God, why couldn’t he have been an ass**le? If he were, one good punch would have gone a long way to easing the tightness in my chest. And it would be much cheaper than punching out a wall in my apartment.
I said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
We chattered about unimportant things. Bliss talked about their production of Pride and Prejudice, and I realized that Garrick really had been good for her. I never would have guessed that out of all of us, she’d be the one doing theatre professionally so quickly after we graduated. It’s not that she wasn’t talented, but she was never confident. I thought she would have gone the safer route and been a stage manager. I liked to think I could have brought that out of her, too, but I wasn’t so sure.
She talked about their apartment on the edge of the Gayborhood. So far, I’d managed to wriggle out of all her invitations to visit, but sooner or later I was going to run out of excuses and would have to see the place they lived. Together.
Apparently their neighborhood was a pretty big party area. They lived right across from a really popular bar. Garrick said, “Bliss is such a light sleeper that it has become a regular event to wake up and listen to the drama that inevitably occurs outside our window at closing time.”
She was a light sleeper? I hated that he knew that and I didn’t. I hated feeling this way. They started relaying a story of one of those nighttime events, but they were barely looking at me. They stared at each other, laughing, reliving the memory. I was a spectator to their perfect harmony, and it was a show I was tired of watching.
I made a promise to myself then that I wouldn’t do this again. Not until I had figured all my shit out. This had to be the last time. I smiled and nodded through the rest of the story, and was relieved when Bliss’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen, and didn’t even explain before she accepted the call and pressed the phone to her ear. “Kelsey? Oh my God! I haven’t heard from you in weeks!”
Kelsey had done exactly what she said she would. At the end of the summer, everyone was moving to new cities or new universities, and Kelsey went overseas for the trip of a lifetime. Every time I looked at Facebook, she had added a new country to her list.
Bliss held up a finger and mouthed, “Be right back.” She stood and said into the phone, “Kelsey, hold on one sec. I can barely hear you. I’m going to go outside.”
I watched her go, remembering when her face used to light up like that talking to me. It was depressing the way life branched off in different directions. Trees only grew up and out. There was no going back to the roots, to the way things had been. I’d spent four years with my college friends, and they felt like family. But now we were scattered across the country and would probably never be all together again.
Garrick said, “Cade, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about while Bliss is gone.”
This was going to suck. I could tell. Last time we’d had a chat alone, he’d told me that I had to get over Bliss, that I couldn’t live my life based on my feelings for her. Damn it if he wasn’t still right.
“I’m all ears,” I said.
“I don’t really know the best way to say—”
“Just say it.” That was the worst part of all of this. I’d gotten my heart broken by my best friend, and now everyone tiptoed around me like I was on the verge of meltdown, like a girl with PMS. Apparently having emotions equated to having a vagina.
Garrick took a deep breath. He looked unsure, but in the moments before he spoke, a smile pulled at his face, like he just couldn’t help himself.
“I’m proposing to Bliss,” he said.
The world went silent, and I heard the tick-tick of the clock on the wall beside us. It sounded like the ticking of a bomb, which was ironic, considering all the pieces of me that I had been holding together by sheer force of will had just been blown to bits.
I schooled my features as best as I could even though I felt like I might suffocate at any moment. I took a beat, which is just a fancy acting word for a pause, but it felt easier if I approached this like a scene, like fiction. Beats are reserved for those moments when something in the scene or your character shifts. They are moments of change.
Man, was this one hell of a beat.
“Cade—”
Before Garrick could say something nice or consoling, I pushed my character, pushed myself back into action. I smiled and made a face that I hoped look congratulatory.
“That’s great, man! She couldn’t have found a better guy.”
It really was just like acting, bad acting anyway. Like when the words didn’t feel natural in my mouth and my mind stayed separate from what I was saying no matter how hard I tried to stay in character. My thoughts raced ahead, trying to judge whether or not my audience was buying my performance, whether Garrick was buying it.
“So, you’re okay with this?”
It was imperative that I didn’t allow myself to pause before I answered, “Of course! Bliss is my best friend, and I’ve never seen her so happy, which means I couldn’t be happier for her. The past is the past.”
He reached across the table and patted me on the shoulder, like I was his son or little brother or his dog.
“You’re a good man, Cade.”
That was me . . . the perpetual good guy, which meant I perpetually came in second. My smoothie tasted bitter on my tongue.
“You had auditions last week, right?” Garrick asked. “How did they turn out?”