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My stomach dropped at the conspiratorial tone of his voice.
Maybe he was going to propose to Larissa. Maybe he wanted me to see the ring. We were going to be here for New Year’s, so it made sense. Everyone was here, people get engaged during the holidays.
I didn’t want to see the ring. I didn’t want to go to the engagement party. I didn’t want to be in the wedding.
The idea made me feel physically ill.
The self-loathing I felt for feeling this way was eating me alive. I hated myself. And a small part of me hated him too.
I followed Mike to his room, braced for the news. But when we got there, he closed the door and pulled out a Christmas gift.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief.
“I wanted to show you what I got Larissa,” he said. “You know how she loves food? Like, specialty stuff? I got her these French cookies.”
He opened the top of a pink box. There was a clear package wrapped in a red bow with two dozen rainbow-colored sandwich cookies in it.
“I had them shipped,” he said proudly. “It was expensive as fuck. What do you think? Good, right? She’ll love it?”
I blinked. “Mike…” I said. “These have nuts in them.”
He looked confused. “No, they don’t. They’re lemon and vanilla and stuff. I didn’t get anything with nuts.”
“These are Parisian macarons. They’re made with almond flour.”
His face fell.
Something stirred inside of me. A tiny spark of rage.
Ten months. They’d been dating for ten months. They lived together and he still didn’t know how to not buy her things with nuts in them?
I felt my jaw go tight.
“You need to ask,” I said, trying to keep my tone level. “You specifically ask, anytime you get her food. You ask for a manager to double-check.”
“I know, man. But I mean look at them. They don’t look like—Fuck.” He slammed the lid back on the box and dropped it on the dresser. He put his hands on his head. “What am I gonna do? This shit’s tomorrow morning. I can’t get anything by tomorrow. Nothing’s open.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost 7:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve. We were in rural northern Minnesota. We didn’t have a big box store, nothing.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” he said under his breath. “So stupid.” He squeezed his hair. “We’re not good right now.”
I drew my brows down. “What do you mean?”
He looked stricken. “She’s mad at me. It’s dumb. I just… I can’t mess this up.”
“Why is she mad at you?”
“I ruined the carpet,” he said.
“How?”
“It was an accident.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything more.
That didn’t sound like Larissa. She didn’t get mad about accidents.
It occurred to me that if I hadn’t brought Heather, I’d know this story already. Another thing to kick myself over.
