“It’s just that if you’re better looking than Ethan, that makes me think your girlfriend is better looking than me. Not that I care. Maybe I do care. I shouldn’t care, but I can’t help but wonder if Ethan is more attracted to her than he is to me. I wonder if that’s why he’s cheating. Probably. I’m sorry. I’m usually not this self-deprecating but I’m so angry and for some reason I just can’t stop talking.”
He stares at me a moment, contemplating my odd train of thought. “Sasha is ugly. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Sasha?” I say her name incredulously, then I repeat her name, putting emphasis on the sha. “Sasha. That explains a lot.”
He laughs and then I laugh and it’s the strangest thing. Laughing when I should be crying. Why am I not crying?
“I’m Graham,” he says, reaching out his hand.
“Quinn.”
Even his smile is sad. It makes me wonder if his smile would be different under different circumstances.
“I would say it’s good to meet you, Quinn, but this is the worst moment of my life.”
That is a very miserable truth. “Same,” I say, disappointed. “Although, I’m relieved I’m meeting you now rather than next month, after the wedding. At least I won’t be wasting marriage vows on him now.”
“You’re supposed to get married next month?” Graham looks away. “What an asshole,” he says quietly.
“He really is.” I’ve known this about Ethan all along. He’s an asshole. Pretentious. But he’s good to me. Or so I thought. I lean forward again and run my hands through my hair. “God, this sucks.”
As always, my mother has perfect timing with her incoming text. I retrieve my phone and look down at it.
Your cake tasting has been moved to two o’clock on Saturday. Don’t eat lunch beforehand. Will Ethan be joining us?
I sigh with my whole body. I’ve been looking forward to the cake tasting more than any other part of the wedding planning. I wonder if I can avoid telling anyone the wedding is off until Sunday.
The elevator dings and my attention is swept away from my phone and to the doors. When they open, I feel a knot form in my throat. My hand clenches in a fist around my phone when I see the containers of food. The delivery guy begins to walk toward us and my heart takes a beating with every step. Way to pour salt on my wounds, Ethan.
“Chinese food? Are you kidding me?” I stand up and look down at Graham who is still on the floor, looking up at me. I wave my hand toward the Chinese food. “That’s my thing! Not his! I’m the one who likes Chinese food after sex!” I turn back toward the delivery guy and he’s frozen, staring at me, wondering if he should proceed to the door or not. “Give me that!” I take the bags from him. He doesn’t even question me. I plop back down on the floor with the two bags of Chinese food and I rifle through them. I’m pissed to see that Ethan simply duplicated what I always order. “He even ordered the same thing! He’s feeding Sasha my Chinese food!”
Graham jumps up and pulls his wallet out of his pocket. He pays for the food and the poor delivery guy pushes open the door to the stairwell just to get out of the hallway faster than if he were to walk back to the elevator.
“Smells good,” Graham says. He sits back down and grabs the container of chicken and broccoli. I hand him a fork and let him eat it, even though the chicken is my favorite. This isn’t a time to be selfish, though. I open the Mongolian beef and start eating, even though I’m not hungry. But I’ll be damned if Sasha or Ethan will eat any of this. “Whores,” I mutter.
“Whores with no food,” Graham says. “Maybe they’ll both starve to death.”
I smile.
Then I eat and wonder how long I’m going to sit out here in the hallway with this guy. I don’t want to be here when the door opens because I don’t want to see what Sasha looks like. But I also don’t want to miss the moment when she opens the door and finds Graham sitting out here, eating her Chinese food.
So I wait. And eat. With Graham.
After several minutes, he sets down his container and reaches into the takeout bag, pulling out two fortune cookies. He hands one to me and proceeds to open his. He breaks open the cookie and unfolds the strip of paper, then reads his fortune out loud. “You will succeed in a great business endeavor today.” He folds the fortune in half after reading it. “Figures. I took off work today.”
“Stupid fortune,” I mutter.