āOkay,ā I say. Thatās all Iāve got. I turn to go.
āYou sure you donāt want to watch the movie?ā he says.
Oh, god.
The truth is, Miles seems like a nice guy. A really nice guy! And I imagine that what heās feeling right now must be comparable to my own total emotional decimation. I could take him up on his offer, go sit in his room on an unmade bed and watch a romantic comedy while absorbing fifteen hundred grams of weed smoke via my pores. Maybe it would be nice even, to pretend for a bit that weāre friends rather than strangers trapped together in this nightmare of a breakup.
But there are better uses of my Wednesday night.
āMaybe some other time,ā I say, and go back to my computer to continue looking for new jobs, far away from Peter and Petra, and far away from Waning Bay, Michigan.
I wonder if Antarctica is in need of a childrenās librarian.
One hundred and eight days, and then Iām out of here.
2
BACK IN APRIL
BEFORE I KNEW I NEEDED TO LEAVE
Hereās how the rest of the story goes, when Iām the one telling it: Peter Collins and I fell in love one day in the park, when the wind swept my hat from my head.
I am arguably the worldās worst small-talker, but he didnāt want to small-talk.
When I told him the hat was a gift from my mother, he wanted to know if we were close, where she lived now, what the gift was for, and by the way, Happy birthday, are you a birthday person? And when I told him, Thank you, and yes, yes, I am, he volunteered that he was too, that his family always treated birthdays like huge personal successes rather than markers of time. And when I told him that sounded beautiful, the birthdays and his family, he said, Theyāre the reason Iāve always wanted a big family of my own someday, and at that point, I already wouldāve been a goner, even if he hadnāt asked me right then, as if there wasnāt garbage sticking to my chestnut-brown hair, What about you? Do you want a big family?
Dating in my late twenties had been hell. This was the kind of question Iād usually ask right before the guy on the other end of the phone ghosted me. As if it had been a formal proposition: Should we skip grabbing a drink and maybe freeze some embryos, just in case?
Peter was different. Stable, steady, practical. The kind of person I could imagine trusting, which didnāt come naturally to me.
Within five weeks, weād moved in together, synced our lives, friend groups, and schedules. At the first over-the-top birthday party I ever threw him, Peterās and my respective best friends in Richmond, Cooper and Sadie, hit it off and started dating too.
Within a year, Peter proposed. I said yes.
A year later, while wedding planning, we started looking for a house to buy. His parents, two of the loveliest people Iāve ever met, sent him the listing for a gorgeous old house not far from them in the lakeside Michigan town heād grown up in.
Heād always wanted to get back there, and now that his software development job had gone remote, nothing was stopping him.
My mom lived in Maryland by then. My dad, a title that really deserves to have scare quotes around it, was out in Southern California. Sadie and Cooper were toying with the possibility of moving to Denver.
And as much as I loved my job in Richmond, what I really wantedāwhat Iād always wantedāwas to be a childrenās librarian, and lo and behold, the Waning Bay Public Library was looking to fill that exact position.
So we bought the house in Michigan.
Well, he bought it. I had terrible credit and slim savings. He covered the down payment and insisted on paying the mortgage.
Heād always been so generous, but it felt like too much. Sadie didnāt understand my hang-upsāI let Cooper pay for literally everything, sheād say, he makes a shit-ton more than meābut Sadie hadnāt been raised by Holly Vincent.
There was no way my badass, hyperindependent mother would approve of me relying on Peter so heavily, and so I didnāt approve either.
He came up with a compromise: Iād furnish the place, add piecemeal to the assortment of furniture weād brought from Richmond, while he covered the bills.
Most of his far-flung friends had cushy white-collar jobs and could afford to take a separate trip for his bachelor party. Whereas Sadie and the rest of my friends were mostly other librariansāor booksellers, or aspiring writersāwho couldnāt afford two separate trips. Thus, she and Cooper would fly in a few days before the summer ceremony instead, and weād do my bachelorette then.
So, three weeks ago, in early April, Peter trudged out for his Night on the Town and I stayed behind to read in our new butter-yellow Victorian. For the first few stops of the night, he texted me cute group shots. His brother, Ben, up from Grand Rapids, and his high school buddy Scott, with whom Iād finally managed to bond by reading the first four Dune novels, along with some other Richmond friends. They all had their arms slung around each other, Peter splitting centerāin every pictureāwith his willowy, platinum-haired, cat-eyed goddess of a best friend, one Petra Collins.
Petraās boyfriend, Miles, had not been invited to the bachelor party. Peter didnāt hate Miles. He just didnāt think Miles was good enough for Petra, because Miles is a stoner without a college degree.
Petra is also a stoner without a college degree, but I guess itās different when youāre a perfect ten with a picturesque family and well-padded bank account. Then youāre not a stoner; youāre a free spirit.
Another thing that must, despite my greatest wishes, be mentioned: Petra is preternaturally nice.
Sheās that woman whoās instantly familiar with everyone, in a way that makes you feel chosen. Always grabbing your arm, laughing at your jokes, suggesting you try her lip gloss in the bathroom, then insisting you keep it because āitās better with your coloring.ā
I really didnāt want to be jealous of her. It made sense that she went to his bachelor party. She was his best friend. It made sense that I didnāt go. Thatās how this antiquated tradition works.
Iād hoped to stay awake long enough to shove a glass of water and some ibuprofen into Peterās drunken hand when he got home, but I drifted off on the couch.
When I jolted awake at the click of the front door, it was full bright in the living room, so I could see Peterās surprise at finding me there.
He looked, honestly, like heād stumbled upon a woman whoād broken into his house and boiled his pet rabbit, rather than his loving fiancĆ©e curled on the sofa. But still the alarm bells didnāt go off.
It was hard to feel too panicky with Peter nearby, looking like the very least inventive depiction of the archangel Michael. Six foot four, golden-blond hair, green eyes, and a strong Roman nose.
Not that I have any clue what a Roman nose is. But whenever a historical romance writer mentions one, I think of Peterās.
āYouāre back,ā I croaked and got up to greet him. He stiffened in my hug, and I pulled away, my hands still locked against the back of his neck. He took hold of my wrists and unwound them from him, holding them between our chests.
āCan we talk for a minute?ā he asked.
āOf course?ā I said it like a question. It was.
He walked me to the couch and sat me down. Then, as far as I could figure, a couple of tectonic plates must have smashed together, because the whole world lurched, and my ears started ringing so loudly I could only catch bits of what he was saying. None of it could be right. It didnāt make sense.
Too much to drinkĀ .Ā .Ā .
Everyone went home, but we stayed back to sober upĀ .Ā .Ā .
One thing led to another andĀ .Ā .Ā .
God, Iām sorry. I didnāt want to hurt you, butĀ .Ā .Ā .
āYou cheated on me?ā I finally squeaked out, while he was in the middle of yet another indecipherable sentence.
āNo!ā he said. āI mean, it wasnāt like that. WeāreĀ .Ā .Ā . She told me sheās in love with me, Daphne. And I realized I am too. In love. With her. Fuck, Iām so sorry.ā