“Communications.” Dahlia rolled her eyes again. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Still don’t. What did you major in? If you went to college?”
“I did. I majored in audio engineering technology at Belmont, in Nashville.”
Dahlia stared at them.
“And that’s what you do now? Audio . . .”
“Audio engineering. Yeah. I work on podcasts right now, but the goal is to get into a music recording studio, one day.”
“Huh.” Dahlia turned away from them, staring out at the fountain and taking another drink.
London had no idea what this huh meant. It was a similar huh to the ones she’d given at the farm, when they’d talked about the co-op. Had they sounded pretentious just now? London knew sometimes they could sound pretentious when they talked about audio stuff. They just really liked it.
London bounced their knee. “So, you and David,” they prompted, even though they didn’t want to. They didn’t really want to hear more about David, this past that had caused Dahlia pain. If only because they knew knowing this Dahlia, the one who looked weary and vulnerable next to them, would change things. At least for them.
But they also knew her story wasn’t over yet.
“Right. So he proposed. I did make him wait to have the actual ceremony until we had both graduated. So that’s what happened. College graduation, wedding, real jobs, house together in the suburbs, boom.”
“The American dream.”
“Yeah.”
“Except you hated it,” London filled in after a moment. Because . . . that American dream didn’t really sound like Dahlia at all. At least the Dahlia London knew. The one who imitated catfish and sang to cows.
“I didn’t hate it.” There was another long pause.
Looking at Dahlia more closely, London realized her eyes were glassy. Fuck. If she started crying for real, London would . . . do something. Hold her hand. Make her tea and wrap her in a quilt and never let her go. London didn’t have a quilt, or tea, but they would find some.
“I loved David. I really did. He’s a genuinely good person. We were lucky to both find jobs right away. I worked at a small paper in Baltimore—kept working there, actually, until I quit right before coming here. I didn’t hate that either; I just . . . didn’t love it.” She looked down at her hands before looking directly at London. “I want to love something, you know?”
“Yeah,” London said, and their voice came out raspy. Probably because their throat was constricting, almost painfully.
“Anyway. We were doing okay. We had friends; I was starting to pay off some of my loans; I liked decorating the house. Hank started to transition, and David was really supportive of the whole thing, which made me love him more.”
Maybe David wasn’t a total asshole.
But London still didn’t trust the guy.
“And then a few years ago . . . we started having The Talks, you know?”
London shook their head slowly. “The last serious relationship I had was in college. I don’t know what The Talks are.”
Dahlia sighed. “The future. Family. Kids.”
“Oh.” London could see where this was going now.
“We had both always assumed we wanted kids. Because we fucking talked about it all the way back in high school, and I said I wanted them!” Dahlia’s voice projected across the courtyard. “Because when you’re eighteen, when you’re twenty-two, that’s what you feel like you’re supposed to want, especially as a woman. But . . . ” Dahlia sighed again. “While David and I were settling in to marriage, I watched all my other friends travel, and stay up too late in New York City, and teach English in Japan, and be drunk and adventurous, and . . .” Dahlia let the sentence fade away.
“You realized you didn’t want kids,” London said.
“I realized I was sad.”
With horror, London watched a tear fall down her cheek. They reached up to brush it off with their thumb without thinking. Dahlia didn’t react, and London let their hand fall back to the bench, feeling useless.
“And yeah, I didn’t want kids. Maybe I will, eventually, but David wanted them, then, before we were thirty. He came from this big family, and he wanted a big family too, and he was always real type A and had a plan and . . . We started fighting all the time. It was awful. I felt like shit.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I was the asshole, don’t you get it?” Dahlia turned toward them, eyes flashing, her voice getting louder, angrier. “I just changed my mind. Of course David was confused. Of course he was angry. He wanted kids before thirty, and we ended up with a divorce before thirty instead. I fucked up his whole life.”