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Shit. I didn’t want to tell Mason the truth. I didn’t want him to know that I was engaged. That this was how I found out, in the process of marrying someone else.
“That’s a stupid question,” I said, because I was angry. Angry at myself. Angry at the situation. Angry that I didn’t have a way out. “That’s a really fucking stupid question, Mason.”
This made him laugh. Angrily. Bitterly. Drunkenly. I wasn’t sure. He laughed and he looked up at me and he crossed his own arms petulantly across his chest.
“Yeah?” he said in that Irish accent that undid me. “Yeah, and why is that, Rachel?”
“Because it is,” I said.
I sounded stupid. Didn’t we all when we were desperate? When we were cornered?
“Were you always this immature?” Mason asked, laughing again, which made me want to lunge across the table and throttle him.
“Did you always ask such stupid questions?” I answered.
“Tell me why it’s a stupid question,” Mason said. “How about you do that, Rachel? Tell me why it’s a stupid question. Prove to me it’s a stupid question.”
He knew. I was sure of it. From the way he was looking at me. The diner was silent except for the drip, drip, drip of the coffee.
I could hear him over the silence. I could hear his accusations. His indignation. His stupid hurt which wasn’t fair at all. At fucking all. He destroyed what we had. Not me. So why did I fucking care? Why did I care if he knew?
Why did I want so fucking much for him not to know?
My voice was raised as I said, “Because it’s obvious.”
“It’s obvious?”
Mason’s voice was raised now, too. The waitress lowered her eyes at us over the top of her glasses but did not move from her place behind the counter. There was no one else in the place. No one to hear us yell but each other.
“Yeah!” I shouted.
“Yeah?” he shouted back.
He and I both stood up at the same time, knees knocking against the table. The coffee cups tipped over and coffee went everywhere.
“Hey!” the waitress shouted, and it wasn’t an Irish accent that I heard but an American one. The street outside the diner wasn’t dark but dazzling with a rainbow of flashing lights. Mason wasn’t glaring across at me with a heaving chest but smiling up at me, his eyes dazzling not with that rainbow of flashing lights but with me.
“Why?” Mason shouted. “Why is it so stupid to ask a simple question. A simple question, Rachel.”
“Because it is!” I shouted back, fists balled angrily at my sides.
“How did you find out, Rachel?”
No longer yelling. And that terrified me.
My mind searched and searched for another explanation. For a way that I would have found out that about the marriage certificate that didn’t involve a diamond ring, a lowered knee, a bottle of the most expensive champagne money could buy. My cheeks grew red because I was getting angrier. Angrier because I was getting more and more desperate. Angrier because I didn’t quite understand why I was so desperate. Why I couldn’t just tell him the truth.
“Goddammit,” I cursed, tugging at my hair.
“Just tell me,” Mason said, and I was more desperate because he wasn’t yelling.
I wanted him to yell. I wanted him to scream. It was stupid and pathetic, but I didn’t want him to give up on me. On us. Fuck, fuck, fuck, my mind screamed.
“Rachel,” Mason said, and the way he said my name was familiar.
It took me back. To a time he had said it before. To a time when he said it and I was certain that it was the first time in my life that someone had ever truly called me by my name.
“I remember,” I said. Mostly to myself. Mostly under my own breath.
