Because someone did. Badly.
I shouldn’t have said that.
“Let’s just say I’m not cut out to be anyone’s soul mate,” she says.
Those words make me sad.
I don’t know what to say.
She certainly wasn’t cut out to be mine.
CHAPTER 5 Molly
Goddammit, Molly.
It is one thing to be brutally honest about my failings in my own head. But I try not to do it out loud.
At high school reunions.
To an ex-boyfriend who hates me.
What makes it even more excruciating is that Seth knows I’m right. He pities me for it. I can see it on his face.
“Sounds like you’re pretty hard on yourself, Molls,” he says quietly.
But I’m not hard on myself. I’m hard on the people who make the mistake of trying to love me. Because, unfortunately, I know how that ends.
“Marks!” someone yells from across the room.
It’s Alyssa. Thank the universe.
“I’m just gonna go say hello—” I say to Seth, but he’s already waving me off, like we were not just absorbed in each other. Like we were not just debating something more personal than the bullshit of rom-coms.
“Jon and Kevin and I have an appointment with some expensive shellfish,” he says, gesturing to his two childhood best friends, who are standing in line for lobster rolls.
He waves at them. Kevin does a double take at the sight of me next to Seth.
I can’t stand up fast enough.
I weave my way through the crowd over to the bar, where Alyssa is already ordering a San Pellegrino on the rocks with five limes. Her locs are piled on top of her head, giving her five-foot-ten frame an extra six inches of loft, and she’s wearing a floor-length marigold wrap dress that sets off the gold undertones in her dark-brown skin and shows off her baby bump.
“Look at you,” I squeal. I haven’t seen her since before she got pregnant.
She puts a hand to her belly. “I know. Whatever happens, promise me you won’t let me give birth on the dance floor.”
“I don’t know. If you do, I can steal it for a screenplay. Excellent set piece.”
“How are you faring?” she asks in a low voice.
A guy she dated for ten minutes in tenth grade passes and high-fives her. “Go Flamingos!” he yells.
Alyssa was a track star. The pride and joy of our class.
“I’m losing my mind,” I tell her. “Did you see who’s sitting next to me?”
She smirks. “Yes.”
“I’m dying.”
“You look alive and well to me.”
“Well guess what I’m going to do?” I say, flagging down the bartender. “I am going to get stinking drunk.”
It is not difficult to make good on this promise. The tent is flooded with waiters circulating with champagne and, as the night goes on, trays of espresso martinis named—what else?—the Flamingo.
I conveniently skip the entrée to avoid filling my stomach with anything that isn’t booze and, more importantly, to steer clear of Seth. I see him out of the corner of my eye, working the room, hugging nearly everyone he runs into, putting numbers into his phone, dragging people onto the dance floor.
He is so obviously happy that he seems to be singlehandedly lifting the serotonin levels of everyone in the tent.
Except mine.
“Hey!” Dezzie says, marching over to me and Alyssa, who has appointed herself my designated chaperone for the evening.
I’m actually not so drunk that I require adult supervision. My nervous adrenaline overpowers the alcohol. I feel like I’m on illegal stimulants, or at least Schedule II controlled substances.
“Come and dance with me, betches,” Dezzie demands, holding out a hand to each of us.
“I am too preggo to dance,” Alyssa demurs. “My ankles are like watermelons. And I have to call Ryland.”
