Page 58 of Beached Wedding

“I’m twelve.” Fliss bent and rubbed her fingers and thumb, trying to coax one of the feral cats closer. It grew skittish and retreated into the dark. She straightened and gave me a disgruntled look. “Don’t tell me I’ll understand when I’m older. Explain it to me now.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.” I usually did try to explain things to her in an age-appropriate way, but this one was hard. I barely had a grasp on it myself. “First of all, grownups aren’t that smart, sorry to tell you. We’re basically a bunch of twelve-year-olds who can drink and drive. Not at the same time,” I hurried to add.

She rolled her eyes.

“We want kids to believe we’ve got shit figured out because life would be really freaking scary for you if you knew we were as confused as you are, but we are.” I slouched deeper on the bench, tilting my head back to look at the stars. “I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage and how important it is to me and why.”

This afternoon, when I’d been trying to write the press release about why the wedding had been cancelled, I’d realized how much I’d been thinking about a wedding and not the marriage itself.

“Want to know a secret? I hadn’t even read the vows we were supposed to take. When Fox first told me that Shane didn’t expect us to stay married, I was really upset. Because I’m stubborn, right? I can make anything work. That’s what I thought when he said Shane felt that way. Like, ‘I’ll show him.’ But is that a good reason to be in a marriage?”

Fliss was bent again, offering her empty hand to a skittish kitten, but I was pretty sure she was listening so I kept talking.

“Shane and I would have come here and said those vows if Fox hadn’t stopped us. They’re supposed to be promises and we probably wouldn’t have meant them. Realizing that made methink a lot about whether I’ll ever be able to say anything like that to anyone and mean it.”

“Grandma has told us a million times that we don’t need to get married.” Fliss sat up and looked at me.

“I know. But I still had this sense that I should. And I always expected I would. I’m not sure why.”

“Peer pressure?”

“You’d think we grow out of it, but we don’t. The messages are everywhere, right? Don’t you feel as though you’re expected to marry and have kids?”

“Everyone at school is like, ‘Josh is so cute. I want to have his babies.’” She made a gagging noise, tongue curling out to her chin. “I’m like, do you know how babies come out of you? Because, no thank you.”

“And weknowwe’re supposed to be skinny and eat vegan even though no one says it to our face.”

“And have clear skin and wear the right clothes.”

“And men are supposed to be sex machines and women are supposed to naturally love children, even though kids can be very challenging and petulant.”

“And children are supposed to be respectful of their elders, even when they can tell when an adult is talking down to them.”

We made faces at each another and jostled elbows.

“So you don’t want to get married anymore?” Fliss asked.

“I don’t know.” I looked back at the stars. I kept thinking about what Fox had said about wanting to see someone every day. About missing me. “I can’t say I never will, but...” But the man who inspired the closest thing I had to that feeling in me felt firmly out of my reach. “I think—please don’t tell Grandma I said this. I think I wanted to showherthat I could get married and make it work.”

“Because she got a divorce from Grandpa? And thought you should never marry?”

Fliss didn’t know all the gory details of that time, only that my dad was an alcoholic who hadn’t wanted to seek help and that was the main reason Grandma wasn’t married to him anymore.

“I guess,” I said. “Like I wanted to prove to her that I was smart enough to make a better choice than she had, maybe. I wasn’t really making a choice, though,” I realized. “I was still doing what I thought was acceptable. What I thought Grandma could accept as a valid reason for me to leave Pine Grove and all of you. I understand why she wants us to live this small, careful, safe little life and stay close to her. It makesherfeel safe. But it’s stifling.”

“Tell me about it,” Fliss muttered, then cut me a glance. “Do you think that’s what Mom is doing? Showing Grandma she can do it better?”

“No. I think she really loves Oliver.”

Fliss grimaced.

“Look. Being twelve sucks.” I picked up her hand and squeezed it between my own. “It also sucks when you feel like your Mom controls your whole life. Believe me, Iknow. But your mom loves you, same as Grandma loves me. She wants to give you a good life, but she also wants tohavea good life. Your mom wants to feel loved and have someone who will be in her life when you decide to get the fuck out of Pine Grove yourself.”

“Insixyears.” She pulled her hand away from mine.

“At least you’re not waiting until you’retwenty-six. And it’s not like I’ll never come back to see you. We’ll still text and call?—”

“It’s not the same!”

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