Page 41 of Friends to Lovers

I grasp her wrist to angle her toward the bar so the people at the tables can’t hear her rapidly rising voice, contemplate all the ways she could have figured it out.

Maybe I left my phone open to an email from Ramona.

Maybe I somehow caught Ren’s sleep-talking and she overheard me.

Maybe Stevie is just that good of a journalist. My eyes dart down the table to our mom, who’s laughing at something Hannah just said.

“Stevie, I’m really sorry. I should have told you, but—” The bartender returns with our wine and I thank him, give one to Stevie, try to keep the shaking in my hands to a minimum. “I just didn’t think your wedding week was the time to tell you.”

“Why not?” she asks, that same hurt splashing across her face.

I falter, confused. Even Stevie, queen of not really caring, should be able to suss out why I wouldn’t want to tell her about the dissolution of my life right before she gets married. “I mean, I just didn’t want it to get in the way of things.”

Her brow furrows. “How would that get in the way of anything? I’m not going to tell anyone.”

I soften. “I appreciate that,” I say. “But me getting fired isn’t really what we need to talk about during your wedding week.”

I know I’ve made a mistake as soon as Stevie’s expression morphs into one of pure shock, her grip on her glass tightens. “Joni,” she says. “That’s not—”

“You got fired ?”

We both whirl at my mom’s high-pitched voice, all the color drained from her face where she stands behind us.

She’s said it loudly enough that all other conversation slowly dies, until the entire deck of wedding guests is staring at us.

It feels like Stevie and I are spotlighted against the flowered bar, each of us holding a glass of red, each of us frozen.

My eyes go to his immediately, the only person I know will center me right now.

He’s at the table closest to us, between Sasha and Oliver, that sliver of chest I was finding so distracting during dinner now rising as he takes in a breath through his nose.

He looks at me like he’s just a little confused, like I’ve shared some anecdote he’s not totally familiar with, and for some reason it hurts more than if he’d shouted at me and stormed out. Not that Ren would ever do that.

“I—” I stammer, every sip of my previous glass of wine seeming to suddenly make their way to my brain as the earth rocks beneath me.

I swallow, try to steady myself. I knew this would happen eventually, that I would have to tell my mom.

I just didn’t think it would be at Stevie and Leo’s rehearsal dinner, in front of so many people I love and others I just met for the first time who have no context for the situation and are here to celebrate, not listen to my sob story.

I thought, at minimum, it would be on my own terms.

“You were fired?” my mom asks again, still speaking at a volume that carries across the deck, all eyes still on us.

“Mom,” I grind out. “Can we not have this conversation right now? It’s Stevie and Leo’s rehearsal dinner.”

“That’s not going to stop her,” Stevie mutters.

“Sweetie,” my mom says to me, shifting into therapist mode and completely ignoring Stevie’s comment. “Why didn’t you tell us? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” I say, but it isn’t true.

That same quaking unsteadiness I felt when I walked out of Novo a week ago is vibrating around my knees.

Only a week ago, really? It’s like I took a step off the edge of my old life and plunged into an alternate one I deluded myself into thinking could be real, and now I’m waking up, scrambling to climb back into it, but can’t get a strong enough hold.

“Sweetie, do you need to talk about—”

“I’m fine ,” I whisper harshly, shoulders hitching up as I try to quiet the buzzing in my ears.

I don’t want to be someone who was just fired, who people will pity.

I want to crawl back into some moment three years or five years or ten years ago and make a different choice.

Don’t move to New York. Or, if you do, look around at your life once in a while.

Don’t put everything you have into your career.

Don’t pitch the idea for a movie that everyone will hate. Don’t, don’t, don’t.

If there were crickets around, they’d be sounding right now.

Instead, someone drives by blaring Justin Bieber, and I see Leo’s lips twitch before he tries, hard, not to smile.

And suddenly I can’t help it either. A laugh stutters out of me.

At the music. At the absurdity of the situation.

About what a terrible job I’ve done keeping secrets.

When I look at my mom, I know it was the absolute wrong thing to do. “What else aren’t you telling me?” she asks. There’s hurt in her eyes, and the fact that I can’t undo it is a weight bearing down on me.

“Nothing,” I lie, attempting to bring my voice to neutral.

The car is moving on now, and the musical soundtrack isn’t so funny anymore.

My eyes drift back to Ren’s over her shoulder.

His mouth is open, like he might jump in, but it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to help me through this, because I kept this from him too.

“It’s just— Can we please talk about this another time? ”

“No, I think we can talk about it now.”

“Mom,” Stevie says. “Don’t force it on her.”

“No, I’d like to know what else we’re all keeping from each other,” my mom says. I knew there would be questions, but I didn’t expect this reaction, the sudden color in her cheeks, the anger in her voice. My mom can be overbearing, but she’s rarely mad.

“I only have four toes on my right foot!” Leo calls from the table. We all look in his direction. “Biking accident when I was eight.”

“No, sweetie, that’s not the kind of thing she’s talking about,” Stevie tells him, and it hits me that Leo is trying to put a stop to the drama that I’m causing, even though our family is supposed to be a safe place for him.

“There aren’t any more secrets, Mom,” I lie as she stares back at me.

The only remaining secret isn’t one that’s just mine.

There’s a reason Ren and I tacitly agreed all these years not to share what happened between us with anyone.

If our families know we imploded, we erase years of the status quo.

Would it hurt my mom’s relationship with Hannah?

Would our dads still be the same kind of want to grab a beer best friends they’ve become?

Would Sasha and Thad hate me for what I did to their brother?

We’ve both been trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy for the people around us.

I’d be betraying him if I said anything.

My mom and I keep staring at each other. The silence expands around us until someone has to break it. Greg steps in.

“I hate golf,” he pipes up, shooting a guilt-ridden look at my dad. “I’m so sorry, Richard.”

“It’s okay,” my dad says. “I sort of knew. Surfing sounds miserable to me.”

“I understand,” Greg says.

“I hate wine!” Dev calls from the far end of one table.

“Good thing that you don’t drink then, man,” Leo says.

“Oh,” Dev says. “Right.”

I feel like I’m getting whiplash.

“I hate that we feel so much pressure to make the week here together work,” Sasha says from her place next to Ren. All eyes swivel toward her.

“Rich coming from the event planner that tells us when we can shower ,” Thad mutters.

Alex covers her hand with his, but Sasha rears back. “Apologies for trying to organize some fun for everyone if we’re all going to make such a big deal about everyone being here at the same time every year!”

“Sasha, since when do you have a problem being here?” Thad asks. “And last time I checked, organized is not everyone’s definition of fun !”

“Well sure, when you just get a week off dad duty, I guess you get to act however you want,” she snaps.

“Oh my god, Sasha, I’m still a person , with or without my daughter!”

At this, Sasha shrinks, mouth in a thin line.

“You’d think everyone would behave better at the rehearsal dinner.” All eyes now swivel to where Leo’s mother is leaning toward him.

I’ve never seen Leo angry, didn’t know he was capable of it, but at this comment, all of the good nature I’m used to from him vanishes. “Mom,” he says. “Are you seriously going to talk about families arguing right now?”

And that’s it. The patio erupts into chaos.

Suddenly, Hannah is jumping in to settle Thad down, Leo’s father says something to his mother that upsets her and in turn gets Oliver going, Dev and the guitarist, for some reason, start shouting.

Everyone is talking over each other, voices rising, accusations hurling.

I stand at the bar, my eyes finding Ren’s again.

My mom steps closer to me, saying something about how I’m the reason we’ll remember the rehearsal dinner this way, that if I’d just been honest this wouldn’t have happened, but I only see Ren.

He gives me a sad smile from his spot at the table, the only thing that’s still in the movement around him, shoulders straight and gaze clear, the eye in the middle of my hurricane.

Everything quiets. The world, the deck, my mind.

He looks at me, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I can’t lose him again.

That I can’t risk anything like being in love with him if it means I can’t have this.

Ren, in my life again, the point of gravity around which my personal galaxy revolves.

For the last two and a half years, I’ve drifted off into space, meandering alone, existing but not in the way I really want to, telling myself it was fine, that I didn’t really need anybody.

But this week, as I zipped back into orbit again, finding that center to spin around, I’ve realized how foolish that is.

Needing someone isn’t some weakness. In fact, it might be the whole point.