good job, Carly.
Sarah’s fingers drift to her ring automatically, like the thing has its own gravitational pull. “We’re meeting some friends.”
“Oh. Yeah, cool.” I can feel the fake normalcy leaving me in droves, and I tense, willing it to come back. I gesture toward the ring to get it out of the way. “Congrats, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Aaron glances down the hallway behind me. “Are you here with someone?”
The question is casual in the way a land mine is casual.I know what he’s really asking.Are you alone?Did you end up pathetic and single and still stuck in the crater I left?
My pride rises up so fast that I don’t even think before speaking.
“Yeah,” I lie. “I’m seeing someone.”
The words leave my mouth and hover there in the air, stupid and inevitable, like floating dust mites.
Aaron’s smile tightens by a fraction. “Really?”
I nod, because I’ve committed now and can’t exactly say,Actually, that was a reflexive lie, I’m actually still at rock bottom.“Really.”
God. This might be the saddest thing I’ve ever done.
His eyes flick over my shoulder again. “Anyone we know?”
“Uh...”I’m painfully aware that my answer is, in fact, not an answer at all, but instead a noise made by a woman who is digging her own grave.
Sarah tilts her head. “You should come to the wedding.”
I blink.Excuse me?
Aaron gives a quick laugh like this is all perfectly normal and not deranged. “Yeah. We’ll have a lot of the old group there. You should come.”
The old group. The group of our friends from university. Great. Humiliation is more fun when it’s social.
“And bring your boyfriend,” Sarah adds with a bright smile that is either sincere or sociopathic. “It’d be nice to meet him.”
Every thought in my brain grinds to a halt to keep my mouth in check, because although I should say,yes, fantastic, and never show up, there are other things I want to say more:No thank you. I’d rather eat gravel. I hope your entire life catches on fire.
