She whistled. “Well, can you think out loud so I know what’s going on?”
“He hates me.” There. I’d said it.
She huffed. “He doesn’t hate you. He’s just… bitter.”
“Bitter,” I repeated with an exhale. “Well, he has reason to be.”
“You left with his best friend — with my asshole brother — the day after he asked you to marry him.”
“Yeah…” Where was wine when I needed it? “But it’s been ten years, and let’s not forget that in that time, he got engaged and almost married—”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say her name. It gives me hives.”
I shuddered. “Remember her in high school?”
“I try not to think about her or high school — that, too, gives me hives.”
“She was the worst,” I admitted. “Seriously the worst. So passive-aggressive and just… Ugh, the fact he even dated someone that selfish and crazy is just… wow
“Trick pregnancy nails those hometown boys fast,” Liza said, just as a cry sounded in the background. “Gotta go. Number two’s up.”
The woman numbered her children. I grinned, said my goodbye, and tried not to look at the police station as I drove by; just like I tried not to stare at his parents’ house when I pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.
So many memories filled the space between our homes.
It was unfair.
My mom opened the front door and waved at me with an oven mitt.
Everything was the same.
And yet.
Everything had changed.