I wait, wishing for more, but it doesn’t come. My heart gives a painful twist.
“You’re still—” I say, trying to make small talk. I can’t see my parents down the trail anymore, so I nod us back toward it, not wanting to fall too far behind them.
“Trying to get an A&R position, yes,” Ren cuts in.
I glance askance at the tension in his voice. “Sorry,” I say. “Just doing the annual check-in.”
Ren lets out a soft, forced laugh. “Don’t apologize. It’s just coming up a lot lately.”
“Yeah?” I say, kicking at a rock on the trail. “Because you’re getting closer, or…?”
“Because I’m not getting closer fast enough,” Ren says. He catches the rock with his toe, kicks it along farther. “Because it’s not a viable career option.”
“Webster,” I say, grabbing his arm, half because I want him to know how much I disagree with this and half because he’s finally talking to me and I need it to continue. “Who’s telling you that?”
“My dad—he says I should go back to school. Try to be a teacher.”
“What would you teach?”
“Excellent question. I’ll let you know if I ever decide I actuallywantto be a teacher,” Ren says, his shoulders set tight. “My mom also doesn’t seem to think what I’m doing now is a real job,” Ren adds, eyes down the path in front of us. “And—” He breaks off. We’ve reached the rock where it was kicked. He stops for a minute.
“And?” I say.
When he looks back up at me, the air goes thick, sitting heavy between us. He watches me a beat longer, before he kicks the rock down the trail again. “Nothing. I’m just being dramatic about it.”
“You’re not,” I say as we continue walking. I want him to hear me, believe it. “If everyone in my life was questioning my career, I’d be calling you daily and complaining about it.”
“No one could question you,” Ren says. His elbow knocks against mine. “Pulling all-nighters just so you can take over the animation world. I’m not working at it as hard as you are.”
I know then that I won’t get anything more out of him.
His phone chimes from his pocket. He doesn’t reach for it,but I see his shoulders hitch a little higher. I spot the rock and kick it back to him.
“Hey,” I say, moving us to an easier topic. “What song do you think Charlene will have everyone sing tonight?” Ren guides the rock down the path, but his heart isn’t in it. I can feel him pulling away. His phone chimes again. “I was thinking she might go wedding classic, something like ‘Sweet Caroline’ or ‘L-O-V-E,’ or—”
Ren stops dead in his tracks as his phone rings with a call. I look over just in time to see a wince slipping off his face.
“Joni—” He withdraws his phone from his pocket, glances at the screen. “I just need to—”
“Don’t,” I say, without pausing to think about it. “Don’t answer it. Keep talking to me.” I realize I sound desperate, that I’m trying to force him into something that might hurt his relationship with Amanda, but I don’t know what else to do to save this moment.
His arm goes rigid, and my eyes snag on the single line that wraps around it just below his elbow. I have the same one on my arm, tattoos we got as an ode to our friendship back in college. It was the simplest design we could come up with that still represented the idea of our lives being tied together forever. Back when there wasn’t any strain like this between us, when there weren’t months that went by without hearing each other’s voices. My gaze slides back up to his face, all of it now tense, pained.
His phone goes silent.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Give me two—”
“No,” I cut in, waving a hand. “You know what? Do whatever you need to do.”
Before he can respond, I turn and hurry down the trail, anxious to get out of earshot before I can hear him say hello.
* * *
We hardly talk the rest of the afternoon, awkwardly maneuvering our way around the yurt. I get ready quickly and leave without telling him, rush down the path to meet my parents. The flash of anger I felt earlier is gone, replaced by something hollow, like I’ve lost some essential piece of me.
The wedding is in the meadow behind the barn, green dotted with golden poppies and purple lupine. We gather there for the cocktail hour. When my mom waves us into various arrangements for photos, I put my dad between Ren and me every time, motion for her phone so I can take a picture of the three of them before she can get a picture of the two of us alone.
We almost hit a record for not speaking to each other. After moving into the barn for the reception, all through dinner, toasts, Charlene and Mavis’s first dance. We float in and out of each other’s orbits, but never exchange more than a cursory glance.
