“Do you want to see him?” Lizzie asked.
“Of course I want to see him.” Abby wanted to do everything with Sebastian, everything he’d let her do. Everything they’d already done, and everything they hadn’t tried yet. “Except…” Except Sebastian probably didn’t want anything like a real relationship… and Abby was almost thirty-four. Even if she froze her eggs, she didn’t have time to waste on unserious men.
Which brought her back to Mark, who was serious.
“Was I an idiot?” Abby asked quietly. “Tell me if I was an idiot.”
“Oh, I’m not going to tell you anything,” Lizzie said. “You know the answer.”
“Do I, though?”
Lizzie waited.
“Mark is kind,” Abby said. “He’s patient. He hardly ever loses his temper. He doesn’t yell. He’s smart. He’s successful.” She swallowed. “And he loved me.” She thought about the way Mark had looked at her, the first night she’d brought him to her apartment; with adoration and amazement, even awe. How’d I get so lucky, he’d whispered, kissing her neck.
“And he told me that he thought he could forgive me. That we could get through it, if I wanted to.”
“And?” asked Lizzie.
“And he loved me,” Abby repeated. It sounded like she was trying to convince Lizzie. Or maybe herself. “He was good to me.” Abby bowed her head and concentrated on scratching Grover behind the ears.
“And?”
Abby swallowed hard. “And he’s boring,” she admitted very quietly. “No. That’s not fair. It wasn’t him. I was bored. Sometimes.” She rubbed her hands on her thighs. “But he doesn’t eat sugar. He doesn’t ride a bike. He doesn’t… you know.” Make me feel like I’ll die if I can’t touch him, she thought, but did not say.
“Okay, he doesn’t set your soul on fire.” Lizzie looked at Abby, her expression patient and nonjudgmental, even though Abby was pretty sure that Lizzie had an opinion on the matter. “And Sebastian?” Lizzie prompted.
“He’s very…” Abby remembered a hotel room, lit by candlelight. She let her eyes close. “He’s really good-looking. He smells amazing. He has a good relationship with his best friend. Cares about his job. And he rides a bike.” Out loud, it didn’t sound like much.
“You could text him. Ask him to come down here. See where things go. If it doesn’t work out, there are other fish in the sea,” Lizzie said.
“Okay, but how many of them are going to like me?” Abby asked.
“Can we not do the fat-girl self-deprecating shtick?” Lizzie said. Grover, who’d caught the shift in her tone, raised his head to glare at Abby, an effect only slightly diminished by the doughnut squeaky toy in his mouth. “It’s so early-aughts.”
“I’m not being self-deprecating. I’m being realistic,” Abby muttered. If Eileen had been a force for evil in her life—or at least a force for denial and self-loathing—Lizzie had been a force for good, a living example that it was possible to move through the world in a larger body without hating yourself.
Abby didn’t think her friend was lonely… but Abby did wonder if maybe Lizzie might have wanted a traveling companion, or even just someone waiting for her when she came home; someone who’d want to hear her stories and look at her pictures. Someone who would tell her to wear her sunscreen before she went to the beaches in Cuba, or reminded her to pack long underwear before she went skiing in Banff; someone who’d track her plane online as it crossed the Atlantic and listen to her stories when she got home. What was the point of a life like Lizzie’s if there wasn’t someone paying attention? What did it matter if you had great stories if there wasn’t anyone to hear them?
“Do you ever get lonely?” Abby asked her friend.
“Sure,” said Lizzie. “Sometimes. Everyone’s lonely sometimes.” She scooped Grover into her lap. “But you know what? I think occasionally lonely is better than being stuck with the wrong person forever.” Grover looked up at her adoringly. Lizzie scratched him underneath his chin.
“Tell me the rest of it,” Lizzie said. “You said there was something else you wanted to talk about.”
Abby took a deep breath. “I had an idea. It’s just an idea. I don’t know if it’s possible, or how I’d even go about doing it.”