The Real

“No,” I said without glancing the man’s way. He’d been eyeing me all day. I knew it was coming. I think his name was Berry or Harry or Larry, some -arry that I didn’t even want to attempt to get to know.

After endless weeks of crying my eyes out and five very well-shaken martinis, the cynic was back and in full effect. “I absolutely do not want to dance with you.”

“Wow,” Berry Harry Larry remarked of my nasty candor.

“Yeah, wow, I would apologize but this is my behavior pattern now. It’s never going to end. Cut your losses and run, man, fucking run for your life!” I whisper-yelled sarcastically.

His amusement at my sarcasm rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn’t Cameron’s, and still, Berry Harry Larry, stood there smirking until I finally glanced up at him. Cute, clean cut, decent smile. I narrowed my eyes.

I’ve got your number, asshole. “Please, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, fuck off.”

My mother scowled at me in the distance, ever the scorekeeper, and I gave her two sarcastic thumbs up.

I was on a roll.

“Jesus,” the guy said, giving me the you’re a bitch look I deserved before he took off, justly mortified. I looked around quickly in a did I just ruin Bree’s wedding panic? The answer was no, everyone was smiling, dancing, or eating cake. And most of these people would probably have sex tonight.

“Not me,” I muttered as I shoved cake into my face while I prayed for lightning to strike me and end my misery.

All I wanted was to be part of a we. Was that so hard?

Why in the hell does everyone else seem to be able to do this but me?

Pity party, table of one, let the fucking frosting licking commence.

I downed every glass of passed champagne offered as I ate my way through the reception, furious at my predicament.

I did have it. I did find a man to love and he was married. Married, a little jaded, and a whole lot stupid with his omission, but I had him. A real man with a good heart who gave so much of himself it didn’t matter what he got back, who’d met my crazy, embraced it, and found it endearing. A man who’d braved my oral surgery dragon breath and told me I was beautiful, a man who was worthy in every way of my time and attention. A man who knew the clitoris wasn’t a fictional character but a best friend he conversed with like an expert linguist. A man who dedicated his life to the happiness of others.

Okay, maybe that was too much of a stretch, but he dedicated himself to making me happy. And I slapped him for it. I slapped him without letting him explain himself or getting answers I deserved to the questions I didn’t ask.

Was Bree, right? Was our love made in the gray area? And did we have enough of it left to see it for what it truly was when it came into the light?

In the grand scheme of us, his baggage didn’t fit in. He’d checked it at the door and tried to keep it there as I had mine.

Maybe it wasn’t real, or I wanted it so much I turned a blind eye to everything else, every clue he gave me that he wasn’t a surreal creature in some mystical fairy tale where nothing bad happened. But whatever we created turned into something that became the truth of who we were together.

We never denied who we were in the moment as we vowed. We didn’t change ourselves to suit our relationship. Our relationship evolved out of the truest version of us. We created our own little universe where we could be exactly who we wanted with each other.

We had it. And we lost it.

To dull the bitter taste of defeat I tossed back more vodka and champagne and stuffed a puff pastry in my mouth.

“Oh, baby. You’re going to puke,” my mother whispered as she took a seat next to me. “Have you called him yet?”

“No,” I said, chewing on the sweet steak and onion gravy. She was right. At some point, I was going to puke. I shoved another pastry in.

“It’s time to talk to him. It’s past time.”

“I’m just delaying it. Okay. Delay of game. Timeout. I’m still so screwed up and pissed off I don’t know what to say.”

“Say what you feel,” she said, grabbing the champagne out of my hand before I could take another drink. I had my mother’s eyes and mouth and my father’s red hair and temper. My mother was always reasonable, a trait I really wished I’d genetically inherited, especially at times like these.

I shoved another beef-filled pastry in my mouth. “Atta girl,” my mom said as we leaned in together and I smiled for the camera with a mouthful of meat.

“You are being a horrible shit. And you’re too old to throw these tantrums.”

“I know, Mom. I should be more refined at weddings when I have a pony barrette in my hair,” I sassed.