Page 110 of Catfish

And you still call her Mama.

“I know this is odd to ask you, Rea, but since I know and trust you...I really do want you to plan my wedding.” I choke, pounding my chest with my fist, as I try to get the blockade in my air supply to pass.

Jed immediately pats my back with his hand as I can feel my face redden from lack of oxygen. So instead of punching me in the throat, he caught me off guard and made me choke on a question—genius.

After a few more seconds, my lungs constrict back into working mode, while Jed is guiding me along the edge of the room and towards the front of the hall so I can grab some air. Maybe he wants my untimely death to be alone with him so he can whisper that one thing he always wanted to say to me. How much he despises me or that he can’t wait to watch the life leave my eyes.

Instead, when we're finally outside in the cool air, he asks, "Better?"

You missed your chance, buddy.

I nod. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Never was good with asking you to do things.” He lightly chuckles and reaches inside his suit jacket. “Still smoke?”

I nod again. "Not as much as I did, but I do right now." He hands me a cigar, and I furrow my brows, wiggling it in between my fingers. "You got super fancy on me."

“We’ve smoked them before, stole them out of my dad’s office.”

"Yeah, but did you steal some more, or are you buying your own supply now?"

“I’m over eighteen,” he says with a chuckle, cutting off one of the ends. “I can buy my own.”

He puts the cigar in his mouth and lights it, taking a few puffs to get it going before handing it over to me.

“I was hoping for weed,” I surmise.

“You would,” he laughs, removing his coat. “But we’re at an event where someone could throw our asses in jail from just smelling it on us when we go back inside.”

I shrug. “I can probably still talk my way out of that one.”

Draping his jacket over my shoulders like the gentlemen he is, his lips twist in a smile. “How, by saying that your high school friends were smoking it? You’d be facing different kinds of charges for that one, Rea.”

“Only if I’m fucking them,” I jeer, inhaling the nicotine and letting it hit my wrecked nerves.

A soft muteness falls between us. We're both thinking about how it used to be when we were together. It was always easy, everything was out in the open. Jed was honest while I was too truthful at times, but he always brushed me off. He took my hardness and softened it with his sweet nature and calm words. My serenity in a world full of storms and high water.

“Is she nice?” I ask him, hitting the cigar one more time before passing it to him.

“Her name is Belle,” he replies. “And she calls me her ‘beast’.”

My whole face screws up. "I'm sorry, what?" Jed lets out a weak laugh and inhales the cigar, ignoring my question because, clearly, he knows it's the dumbest shit I have ever heard. "But she's nice?"

“Enough,” he mutters.

I take a step towards him, my protectiveness coming through my rationality. “That’s not good enough. You’re better than—you’re better than everyone.”

His eyes peer up at me, and then I see it—heartbreak. "Not everyone, Rea."

Ignore that.

“I just want—” I hold my hands up in the air, backing myself off. “—you know what, I’m sorry. I have no right to say a goddamn thing.”

“We were friends once.” He gives a half-shrug. “I still like to think that we are.”

I frown.

I wasn't worthy of Jed's atonement. Everything I did was so unforgivable that I wouldn't even let myself slide on it. He was everything good in the world. Everything that a woman would be blessed and honored to have in her life.

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