Max comes to the top of the stairs. “What presents? You were just saying yesterday that you were surprised none had arrived yet.”
I press my eyes shut. “Max, I have no idea why you’re doing this,” I say as he slowly descends the staircase, his hand making a squeaking sound as he slides it down the wrought iron railing. “Listen, the jig is up!” I tug the handle on the refrigerator door, expecting to find only half a bottle of chardonnay and a tub of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. But the shelves are stocked and right smack in front is the Styrofoam carton from Chin’s. The same container full of orange chicken that we’d eaten thirty days ago. Or last night, depending on whom you asked.
“What the hell?” I say as I open the lid and smell the chicken, the aroma still fresh.
“My sentiments exactly!” Max walks up and pulls me into his chest, and I drink in his familiar scent.
It must have all been a nightmare. Thank God.
“Seriously, babe. Are you okay? Do you need to go back to sleep?”
“No,” I say, and pull Max closer. “I’m perfect.” I give him a deep kiss, letting the heartache drift from my body as we touch lips. “I just had a really bad nightmare.”
“Obviously!” He blinks several times as if trying to reason away my strange behavior. He flashes his uneven grin, reminding me of the selfie I’d deleted off my computer. Or thought I’d erased. Or thought I had taken in the first place. I’m losing it.
I think back to the look in Max’s eyes when he told me he couldn’t marry me, the shame I felt as we broke the news, the anguish that stirred inside of me when I came home to an empty condo. The sound of his voice cracking when he told me he’d fallen in love with my friend Courtney. “It really was. You have no idea!”
“I’ve never seen you like that. You sounded so—” Max rests a bag of Sumatra beans on the counter.
“Crazy?” I offer.
“I was going to say psycho.” Max turns and a smile plays on his lips and I feel the knots in my shoulders loosen. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I look at him now, taking in his wavy hair that always sticks up at the cowlick when he wakes up in the morning, the way his right dimple appears just when you’ve forgotten about it, the slightly chipped tooth from a childhood hockey game that he refused to have fixed because he thought it gave him character, and decide to keep the details of the nightmare to myself. Knowing Max, it would only make him feel bad to hear that he’d been such an asshole, even if he’d only done it in my dreams. That’s the kind of guy he was.
“I’m so sorry for jumping all over you like that—you didn’t do anything wrong. It felt so real—I’ve never had a nightmare like that before. I just need to shake it off and I’ll be fine,” I say definitively, even though I’m still able to recall every nuance, every pain, every single last moment. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget any of it.
“You sure?”
I nod.
“Okay, why don’t you go up and take a shower?” Max suggests. “And I’ll make you some of this,” he says, pointing to the bag of coffee. “Extra, extra bold, just the way you like it.”
“Thank you,” I say, leaning my head against his shoulder and wrapping my arms tightly around his body, not wanting to let go.
Max hadn’t left me. Thank God.
As I head up the stairs, I still feel the bad dream pushing on my chest—a small burn reminding me how devastated I’d felt only minutes before. I scrub my body hard in the shower, trying to wash away the emotional residue the nightmare has left on me, but it refuses to disappear, like one of those hand stamps you get at a theme park. Giving up, I finally push open the glass door, the steam enveloping me as I wrap my robe snugly around my body. I rub the foggy mirror in a circular motion so I can see myself, and as I take in my wet, stringy hair, I wish I had gotten that blowout yesterday. I absolutely despise blowdrying my hair—so much that Jules and I have a pact: if either of us wins the lottery, we will hire the other a full-time stylist.
I slide my laptop out of my computer bag and perch on the edge of the bed, pulling up my Facebook page, the photo I’d posted where I was mischievously sticking my head out from behind the dressing room curtain when I was at the boutique for my final wedding dress fitting filling the screen. I close my eyes for a moment, calmed by the memory of the feel of the organza gown hugging my body as I twirled in front of the three-way mirror, tears springing to my mom’s eyes as she’d watched.
This wedding is still happening.