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“You want tostaymarried? Why?” I managed to say at last.
“Well, think about it,” she said, using her hands because she had clearly thought about this and had been itching to tell me.
“What is there to think about? We can’t juststaymarried, Em. Wouldn’t we get in trouble?” She was freaking me out right now.
She leaned closer and she had a wild gleam in her eyes. “Why? Callyn, there’s no marriage police. And consider that if we were married, it might benefit us.” I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts to make sense.
“How?”
“Well, we could file our taxes jointly, it would help us financially, and we could share health insurance. There’re all kinds of benefits. I looked them up.” Of course she did. Emma proceeded to pull the list up on her phone and read it to me. My head spun with confusion and hearing too many words I didn’t know the meaning of. What the hell was an estate tax?
“This is ridiculous, Emma. We can’t do this. What would our parents say?” I shuddered at the thought. Not that my parents didn’t adore Emma, because they did, but telling them that we’d gotten drunk married in Vegas and were staying married for the sweet financial perks might cause one or both of them to have a stroke.
“We don’t need to tell them. I mean, how would they find out?” she asked. I gave her a look, because she had clearly lost her mind. Our friends knew already, and there was no hiding anything in the age of social media. “Okay, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. How about we try it? We try it for six months and then if you still want to get it annulled, I’ll do it,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say, and I wasn’t speechless very often. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last I’d been speechless. A strange spluttering came from my mouth, like a car that wouldn’t start. I couldn’t make words, only sounds.
Emma shrugged. “Or we can annul it like we planned. No big deal. It was just an idea.” She reached for my hands and clasped them. “It was just a silly idea.” This really meant a lot to her and I had no idea why, but did that matter?
“I mean . . . yes, it’s a completely off-the-wall idea. That’s supposed to bemyspecialty.” Emma didn’t do things like this. Ever. That was what had me so confused. I was the one who should have come up with this. It was as if the world had flipped upside down and I was still trying to figure out how to stand.
“I know. But I was thinking about it and doing research and well—I made a list and here we are.” Even her off-the-wall ideas were researched and planned. So Emma.
I turned the idea over in my head as Emma waited and squeezed my hands so hard that I was worried about my circulation. It was as if she really wanted me to be on board with this. But why? It wasn’t like I had a lot of money or something. My health insurance was bullshit, and I had no property. So the financial aspect was going to benefit me more than her. I couldn’t understand what other compelling reason would make her want to do this, but it only took me a second to decide that her reasons didn’t matter. This was Emma. My Emma. My best friend that I would walk through a hail of bullets for. Who I would walk miles over a path covered in fiery LEGOs for. Who I would do anything for. This was something she wanted and it didn’t matter why. It only mattered that I would give it to her.
“Okay,” I said. “What the hell? Let’s stay married.” Emma hugged me and I knew I’d made the right decision, even if I didn’t know why I’d made it.
“What is wrong with us?” she said, laughing, her eyes sparkling. They were bluer in this light.
“No idea, but if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.” I wasmarried. I was married to my best friend. Emma was my wife. The word felt strange and forbidden and adult. Way too grown-up for me, or for us. It wasn’t like I was going to come home from work and find her in the kitchen making a pot roast in heels and pearls. Granted, life wasn’t a 50s sitcom, but still. We weren’tmarriedmarried, with sex and a house and a future and everything.
“I think we should celebrate,” Emma said, bouncing up from the couch. I hadn’t seen her this excited since they uncancelled her favorite space show. I waited on the couch as she bounded to the kitchen and came back with a tiny bottle of champagne and two glasses.
“I’ve had this in the fridge forever. I was saving it for, well, I don’t know what for, but I think now is as good a time as any to drink it.” She popped the cork and managed not to spill any on the floor.
“This is really weird, Em,” I said, taking the glass from her. I was going to be good and sip this carefully. Moderation. That was what I needed right now, especially since alcohol was what got me into this. A few too many drinks and BAM, I have a wife.
“How about we just go with it?” she said, tapping her glass to mine.
“That’s my line,” I said. “Have I finally influenced you so much that you’re stealing my personality?” I laughed, but I was a little serious. This new Emma was a stranger to me. Her eyes were wild with suppressed excitement.
“Are you going to be okay? I mean, are you stoked to have me as a wife or something?” I asked. She gulped some champagne and then put down her glass.
“No, Callyn, I’m just . . . I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been going in circles for so long and then I finally decided to do what I wanted to do for the first time in my life and it’s like I’m high on it. Everything seems different. I feel free, and it’s making me a little loopy, I guess.” I had noticed a change in her, definitely. Her shoulders weren’t as slumped as they had been for years. She’d also stopped caring so much about what her parents thought, which I had been begging her to do, but she hadn’t been able to do it until she was ready.
“I’m so happy for you, Em. You do seem different. I guess I’m adjusting too, but you can’t become the impulsive one. That’s my job.” She grinned and the happiness radiated from her entire being. I loved seeing her this way. It made my heart feel like it was too big to stay in my chest without causing some internal damage.
“You’re still going to be the impulsive one, Callyn. But maybe now instead of listing all the reasons you shouldn’t do the thing, I’ll take your hand and do the thing with you.” Why did that make me feel like I wanted to cry?
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, and we clinked our glasses again. “Wait, do I have to change my name? Do you have to change your name? Should we mash our last names together?” All kinds of thoughts hit me all at once.
“No, Callyn, you don’t have to change your name. This is just temporary, remember? Just for six months. I mean, nothing is really going to be that different. Except you can get my health insurance, if you want.” Emma had insurance through her new school. It wasn’t great, but it was better than what I currently had from the hotel. I missed being on my parent’s plan. I had had so much less to worry about back then and I didn’t even appreciate it. I wanted to slap Past Callyn over that.
“Yeah, sounds good.” That would be cool. Maybe I could even see a dentist. Being in your mid-twenties was wild.
“What would we change our names to, if we decided to do it? Could we be cool and do one where we put the letters of our last names together into a new name?” Emma laughed and we both typed the letters into our phones to see what we could come up with.
“What can we make with Stott and Vitali?”
