Page 50 of Friends to Lovers

“I want to talk to you, Mom,” I tell her. “It’s just— Sometimes I want to be able to tell you things without you worrying it means I’m spiraling. I can handle my life, truly. And I appreciate your worry, I do, but sometimes it makes me feel like you don’t always trust what I’m telling you.”

There’s a glimmer of recognition in her eyes that thaws some of the distance between us. She smooths a hand over my head, grabs Stevie’s free one. “I love my girls,” she says. “I think that sometimes I worry I’m not doing enough.”

“Mom,” I say. “You’re always doing more than enough.”

She gives me a watery smile. “I just wanted to help you,” she says. “When things first got bad. And when I couldn’t—I think I doubled down. I felt helpless.”

“You’re a great mom,” I tell her. “You do help me. But maybe we can all stop worrying about being the best version of ourselves and just, I don’t know. Talk to each other.”

My mom nods, then, almost sheepishly, asks, “Can I just ask one question?”

“Mom,” Stevie says.

“No, it’s okay.” I put a hand on Stevie’s knee.

She’s right. I don’t let our mom in like she does.

I’ve never given her all of me. And maybe I never will be able to, maybe that’s the point: that everyone is going to get some version of you, except for the person who gets everything, if you’re lucky.

But I’ve been assuming so much on the part of the people who love me that I’ve held them at arm’s length.

Even when everything fell apart. Even when I needed them most. I want my mom to ask me questions, just not question me.

I want to answer them, but I also want to tell her when it’s too much.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?” she says.

If there was ever a question to open with, I guess it might be that. The elephant in the room. Joni’s life just fell apart.

“Um,” I say, wobbling. “Well—”

“You can move in with Leo and me!” Stevie bursts in, clutching my hand. “Oh my god, we’ll be gone for three months, and you can get all settled into the office—it’s tiny, but you can totally fit a twin bed in there—and then when we get back, we could be roommates , and—”

“Stevie,” our mom cuts in, eyes staying on my face. “Maybe Joni wants some time to figure it out for herself.”

This is part of what’s wonderful and terrible about this place: it lets you forget about things for a while, regroup when something has gone wrong, but it spits you out on the other side having not faced it. “That’s so scary, though,” I say, tears brimming.

“Maybe,” she says, swiping a thumb across my cheekbone. “But I think you’re going to be just fine.”

We curl closer together, and I let them wrap their arms around me. When I apologize for this mess, they both shush me.

Eventually, I’m sitting up straighter, eyes cleared, smiling.

“Now, when were you going to tell me you’d finally realized you were in love with Ren?” my mom asks.

“Did everyone know?” I groan, laughter bubbling out of me when they both smile. “Someone could have told me.”

“You wouldn’t have believed us if we tried,” my mom says.

The door flies open.

“The photographer will be here in fifteen minutes!” Sasha shouts. When her eyes land on me, she throws her hands up in the air, stalks toward us. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says, crouching down on the floor at the foot of the bed to join our huddle.

We fold around each other again and, after a while, I feel Sasha settle her cheek on my knee. When she finally leans away, she has to swipe a hand over wet cheeks.

“Sash,” I say, grabbing her hand. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen her cry. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, you know,” she sniffs from her spot on the floor. “Weddings always bring out the emotions in everyone.” But when her gaze meets my mom’s, her face falls again. “Do you and my mom tell each other everything?” she asks.

“This family loves secrets,” my mom says.

Sasha’s hand is still in mine, and I feel her palm tense before she looks almost apologetically at Stevie. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone else for a while. It’s still so early, so there’s a lot that could go wrong,” she says. “But I’m pregnant.”

Stevie shrieks, sliding off the end of the bed to pull Sasha into a hug. I feel like I did when we first found out about Katie: some sort of awe at the fact there would be a whole new human in our family, that time keeps diligently passing and bringing so many changes with it.

I move to the floor to hug her too, then realize she’s still crying.

She looks at me and waves a hand. “I’m fine,” she says, then, at some expression my mom shoots her, “I am. I’m just—I had this whole plan.

I was going to get pregnant when we owned a bigger place and I could take more time off work and none of that will happen for at least another two years, and you’re supposed to be so excited that you’re having a baby, but I’m freaking out and—” She breaks off, pressing her face into her hands.

“We aren’t supposed to be talking about this during your wedding, Stevie. ”

“Have you seen what’s going on around here?” Stevie asks. “Please, let it out. If anyone has anything else they want to share, I’m all ears. Besides, you’ve done a remarkable job hiding it.”

“Really?” Sasha asks, lifting her face and looking at my sister.

“I feel like I’ve been a huge bitch. I wanted everything to go as planned this week, but that also meant I didn’t let myself absorb what was happening to me.

It’d only been a week since I found out, and I was trying to act fine.

And then I felt sick the next morning at Fern’s, and it all just hit me.

” I remember, suddenly, Sasha almost throwing up in the flower beds on the way to breakfast. I’d been so distracted that morning that I’d forgotten she hadn’t been drinking the night before, that she couldn’t be hungover.

“You mean when you told Thad he’s a terrible father?”

“Stevie,” I say.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, she’s right,” Sasha says. She nestles against my side, leans back against my mom’s knees. “I talked to Thad. We’re good. It wasn’t fair of me to take it out on him.”

“I bet he’s so excited,” I say. “You’ll all be in LA together.”

Sasha almost rolls her eyes. “I think he’s almost as excited to be Uncle Thad as he was to be a father.”

“You’re going to be a great mom, Sash,” Stevie says, snuggling against her. “You’ll have the most badass baby.”

Sasha slouches further, so I can put my chin on top of her head. And then, her voice muffled, makes us all descend into much-needed laughter: “Joni, I’m really sorry I bet on you and my brother, but I’m not sorry that I was right.”

* * *

Stevie and Leo say “I do” as the sun lowers behind them and casts them in a golden glow.

Leo’s face is tear streaked, because of course he was always going to be the crier between the two of them.

Stevie beams at him, the white flowers embroidered on the overlay of her dress picking up the fading light.

I catch Ren’s eye behind Leo. He’s already watching me, like he’s cataloging my response to the ceremony, understanding his own reaction in relation to mine, the same way, I realize, that I often did with him.

His gaze races through me, searing into my heart, and then Leo is dipping Stevie for a kiss, and we’re all cheering and laughing, and another tiny moment I want to hang on to is gone.

The night is perfect in all the ways it should be.

It’s like I’ve sloughed off some skin and am feeling everything more .

Like I’ve wandered back into some room I’d left only to find everyone I love is still there, waiting for me.

I’m laughing, tearing up, flat out crying at how wonderful it all is.

Sasha leans into Alex, content; Ren holds Katie and makes her shriek with laughter; Thad and Gemi talk happily with Oliver; my dad and Greg stand at the edge of the bluff like they’re keeping watch over the ocean; Hannah and my mom meander through it all, arms around each other; Stevie and Leo don’t let go of each other for more than a second.

Once dancing has gotten underway, all of us—our families, even Leo’s, the band—dance in a huge circle to “Come On Eileen,” cheers echoing into the night and onto the waves below, floating out along the surface of the ocean.

Ours is just a small, bright spot on the edge of the continent, on the earth, but to me, it contains everything.

When a slow song comes on, Ren finds me at the edge of the dance floor. Wordlessly, he pulls me to the middle of it and moves my body into his until I give in, relaxing against him.

I tip my head back to smile up at him, cup the back of his neck. “Don’t they play this song at every wedding?” I ask as “I Will Follow You into the Dark” rolls out of the speakers above us.

“For good reason,” Ren says with a shrug. “Says what a lot of people can’t.”

His words lodge into my heart. I think about all the ways he’s sound-tracked my life, tried to tell me things I didn’t know to look for in his meticulous playlists.

If I study our lives, gather up all the moments I thought Ren wasn’t sharing all of himself with me, I realize I was just missing all the ways he was trying to.

Music for every fleeting feeling, even the ones I didn’t know were coming yet.

Keeping our plus-one tradition alive.

An I love you in a photo booth.

“You seem happy,” he murmurs, brushing behind my ear a strand of hair that’s come loose from the many bobby pins Sasha stabbed into it earlier.

“I am,” I say. “I’m so happy right now.”

I lay my head against his chest and he holds me to him until the song ends, then through the next one too.

A part of me hopes this moment might stretch on forever, our life one never-ending playlist. But it’s gone too soon, just like every part of today, and before we know it, we’re doing the send-off—ceremonial, because Stevie and Leo are staying at the house tonight—and grabbing sparklers from a table for them to run under.

Later, after we’ve all danced again until our feet hurt and sat at the swiftly emptying tables sipping champagne, we all wander back up the path to the house.

Arms are slung around shoulders and eyes are tired.

Greg points out the sky already turning gray behind the house and we let out a collective groan at how little sleep we’ll get.

But no one sounds that unhappy about it.

My mom hugs me good-night at the door, and I don’t let go when she starts to pull away, hold on to her for a minute longer.

On the screen porch, Ren has already taken off his suit jacket.

I leave my heels by the door as I step into the room, and he looks up with those soft brown eyes, and I wonder if there’s still any chance we’ll ever get to be that miracle Stevie said we were, or if this moment is all that’s left of that part of us, and we’ll continue on loving each other as we always have.

In a different, but no less important way.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but I know what I want right now. I walk over to him, slowly unbutton his shirt. I’ve never loved someone like I love Ren. Like every time we come back together, we’re discovering each other anew again.

I slip his shirt off his shoulders, and he goes still, something silent working behind his eyes. I don’t chase it, let him think through it on his own. And then his face changes, and he reaches around me and unzips my dress, draws his knuckles down my spine.

When all of our clothes are gone, cast to the floor, he picks me up, lays me down on his bed, and everything is hushed. Ren’s lips are on my sternum and then mine on his hip and then all the parts of each other our bodies know like they’ve touched this way a thousand times.