I accepted it, confused. “Is this a penis?”
“A straw. You can’t have a bachelorette party without a penis straw.”
“Of course,” I responded, blinking my disappointment away. “Was this really what you wanted to tell me? That I needed a phallic party straw?”
His jaw tightened. “No. I, uh…”
Someone brushed past us on the sidewalk, and when I was starting to suspect I’d made the whole night up, Ethan tipped his face toward me. I’d missed that face more than I cared to admit. He dragged his head from side to side, his tongue in his teeth like he was contemplating something, until finally, he spoke.
“Rich sucks.”
Those two words drew all the sound out of the ambulance bay. It was actually pretty impressive for only a couple of words.
“I’m sure there’s a more elegant way to put that, but my head is killing me, so I’m just saying it. That guy sucks.” He drew out “sucks” into multiple syllables for emphasis.
“What?” I laughed, because what else were you supposed to do when your best man told you your future husband sucked days before your wedding? “What are you talking about?”
“He’ssoboring, Chuck. He’s a pair of khaki pants with personhood. And he’s always referring to himself as a ‘foodie.’ Whatisthat? You eat food, bro. That’s not a personality.” Each new insult seemed to burst from his mouth like Pop Rocks.
My eyes bored into his, searching for…I wasn’t sure what. A sign maybe. A signal that there was something I was missing that would make sense of all of it. He just tilted his head, like he was playing with me. Maybe he was. Maybe he thought this was funny.
“I thought you liked Rich,” I argued.
“It’s not that I don’tlikehim. I don’tcareabout him. I care about you, and you also kind of suck when you’re with him.”
“Nice.” My mouth tasted like vinegar.
“I don’t even recognize you with him. You’re notyou. You’re this creepy yes-man…the wives…you know, like those wives that start out normal and turn into these agreeable automatons…”
Rage built behind my eyes. “Are you calling me aStepfordWife?”
“Yes! Sorry. It’s my head. The words are…” He scrubbed his stubble with palpable frustration. “You’d never show himup at an ax-throwing bar like you did with me tonight. Do you ever let him see the real you?”
Hot anger prodded my neck like a curling iron to the throat. Who did he think he was, telling me what I was and who I belonged with? “Did it ever occur to you that maybeyoudon’t know the real me? I barely see you anymore.”
A bullet of clarity shot through my belly. Ethan was no longer my best friend. Time and distance had contorted him into something else entirely: He was merely myoldestfriend. A visitor in my life. The same way my parents were. He came and went with ease in a way I’d wanted to believe wasn’t possible.
“Come on.” The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk, and I suppressed the urge to flick it. “Even you don’t believe that. I know you better than anyone.”
“I’ve changed.” I wrapped my arms around my middle like a shield. “You don’t know what I want or who I am. Not anymore.”
He blinked, and something sad seeped into the edges of his expression. He was no longer playing a game. Whatever this was had turned serious. “If you marry that guy, you’ll regret it. I know you will.”
“You don’t know anything. You’re one to talk about ‘sucking.’ ” Dear lord, why had he anchored this conversation in conjugations of “to suck”? “You bounce between women you don’t care about to feed your ego.”
He moved to push his hand through his hair, seeming to forget his bandage or that it was pulled back into a bun.
I lifted my chin at him defiantly. “And your hair looks dumb like that, by the way.”
He looked me up and down without an ounce of theharmless, flirtatious heat I’d have bet my life had been there earlier. “Well, that dress is impractical.”
“It’s supposed to be!”
“If the world ends tonight, and everything distracting us disappears…there’s no jobs, or music, or wedding deposits…is Rich still the person you want to be with?”
My heart folded in on itself. Over the years, Ethan and I had made zombie apocalypse plans in beanbag chairs and sad first apartments, joking about our doomed partnership in a postapocalyptic society, but that’s all it ever was. A joke. Because we always failed to address the issue of proximity, primarily our lack of it.
“The world isn’t ending tonight,” I responded. “It’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.”
