Three years later, Facebook told me he was married. To a blonde who resembled the rat from the Muppets and who commented on all of his posts about how funny he was. Spoiler alert: he wasn’t that funny. And he had two kids now and had lost most of his hair. Not that I still Facebook-stalked him. Well, not more than once or twice a year at most.
And since then, I had just been working under the assumption that anything that seemed too good to be true, well, was.
So was Megan wrong? No. Especially considering that I met David through her. He had been her friend in college. And when we broke up, she chose me without hesitation, ending that friendship. With eight years of distance from the situation, I realized that must have been harder than it looked to me at the time.
But Megan also didn’t realize that I now understood what I had done by building an effigy of David instead of looking at the real person. Or how much growth it took to sneak out of the hotel room after her engagement party instead of trying to form a meaningless relationship with Justin to validate my mistake—a relationship that I would then have to intentionally sabotage because Justin was the absolute worst.
Hell, a few months earlier, I would have definitely called Alex and asked him to come over, ostensibly to prove Megan wrong, but in reality to do exactly what she had accused me of.
Instead, I took a long shower, the water as hot as I could stand it, and got into bed. There I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wishing I had managed a different trajectory eight years earlier instead of taking David at his word. Because Megan was wrong about one thing: I didn’t sabotage relationships, I sabotaged myself. There was a big difference.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I woke up sad, but clear-headed, to an apology text from Alex.
I’m so, so sorry. It had come in around four in the morning.
I smiled grimly. At least he was sweet about it. Even if the fallout sucked. I sent a reply, figuring he had to still be asleep. So how was I last night? Since we’re apparently a thing now . . .
But he replied immediately. Amazing. How was I?
You got too drunk and passed out.
Ouch. I probably deserve that one.
It’s okay, we made up this morning.
Oh good. I’d hate to think we were fighting because I got too drunk.
Did you?
Nah, the Justin thing sobered me up real quick. You?
My sister called me having a meltdown right after I got off with you, so I bailed early, I lied. Best to keep the story consistent since Tim apparently told Megan everything.
Hope everything’s okay.
It is. I hesitated, then added more. Megan is mad at me though. Tim told her that we were sleeping together and she didn’t like that.
Did you tell her the truth?
Yeah. Sucked anyway.
I’m sorry, he said again. Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Apology brunch today?
Absolutely nothing sounded better than a mimosa and some French toast with Alex. I wish. Today is salon day with the evil bridesmaids.
Gross. How long will all of that take?
Forever, apparently. Caryn said a keratin treatment takes three hours and then I can’t wash my hair for three days, and the eyelashes will take about an hour too. No idea if they can do the eyelashes while my hair is getting done.
And what’s the point of all this?
That was a really good question. It was the compromise I reached when I couldn’t go to Caryn’s bachelorette weekend extravaganza in New Orleans. And I was still meekly hiding the tan lines that I hadn’t completely fixed from Mexico, so a flat-out refusal to get my hair straightened and eyelashes extended wasn’t worth the drama, even if it would save me something like five hundred dollars.
On the plus side, I wouldn’t have to wear fake lashes in the remaining four weddings, and my hair wouldn’t frizz. There were worse beauty procedures that you could go through in DC in the summer.
Salvaging that friendship, I said eventually. And beauty of course. I sent the hair-flip emoji.
He replied with an eye-roll emoji. Try not to stab anyone with a pair of hair cutting scissors.
I grinned.
I wasn’t grinning anymore at the salon.
“Wait, what?” I asked Caryn.
She sighed. “I said it in the last newsletter email.”
“You did not tell me I had to dye my hair a different color.” The stylist had separated pieces of my hair for what I assumed was the keratin treatment, then left and come back with foils and dye. “Is that the keratin?” I asked suspiciously. She told me it was the highlights because they do color before keratin. When I said I wasn’t dyeing my hair, she said she was just doing what the bride told her. I jumped up and charged over to Caryn’s seat to straighten out the misunderstanding.