Page 88 of A Storybook Wedding

“She’s very pregnant, Cecily,” Mom reminds me. “Be kind to her. She’s fragile.”

“I know.”

“So you want to explain,” my dad chimes in. “Go ahead. We’re listening.”

“The man you spoke to—that’s Nate Ellis.”

“I didn’t like how he called you CJ. Your name is beautiful,” Mom says.

“He’s the author?” Dad asks.

“Yes. He’s actually pretty famous.” I gulp. “In addition to being an author, he’s a professor at my school. Well, was. Anyway, remember at Thanksgiving, the whole Tonight Show thing?”

My parents nod in unison.

“So I had been drinking that night. We didn’t know Questlove would be at the karaoke bar. Needless to say, I screwed up and kissed Nate in a moment of stupidity, and everything just spiraled form there. He was at risk of losing his job as a result of me being an ass, and I didn’t want that to happen, so I married him because the university rules said that student-teacher relationships are only okay if the student and teacher are married.”

“That’s ludicrous,” my father says.

“Which part?” I ask for clarification. “The student-teacher part?”

“No. The fact that you decided to marry him over a childish indiscretion.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, Dad, but it’s not like I was out there killing it in the dating world. Nate was one of the only people in grad school who was nice to me. I’m sorry, but a little bit of kindness goes a long way with me.”

“So you actually tied the knot—like, legally,” my mother says. It’s not a question. It’s a statement.

“Yes. At the county clerk’s office. Right after Thanksgiving. And everything was going fine. We were just friends, well, until this past week.”

“Meaning?” asks Mom.

I sigh. “We came to the residency, and we had to, you know, fake being a married couple. They put us in a room together, and let’s just say one thing led to another. And now we’re—I don’t even know what you’d call it. Dating, I guess.”

Mom shakes her head, her expression pained with confusion and, I’m guessing, disappointment. “That’s backward. So what’s your plan now? Just stay married to this man?”

“Well, we can technically have the marriage annulled up to five years after the date of the license. There are rules about that. If it was an arranged marriage or in any way a sham, you’re allowed to annul it. So we wouldn’t even have to get a divorce. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.”

“What about when you actually do decide to settle down?” Mom asks. “It’s not exactly a desirable trait, having been married before.”

“Mom, I’m chock-full of undesirable traits. I’m too ambitious, too driven, too nerdy or bookish or whatever you call it; I’m just too extra all around. I would hope that, if I ever do get married, all those things would be reasons why my future husband would want to be with me in the first place, and because of that, he would understand once he knew the whole story. But I don’t think I’ll ever get married for real. The dating world sucks. Nate’s the first guy who I’ve had any sort of real relationship with since back when I was with Bryce.”

“That’s ironic, considering the fact that the relationship is actually not real, according to what you just explained,” Dad clarifies.

“No. It—what we have now—is real. It just started under false pretenses,” I correct him.

At least I think it’s real.

“And so what about the Bryce thing?” Mom asks. “Why did you say all those awful things? You gave Jamie your blessing to be with him. It’s unfair to go back on that now. Don’t you want her to be happy?”

“Listen, Mom. I love Jamie. She’s my sister, and of course I want her to be happy. But when she and Bryce first got together, they put me between a rock and a hard place. You can see that, can’t you? This boy who I used to be very much in love with decided to date—then marry, then impregnate with a fleet of babies—my sister? Even if years had passed, don’t you see how hurtful that could still be?”

My mom sighs. “I guess. But why didn’t you say anything back then?”

“Because I didn’t want to stand in the way of Jamie being happy. And it wasn’t like they were parading it around in front of me. They were miles away in a different state, and since I never had social media—you know, until a few days ago—I didn’t have to see any of the pictures they were posting or any of that other early-relationship shove-it-in-your-face kind of stuff. So I wrote about it. And that really helped. And look, my writing was praised to the point where I won an award for it. I never once used his name or hers for that matter. In fact, the only people who will ever know the story is about Jamie, Bryce, and me are those of us who were involved in it directly.”

Mom winces. “I didn’t know they hurt you, Cecily. I really thought you were over him and had moved on. I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “I am human.”

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