“Well, of course she’s laying it on thick. She feels guilty about harboring feelings for your man.”
“That’s why she was kissing my ass so hard in the weeks leading up to the wedding,” I’d said after giving it more thought. “She was constantly swinging by my office with an extra Starbucks coffee or bringing me the latest People, even offering to stay late so I could go home and work on my wedding to-do list. To think I believed she wanted to help me because she was my friend, when she only wanted to relieve her conscience.” I rested my forehead in my hand. “This all feels hopeless.”
“You need to pull it together,” Jules said sternly. “Where’s the girl who graduated at the top of her class from Occidental? Where’s my best friend who held my hand during seventeen hours of labor? And most importantly, where’s the woman who originally captured Max’s heart? She would be able to do this!”
“I just wish I knew what went wrong between us, then at least I’d have a place to start.”
Jules sighed into the phone. “Do you have any ideas?”
We’d experienced a few tense moments in our premarital counseling. I remember bickering about which parent’s house we should spend our Christmases at or if we should have a joint checking account, but we’d eventually compromised on both. I couldn’t think of an issue between us that we hadn’t been able to work through in the past three years, something I’d always considered one of our greatest strengths. But how would we work through this?
“Remember that ‘what-if’ game we played at your house that time?” I asked Jules.
“How could I forget? A few relationships almost ended that night!” Jules started to release a laugh then stopped herself.
“Do you recall the card Max pulled—the one about cheating?”
“Oh yes—”
“He said he was so sure he’d want to work things out if his spouse was unfaithful—”
Max had drawn the card with the question: What would you do if your spouse cheated on you? He’d thought about it for not even a split second before swiftly responding, “We’d work through it.” The room had erupted, everyone’s opinion flying through the air. I’d righteously thought, But neither of us would ever do that. And even though Max had sworn up and down that he didn’t actually cheat with Courtney, he had still betrayed me emotionally, even if their lips had never met. And instead of attempting to work out whatever problems we’d had, he’d simply chosen her.
“I don’t think anyone knows how they’ll really behave in situations they’ve never been in before. I think people would like to believe they’d act a certain way, but you just never know . . .” Jules’ words became softer, eventually disappearing.
“Obviously,” I scoffed. “But he didn’t even give us a chance to work on our relationship.”
“But remember, you have a rare opportunity here—to pinpoint where things went wrong,” Jules argued. “So you can try to fix it before it gets too far.”
“True. But I would never have expected this to happen now. You always think there’s a chance down the road, maybe ten years in, but not before you even say I do.”
I’d felt an instant spark when I met Max at our mutual friends’ wedding—after Jules had spotted him, I’d let my gaze follow hers and they’d landed on a man with olive-green eyes, dark brown hair that was slightly long on the top, and a strong jaw lined with stubble. He’d grinned as he recognized Jules, and as his mouth opened, he’d revealed the dimple that to this day remains hidden unless he smiles just a certain way—a feature he only brings out when he wants to charm executives, my mother, and probably Courtney too.