“Eva persuaded you it was a good idea?”
“No. It was a misunderstanding.” She gave a wry smile. “We were talking, and somehow she got the idea that I’d said yes to you and she saw it as an example of facing your fears. For some reason she sees me as an inspiration for doing tough stuff. Can you believe that?”
“Why didn’t you tell her she’d misunderstood?”
“How could I? Ev is struggling right now. She misses her grandma terribly. She’s grieving.” She was silent. “Look, I know I’m a fake. I’m not brave at all. I’m a coward. I’m not here because I want to face my fears. If it were up to me I’d happily carry on hiding from them. I’m here because knowing I’m doing something hard apparently helps my best friend get out of bed in the morning. That’s all it is. It’s not a big deal.”
How could she think that? “I’d say doing the thing you find hardest because you think it will help your friend is a big deal.”
“I’m still not convinced I should show up to the actual event. I don’t want to ruin the wedding.”
“Why would you ruin the wedding?”
“I’m not good at weddings, Matt. I know most people think they’re happy events, but I don’t see it that way. You probably think I’m crazy.”
“I think you’re someone who has seen the fallout of a bad relationship more than you’ve seen the good. And you saw it at an age where it made a big impression. If you’d been older, you might have had more examples to balance it out.”
“I’ve stopped counting how many relationships my mother has had. Every time I see her break up with another man it reinforces my belief that relationships don’t stick.” She sighed. “Which brings us back to the wedding. What do I say to the bride and groom?”
“You just say that you hope they’ll be happy. I assume you do hope that?”
“Of course I hope they’ll be happy. It’s just that—”
“You don’t believe they will?”
She shrugged. “I’ve seen it go from dizzy delight to dreadful too many times to be able to have faith in it.” She glanced at him. “This is the part where you tell me your parents have been together for almost three decades, just to prove I’m wrong.”
“I’m not going to tell you something you already know. You’re a smart woman, Frankie. There are plenty of examples of love out there, but when you’ve seen something different I guess that’s what’s in your head. It’s hard to shake that off.”
And that, he knew, was the biggest obstacle in their relationship.
“That’s it exactly. That bride-to-be at the event a few weeks ago—she looked as if her life had crumbled around her. It reminded me of my mom after my dad walked out. Let’s change the subject.” She finished her champagne. “There’s something I want to ask you. It’s personal.”
“I think I’ve already proved I don’t have a problem with personal.”
“Yeah, well, this is uncomfortable personal, not intimate personal.” She hesitated. “You probably don’t want to talk about it.”
Tension rippled across his shoulders. “You want to ask me about Caroline.”
“You were engaged.”
“Yes. Until she had an affair with her college professor.” It wasn’t his favorite topic of conversation, but he didn’t want her to feel there was anything she couldn’t ask him. “It’s not a secret, Frankie.”
“Did you think about taking her back?”
It didn’t mean anything, Matt. I was stupid. I want you to forgive me.
“For about five seconds, which was how long it took for my brain to kick in.”
“Because of the affair?”
“Because she lied about it.” He thought about the lies, the evasion, the complicated games. “If a person is willing to lie to you once, how can you ever be sure they won’t lie to you again? The trust was gone. If there’s no trust between two people, what is there? No relationship is perfect. No matter how much love there is, there’s a strong chance you’re going to hit rocky times at some point. Life is unpredictable. It can throw out the unexpected and the challenging. Coping with that requires trust and honesty.”
“So she broke your heart, crushed it under her shoe, but still that hasn’t put you off relationships.”
He understood what she was asking. “That one relationship didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean relationships never work out. One single experience isn’t representative of all of them.”
“I wish I could feel that way.”