Page 3 of Resistance Training

“Dad mumbled something about how Eric could have put half the money he paid for the ring toward a down payment on a house, then said if it was that important for Eric to make me happy then it was a good investment.”

“On brand. And sweet.” Our parents adore Eric and his entire family and basically everyone Eric knows and everything he stands for. “They must be so excited.”

“They are. I wasn’t expecting them to be that excited, Vivi. It was so cute. I made them promise not to tell you until I did. I mean, I just hung up with them, like, ten minutes ago.” She sighs again. A happy sigh. “It’s all happening.”

The tip of my nose is tingling and my eyes are getting watery.

I have no idea what it feels like to want to marry someone in particular, but I know exactly what it feels like to want someone I love to marry the person she loves, and now it’s going to happen.

My sister is not a crier, but I can tell she’s getting emotional.

When she gets emotional she gets really still and clears her throat.

It’s impossible to tell if she’s trying not to cry or if she’s trying not to throw up.

“Hey. I won’t tell anyone if you vomit,” I say, teasing.

“Shut up.” She clears her throat. “I’m not crying.” She clears her throat again. “There’s more; let me talk.”

“You’re the one who can’t talk because she’s crying.”

She frowns, clears her throat twice, and then says, “I want you to be my maid of honor.”

I wait for her to laugh and say Just kidding—could you imagine?!

She doesn’t. “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah. Wait. Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“You want me to be your maid of honor ?”

“Of course I do.”

“Are you fighting with Jenna again or something?”

“No. I mean, sort of. She’ll be one of my bridesmaids, but you’re my sister. I want you to be with me as much as possible. Of course you’re my maid of honor.”

Well, now I’m crying. “Really?”

“Yes. Why are you so surprised?”

I wipe the tears away, laughing. “I guess I’m getting too hung up on the word honor because I don’t think of you as thinking of me as honorable.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely getting too hung up on the word.”

We both laugh, and then the tip of my nose gets extra super tingly and I start to detox liquid feelings from my eyeballs. Aubrey stares at me with pink-rimmed eyes, frowning. “Do not make me cry. I’m wearing lash extensions.”

“I was going to say—they look really good!” I blubber.

“Thank you,” she says, as if she’s receiving an award. “Thank you for telling me about magnetic lashes.”

“I’m so glad you found the perfect extensions for you!”

“I hope you find the extensions you deserve too, Vivi! Soon.”

Wait. Are we still talking about eyelash extensions? I clear my throat and wipe my eyes.

Aubrey clears her throat and widens her eyes.

Now we’re just two siblings who are clearing our throats and not crying or talking about how I haven’t found my soulmate eyelash extensions.

“Okay, well…I’m honored that you want me to be your maid of honor. For real. I would love to. Thank you.”

“Thank you . I really want it to be a special occasion for you too. The wedding is in June.”

“Next June?” I take a sip of wine. That’s an unusually reasonable amount of time for someone as impatient and Type A as my sister.

“No, this June.”

I almost do a spit take but manage to start choking instead. “ This June?” I sputter. “June of this year?”

“Correct. Three months from now. I’ll be sending out save-the-date cards in two weeks, as soon as I’ve officially locked down the venue I want on Orcas Island.

But I’ve had a group chat going with the owner and the property manager on Facebook for the past few years, and I messaged them, like, five minutes after Eric proposed, so I’m confident they’ll be able to accommodate us some weekend in June.

And I emailed the local officiant I’ve been following on Instagram.

We’re only inviting a hundred and fifty people and I’ve been editing the list forever. I got this.”

I am now realizing she wants to get married before she turns thirty, and I will not say a thing because I am not judging her. “Wow. Okay.”

“It has nothing to do with being twenty-nine. Don’t judge me.”

“I am so not judging you.”

“So go ahead and block out all the weekends in June on your calendar.”

“I will. Of course.”

She slow-blinks at me. “Right. But do it now.”

“I’m not going to forget that my only sister is getting married this June.”

“I know, but put it in your calendar. While I can see you doing it.”

“Yeah, let me put it in my calendar right now, while you can see me doing it.” I would call her a bridezilla, but this is literally what Aubrey’s like all the time. She’s an Aubreyzilla. I’m willing to bet that finally being a bride will make her less of a control freak.

I reach for my laptop, which is on the floor, beneath Hairy Stiles.

“Sorry, buddy,” I say as I slip it out from under him.

I make a big show of opening up my browser and entering ONLY SISTER’S WEDDING TO ERIC!

!! into my calendar for every weekend of June.

The only other entry on the weekends prior to these events were New season of The Bear on Hulu? And Upgrade phone?

Closing my laptop, I say, “When are you going to send me the list?”

“What list?”

“The to-do list. My maid-of-honor duties! Sounds like I should get started, like, ten weeks ago.”

She gives me a look, like I’m a toddler asking for the car keys.

To be clear, I am a certified paralegal.

Very important attorneys trust me to draft legal documents, maintain corporate records, prepare and file documents with regulatory agencies.

But my sister can’t conceive of me as an adult who is capable of ordering a dozen penis straws online.

“Oh, there’s no list. For you, I mean. I’ve got it all under control. ”

“Um. You’ve only been engaged for, like, an hour, though, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ve had the master list in a Google Doc for years and there are spreadsheets, of course.

Numerous secret Pinterest boards, and I designed the save the date and all the invitations in Canva ages ago.

I’ve been low-key researching caterers and florists for years.

Obviously I’ve had several dress options on hold.

I will send you all the information you’ll need to, quote-unquote, ‘organize’ the bachelorette tea party. It’s all good.”

“Fine. I’ll just check the reviews of all the male strippers in the Pacific Northwest and find the one who is the most punctual and hygienic.”

“I said the bachelorette is going to be a tea party!”

“Who said the strippers are for you ?”

Aubrey laughs. Genuinely. Her head drops forward and her shoulders shake. She even snorts a little. It wasn’t anywhere near that funny. “Vivi. Okay, but seriously, I just want you to focus your energy on finding a date.”

“You mean a date in June?”

“No, I mean a date for the wedding in June. Someone who will be your date.”

Oh God.

Seriously?

This?

I reach for my glass of wine and open my mouth, but before I can tell her Hairy is my plus-one, she says, “A human person who is not your cat who will accompany you to my wedding.”

“How dare you. Granny Sparks will obviously be my date.”

“Granny Sparks has a boyfriend.”

I almost choke on my pinot again. “What?! Since when?”

“Since a couple of months ago. She didn’t want to tell you because…you know.”

“Because I’ve been so gleefully involved in a healthy relationship with myself?”

“Because you’ve been so depressed after getting dumped in the worst possible way.”

“Okay. There are definitely worse ways to get dumped. And I am not depressed.” I definitely sounded neither depressed nor defensive when I said that.

“You’re eating pie and drinking wine at home by yourself while singing to your cat.”

“Since when did being an amazing cat mom make a person depressed?”

“Vivian, I’m serious. You’ve been eating so much pie, and you won’t go to that gym I told you about.”

“It’s not that much pie—and what gym?”

“The one I told you about when I was there a month ago. You didn’t even look at the website I sent you, did you?”

“For the gym that’s not in my neighborhood? Oh my God, I’ve only gone up one size! This is what happens when you’re over twenty-five years old. To all women who aren’t you . It’s the natural progression of a woman’s body to become more rounded…after eating more and exercising less.”

My sister slaps her forehead.

“Hey, I like my curves! I got so skinny when I was with Jeremy, and I love getting my curves back.”

“Nobody’s telling you to lose weight—they have workouts for curves now!”

“I’ve been doing them—I lift large forkfuls of pie into my mouth, as many reps as I can until I get fatigued. Wanna see?”

“ Jeremy is going to be in the wedding,” Aubrey blurts out. “And he’s throwing us an engagement party here in a couple of weeks—which you do not have to come to. He’s going to be one of Eric’s groomsmen.”

Ohhhh yeah… I can’t believe I didn’t think of that as soon as she told me about the wedding.

I met Jeremy through Eric, not long after he and Aubrey started dating.

This is not good. This is not something to look forward to.

Shit. “Well…I mean. June is three whole months from now. A lot can happen in three months. We could all be dead by then!”

She takes a sip of water and a deep breath before saying, “He’ll be at the wedding with his fiancée…”

What?

WHAT?!

“What?”

“Jeremy is engaged.”

“To Duckface?”

“To the woman he dumped you for, yes.”

Wow.

Jeremy Fenton is engaged to Duckface. I did not see that coming.

I thought for sure that Jeremy would realize what a stupid idiot he was, leaving me for her.

Or that he’d realize what a stupid idiot she was for cheating with him while he was still living with me and she was still living with her boyfriend and receiving financial support from some married-sugar-daddy situation that originated on Instagram.

Or that they’d both realize what assholes they were for secretly seeing each other for an entire year.

Or that they would have murdered each other by now since he moved back to Seattle for her, after making me move here for him, because they’re both terrible stupid selfish asshole idiots.

But I guess that means they’re perfect for each other. Good for them.

I reach for the wine bottle that’s on the coffee table and empty it directly into my mouth.

A toast to the terrible stupid selfish asshole idiots!

“Are you okay?”

I forgot that I was FaceTiming with my sister. Putting down the bottle and picking up the phone, I say, “Honestly?” I blow out a breath, and not one quippy word follows all that air. “I’m not sure.”

“Oh, Vivi…” It looks like so many unexpected genuine words are about to come tumbling out of my sister’s mouth, I brace myself.

“I hate seeing you like this, and I’m not talking about the barely noticeable extra weight that really and truly looks good on you.

I want my wedding to be fun for you. I want you to be as happy as I am.

I’ve been watching you try to fill this void that has nothing to do with Jeremy, and I can’t tell if you even realize it or not, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being alone or eating pie when you’re alone or singing to your cat when you’re alone…

I just don’t want you to be alone . You’re wonderful, and I think it’s been so, so long since you remembered how wonderful you are, and I’m so afraid it’s all my fault somehow. Please let me help you.”

And that’s when I remember. I remember that I was never really in love with Jeremy so much as I flung myself into a two-person cult because I got tired of keeping myself busy on the apps.

A two-person cult where he was the impossibly handsome, deviously charming cult leader that my parents approved of.

And I was the not very devoted follower who had been kind of a mess for a few years and felt she should adhere to his rules about macronutrients and minimalist decor and digital everything and the missionary position and cleaning the toilets with bleach and never rewatching TV shows or movies because comfort makes your brain go soft and oh my God he was a monster .

I remember that someone else broke my heart years before I met Jeremy.

And that guy never even knew my heart was his to break, because I didn’t realize it until it was too late.

And I remember that my sister is marrying the love of her life in three months.

And she’s worrying about me . I have no idea why she feels responsible for Jeremy dumping me, other than the fact that she introduced him to me. But…

“Aubrey.” I hold the phone up directly in front of my face. “You’re getting married.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s talk about you . I know you don’t think I can help you, so just tell me something. Tell me about how he proposed.”

Her impossibly symmetrical little face lights up again, and she says, “Okay, I’ll tell you, but we will circle back to the gym thing, because I’m buying you an annual membership. For not losing weight reasons. This will be my bridesmaid gift to you.”

“Uh-huh.” I nod in agreement and smile very genuinely as I move super slowly over to the kitchen counter so she can’t tell that I’m unboxing the apple fritters. “Sounds fun. Go on.”