“I don’t know if that’s fair,” I weakly protest.
“I think I’m being more than fair, actually, ’cause there’s a lot worse I could say. I just—I don’t get it.Whyare you so hung up on him?”
Why do I love Ellie?
I’ve asked myself a million times. I wish it were a simple answer.
Why does anyone love anyone?
How do I explain that when I’m with Ellie, I feel like the very best version of myself? Or at least, that’s how I felt at the start—before jealousy stepped in and warped everything. But even now, jealousy and all, I look at Ellie and see so many things I wish I had more of. Empathy. Compassion. Patience.
I didn’t fall in love with him all at once, so I can’t pinpoint a single reason or moment. All I know is that over time, I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.
I’ve on occasion wondered if I’m just a masochist. If part of me is in love with the impossibility of Ellie. If part of me likes the poetry of yearning.
But I don’t want to give voice to that, so I shrug and say, “I wish I knew.”
“You can do better. Both in a partner and in a friend. It isn’t right for him to string you along.”
“Like you said, he probably doesn’t realize I have feelings for him. Not particularly observant, remember?”
“Okay, so let’s take you out of the equation. Pretend it’s not about you, and it isn’t, because—no offense—you don’t really matter here.”
“Hey,” I object, insulted.
“I know. Hurts, doesn’t it? Push that aside, and think about the situation objectively. Ellie had just gotten engaged to the woman who is allegedly—what did he say in his vows?—his best friend, his confidante, and—oh yeah—hiswhole heart.” Alex looks nauseated. “She said yes to spending therest of her lifewith him. He should have been over the moon, and instead he turns to hisotherbest friend—who also happens to be in love with him, but benefit of the doubt orwhatever—and confesses his past feelings to her. Why do that? What’s his motive?”
“Who’s to say he had a motive? Maybe he was just reminiscing.”
“There’s always motive to everyone’s actions, either conscious or subconscious.”
“Well, aren’tyouthe cynic,” I mutter.
“I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist.”
“The most cynical thing a cynic can do is call himself a realist.” I laugh.
“Fair enough,” he concedes. “Cynical or not, I have a point, and you know it.”
“What’syourmotive in inviting me out to your car, then? What do you expect to gain from this?” I challenge.
“Distraction,” he says simply.
“Distraction,” I repeat, my voice flat.
“I am, as you pointed out, a cynical man, currently in a marriage nearing its end. The last thing I want to do is pretend to be happy for two people starting their own doomed legal entanglement. Even less so now that you’ve proven what I suspected for years—that Ellie is a jackass masquerading as a nice guy.”
“You’re supposed to be his friend. You came to his wedding,” I counter. I should be appalled. Alex is the first person I’ve ever heard say anything bad about Ellie, and though I would have, until eight months ago, been his biggest defender, part of me is eating this shit up.
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Josephina,” he says with a droll eyebrow raise. I would usually protest someone’s use of my full name—I’ve gone by Joey for so long that my own name sounds foreign to me, my brain slow to register that when someone says it, it’s me to whom they’re referring. But I let it slide as he continues, “You and I both know that the only reason I was invited tonight was so I could buy them a goodgift, which they will surely pick apart once they receive it, measuring it against some criteria they have in their heads of money spent versus the guest’s income. They’ll probably even let you in on their verdict—please tell me how I do.”
I pause, unsure how to respond, because that’sexactlywhat’s going to happen. Part of it already happened. I was in the room when Ellie and Cat debated whether or not to invite Alex, andIwas the person in favor of inviting him because he’d buy them a good gift. It had all been fun and games at the time, but now I feel ashamed.
Despite the fact that I know he’s right, I feel a profound surge of sadness at how transparent we all are to him. I wonder if he sees anyone as a friend or if he at least believes there are people who see him as a friend. Or maybe he sees everyone through the lens of what they can do for him and imagines everyone looks at him the same way.
I rush to reassure him. “You’re Ellie’s friend. Cat’s too. They wouldn’t have invited you if you weren’t.”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
