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“Why did I break off our engagement? I would have been a married woman, Mrs. Roland Biggs, by now if I’d just stayed the course,” Rachael said between choking sobs.
Sofi and Leia shared yet another look. Rachael knew she didn’t want to just stay the course and be stuck with Roland for life. She knew calling off her wedding had been the right thing. So should her friends point out what she already knew? Or just let her bemoan her fate?
“But he didn’t love me. Not like he should have.Hewas just staying the course. The way I should have but didn’t. But then would we have been happy?” Rachael didn’t even pause before she continued. “No. I know that. The only reason we were getting married was because we’d dated for so long and he was sick of everyone asking when we were going to get married. So Roland proposed. More for them than for himself. At least that’s what I think. We shouldn’t get married for other people. But I want to be married.” Rachael was holding an entire argument with herself and it was beginning to make Sofi nervous, but at least it had stopped her heart-wrenching sobs. So she remained quiet, simply patting Rachael’s back from time to time.
Sofi was no good at this. She’d grown up with brothers and Austin. She’d had girlfriends, but none of them were ever as close as she’d been with guys. At least not until Leia and Rachael in recent years. And this was the first time any of them had gone through something like this. Sofi worried that she wasn’t enough. In fact, she knew she wasn’t. Thus she’d called in reinforcements: Leia. But Leia seemed as lost as Sofi was.
“I understand wanting to be married,” Sofi finally said, responding to the last thing Rachael had said. It felt like as good a place to start as any.
“Me too,” Leia chimed in.
“But I wouldn’t want to be married to the wrong guy,” Sofi added.
Leia nodded in agreement.
“And you know that Roland is the wrong guy,” Sofi concluded, trying to keep her voice gentle.
That was good, wasn’t it?
Rachael poked her head out from her blanket before sighing and nodding once. “I do.”
Her poor eyes were bright red and puffy as she blinked in the light. Sofi wondered how long Rachael had been crying before she’d called Sofi.
“Are those tacos?” Rachael asked, her eyes finally focusing on the bags on her coffee table.
“Along with ice cream, chocolate, and sour cream and onion chips,” Leia replied.
Rachael began to sit up as Sofi opened the bag of tacos and handed it to her.
“You guys are the best,” Rachael said as she dug into the bag and pulled out the container that housed tacos, rice, and beans.
Sofi breathed a sigh of relief. Showing interest in food was a good thing. They were making progress. Yes, they would probably fall two steps back soon, but going forward for a minute was a triumph to be celebrated.
“I know I don’t want to be married to him. I know I did the right thing. But I still follow him on insta, and he posted stories with this new girl, and it just hit so hard. For a moment, I just wanted to be that girl more than anything. But then I realized Iwasthat girl and I’d been so easily replaced. Then I wondered if he could have ever loved me if he had already moved on and then, well, you saw the rest.”
“Maybe you should stop following him,” Leia suggested, eyeing Rachael’s phone as it lay on the coffee table.
Sofi nodded her agreement.
“I did. After I social media stalked the girl and then realized what I was doing.”
“We’ve all been there,” Sofi said, ashamed that she wasn’t at all exaggerating. She’d social media stalked every last one of Austin’s many girlfriends.
“Yeah, we have,” Leia agreed.
Sofi’s gaze slid curiously to her friend for a moment, wondering whose girlfriend Leia had checked up on, before she was distracted as Rachael bit into a chicken taco and let out a gusty sigh.
“I guess I have to ask how much I loved him if this taco could really be healing me so well.”
“It is an amazing taco,” Leia said.
Sofi laughed.
The women sat in silence as Rachael ate. She offered the box of food toward Sofi and Leia, but neither took her up on it. They knew Rachael could use every one of those tacos.
“The thought that keeps coming back to me is that I want to find a guy who loves me the way Austin loves Sofi,” Rachael said as she set down her taco and wiped her hands on a napkin.
Sofi gave a single, short laugh, thinking Rachael had to be joking.
