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“Oh?”
“No, Mom, it’s not fair to put that on us. You could still have that relationship with Jacob.”
“How? Knowing… what… you know maybe I could get by that.Maybe. But your father? I’m going to be blunt with you, honey, your father knows quite a bit about Jacob’s personal life and now he has that image of you with him.”
“Okay well… don’t picture it!”
“You’re being immature, Whitney. Maybe we didn’t handle it the best at the time but you can’t sit there and tell me you don’t understand why this is uncomfortable for us.”
“I do! I just don’t think you should cut us out of your life because of it.”
“I haven’t.”
“You don’t get me without him, Mom. Don’t you see? We wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t real. We came to you because we are ready to take the next step together and our families need to know. If it was just fun or sex or whatever…”
“Can you not?” She slides her glasses into her hair to rub her eyes. “I cannot believe you and my best friend from college. He slept with half the girls in our freshman year dorm, Whitney!”
I blanch and scrunch my nose. “I didn’t need to know that, though I could have guessed. But I am well aware of what happened before me. But I also know that nothing has happened with anyone else since he met me, if that’s your concern. He went to Mexico and couldn’t move on. He tried, Mom. He broke up with me and it destroyed us both.”
“I just don’t… how did this happen, Whitney, and be honest.” She gives me a pointed glare.
“Does it matter? Will it help anything?”
“Maybe?”
“I had a crush on him for forever which you knew. It was harmless, nothing happened before I was eighteen, I hope you can believe that.”
“If I didn’t believe that, Jacob would not still be alive.” She narrows her eyes though I can hear the joke lying beneath her words,I think.
I sigh. “I never thought he’d see me like that. He never gave me any indication, never flirted with me or… anything. And then one night I was drunk and,” I shrug as if it wasn’t the most meaningful night of my life. “I came onto him.” I wince. “I think seeing me for the first time in a year, he realized that I wasn’t that same little girl anymore. The last time he saw me, I was seventeen with blonde hair and braces and no boobs. So fast forward a year and I look different and act different and I’m coming onto him… I think it was a moment of weakness? That first night? Because he told me we couldn’t. He told me that was it, it shouldn’t have happened.”
“And yet it did.”
“Mom, I know this is weird and uncomfortable but if you thought about it, isn’t Jacob the exact kind of man you’d want to see me with? Trustworthy and kind and caring and good to me?”
“Sure. But there are other men out there that fit those characteristics that are not part of this family.”
“Well, we are here now and JP and I are planning to get married.”
She gasps and I frown at her shock.
“Seriously? That’s shocking?”
She doesn’t reply, so I continue. “You and Dad have to figure out if you can live with this. If you can be in our lives and accept this. I want that. I want my family. My whole family.” Tears have sprung to my eyes and begin to run down my face. “Mom, I’m so sorry that I did this to us. That I had a hand in destroying a relationship that you held so dear. But I do love him, and I want to be with him and I can’t apologize for that. I can’t spend the rest of my life apologizing for falling in love with your best friend.”
“I think this is aterribleidea. Truly. Awful.” Chloe says as she leans against the island in JP’s kitchen.Well, I guess it’s my kitchen now too.
“I’m with Chlo. This just seems like a recipe for disaster,” Trey says as he pulls his beer to his lips. “Holidays and family drama and alcohol and a carving knife?” he continues.
I spin away from the sweet potatoes I’m mashing and give them both a look. “Look, you two are here tohelp. I don’t want to hear any of this negativity.”
“You invited your parents and JP’s mom andmy parentsfor Thanksgiving dinner and you think Trey and I canhelp?”
“It’s a shame that no one was having Thanksgiving dinner! My parents were going to be at my house alone, and who knows what Mason would have ended up doing because we were going to your mom’s,” I say, pointing at Trey. “And Aunt Melanie can’t cook for shit,” I say, referring to Chloe’s mom. “I am saving your parents.”
“Oh, make no mistake, my parents are thrilled but mostly for the front seat to the shitshow.” She snorts into her mimosa.
“They were also invited for damage control.” I point my spoon at her. “Make sure they know their roles. Tell your dad not to antagonize my dad.” I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. “Maybe this all blows up in our faces but I think we should all sit down and… try. It’s Thanksgiving after all. If we don’t do this now, if we don’t try while the wounds are still fresh, we won’t heal right. You know? Things will be awkward and polite and stiff hugs and forced phone calls and I don’t want that. So, I will take the arguing and the anger and fighting because at least that means we are fighting for something. What I will never take from anyone in this family is indifference.”
