"Oh, yeah. Elliott's not the worst person in the world, but he's a miserable husband as well as a crap father. I never should have married him. He and our parents snowed me. I was young and stupid and I fell for it."
Now I had to know the details. I'd already guessed she'd been young. Twenty, if my math was right. And now she was an art history professor. "What happened?"
"I met Elliott my sophomore year of college. He was a grad student and he was—" Scarlett looked a little sheepish. "He was really hot."
I rolled my eyes. That was the last thing I'd expected Scarlett to say. She hadn't seemed the least bit affected by looks. Bryce had only earned disdain, and she appeared to be immune to my own better-than-average appearance.
Scarlett's cheeks flushed. "It kills me to admit it, but my studious, focused, nineteen-year-old self was blown away by Elliott Hall. He's so handsome, he's kind of unreal. And he's lazy, but he's even more vain, so he might skip out on work, or chores, or, you know, parenting, but he always has time for the gym. I was a smart girl, but he's the most beautiful human being I've ever seen in real life and I was blinded by him. I mean, what was a guy like that doing with me?"
My ego twinged at her description of her ex. It could have been more than a twinge, but there was no affection in her voice when she spoke of her ex, only amusement at her own idiocy.
"Have you looked in a mirror?" I asked, throwing her a glance. "You're not exactly plain."
"I'm no supermodel, either. Anyway, between his looks and the sex—" Now she flushed a deep red. "I wasn't paying attention to the important stuff. Like how he was skating through his grad program because he was too lazy to handle the higher-level work. The way he couldn't hold down a job. The fact that his mother came by every day to clean and cook for him. I missed everything that mattered. And then the condom broke, and I was pregnant and a junior in college."
"Scary," I commented.
"Terrifying," she agreed. "I wasn't sure what to do, and before I could really think about it, his parents and my parents were pushing marriage. They'd help us buy a little house, and help watch the baby so I could stay in school… If I'd been thinking clearly, I could have taken them up on their offer of help without agreeing to marry Elliott. But he was all for it, too. They found a cute bungalow, and Elliott showed up with a ring, and before I knew it, I was moving out of the dorms and we had a sweet little backyard wedding."
"What about school?"
"Thatcher was born in July, before the start of my senior year. Elliott missed the whole thing. He went on a 'last fun time with the guys' camping trip a week before my due date and left his phone at home."
"What a jackass." I couldn't help it. I had this picture in my head of a barely adult Scarlett going through the pain of labor, her husband nowhere to be seen.
"Totally a jackass. Our moms were there, and they were great, but he was supposed to be my partner. He didn't even apologize, just breezed in the front door—after we'd been discharged from the hospital—and made cute noises over the baby. Everyone wanted me to let it go, and I was too tired to argue."
"I'm surprised you didn't kill him," I said with a sideways glance at Scarlett. This time her laugh was genuine amusement.
"You know, in retrospect, I am, too." She laughed again. "I don't really remember much of my senior year. I had to keep my grades up to keep my scholarship because the last thing I needed was student loans I hadn't planned for. My parents lived an hour away, but Elliott's parents were in the same town. His mom saved my ass that year. I think, if things had been different, she would have encouraged me to be a stay-at-home mom like she was, but it was already clear that Elliott wasn't going to be much good at holding down a job. She knew I had to get through school. She practically lived with us that first year."
"You didn't mind?" I didn't think most young brides would love spending that much time with their mother-in-law.
"No way. I would have drowned without her. She made sure I was getting my work done for school, that I had a ride to class, and she loved Thatch so much, I never worried that he wasn't being cared for. I was so exhausted all the time, it's a blur. Connie cleaned and made dinner, and honestly, I have no idea how she did it all or why Bill, Elliott's dad, didn't mind. When they retired to Florida last year, we all cried. We've been to visit, and they've come back to see us. We video call all the time. Elliott barely even talks to them. They deserve better."