“Definitely a beer kind of place,” I agreed.
“So, are we going to run into any ex-girlfriends here?” she asked after taking a drink.
I laughed, shaking my head. “Maybe some high school ones, but they’re all mostly married now.”
“Already?”
Another laugh escaped when her face screwed up like she’d sucked on a lemon. “Not everyone is allergic to the idea of marriage.”
“Still…we’re only in our mid-twenties.”
“It’s pretty common here for people to get married by then. Usually, they’ve known that person their whole life or most of it.”
“Is that what you wanted?” she asked seriously.
“It’s not that I didn’t want it; I just wanted more. More than the farm, the small town, and always knowing the same people. And not to brag, but I was smart.” I shrugged, picking at the label on my beer, remembering the guilt I’d carried around with me throughout my last few years of high school because I knew I didn’t want to stay. Hell, the first year of college saw guilt clinging to me. It wasn’t until I met Rae that I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. The first time she took me on one of her crazy adventures, I knew this was the life I wanted. Leaving my small town was the way to live with the excitement I dreamed up—with the woman I dreamed of.
“Well, we did go to U-Penn.”
“Very true. And I loved art. It’s not like there’s a thriving business here for my goals.”
“And you’re amazing at it. It would have been a shame to keep your art from the world.”
“That’s what my grandma said, too. But it’s not like I’m Nova, selling my art in galleries.”
“Yeah, but you’re still sharing it. And who knows, maybe one day you’ll branch out and end up having your own showing.”
“Maybe,” I agreed noncommittally. “I’m not sure I’d want to show everyone my art.”
“Well, you can show me any time you want,” she proclaimed with a smile.
That was Rae—always so supportive. She’d been one of the first people at college to push me to enter competitions and pursue displaying my art outside of my marketing program. She’d believed in me so much that it caught on until I believed in myself too.
She drained the rest of her beer just as her phone vibrated across the bar top. I fought the urge to lean over and see who it was when she flipped it over, rolled her eyes, and muted the call.
“It’s been going off a lot. Are you sure it’s not something you need to get?”
“Nah. You know New York City—the city that never sleeps. Hence why I’m always getting notifications at almost midnight.”
“Yeah,” I said doubtfully.
But she ignored my disbelief with an exaggerated smile and rushed to another topic. “So, is the small-town mentality how you ended up engaged to Aubrey?”
I breathed a laugh, going over all the reasons Aubrey seemed like a good idea at the time. “Maybe it had its part. Like I said, my brother had just got married, and maybe that planted the idea of marriage.”
“What else?” she asked.
“I think college ending and you gone kind of left me in this floating in between—a little lost. When I saw Johnathan at graduation, he looked happy with his wife, and I fell back into something familiar.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said softly.
“It’s not like we didn’t try to talk. Different countries and the chaos of post-college made it hard to keep in touch.”
“True. If it makes you feel better, it was hard being without you every day, too. We’d spent all the time in college together that I felt like I left a limb behind,” she joked.
“It does make me feel better,” I gloated.
“You’re welcome,” she said with a flourish. “So, I guess the bigger question is, why didn’t you follow through?”
My cheeks puffed from my heavy exhale. “It was a pretty spur-of-the-moment engagement anyway. She actually asked me.”
“What? How untraditional of her,” she mock gasped, making a dig at my traditional views.
“Anyway,” I redirected with an eye roll. “She just threw it out there as a why not, and in that moment, I didn’t have a good enough reason to say no.”
“Was it mid-sex?” she guessed with a smile.
“Not exactly.”
“Post sex high then.”
“Jesus, Rae.”
“I’m totally right.”
“Anyway.”
“Okay. Fine. Focus.” She pointed fingers at her narrowed eyes and then back at me. “So, why didn’t you follow through?”
“Because it might have been spur-of-the-moment, but when it came time to actually plan anything, it all felt wrong. When I went to buy a ring, I couldn’t. I didn’t even know where to start, and I realized I didn’t know her well enough to know what kind of ring she would want. None of it was right.”
I left out the part where I was browsing through rings, and all I could think about was how Rae would love a ring as unique as her. I left out that when I imagined my wife, I never saw Aubrey.