Page 10 of Fauxmance in the City

“Catie, let Sam spoil you,” Natalie says, spinning my mind out of my unsettling fantasy. “I’d love it if a gorgeous man wanted to save me.”

“Your sister is very wise.” Sam winks, dropping my hand.

“I don’t need saving,” I snap, but God, I wish I could shake the armor and let a man rescue me sometimes. Being an independent woman is overrated.

Natalie’s gaze lands on a thick, manila envelope sticking from the top of my tote bag. I received it in the mail today, and I’ve been studiously avoiding its contents. When she scans the return address, she gasps.

“Catie, you could ask—” Her eyes glance at the envelope, but I vehemently shake my head.

“Not an option.”

“But—”

“No.” I shoot to my feet. It could be a simple way out of this situation, and I see the thought reflected in Natalie’s expression. Why not ask the man I’m actually married to? But an iron vice wraps around my heart when I even consider calling him. My breathing strains, the air unable to get to my lungs, and I bend forward on all fours, my hands fisting the piling of the rug.

“What’s happening?” A voice speaks above me.

The walls are closing in, and I spin back to the best and worst time of my life.

Christophe Martine and I worked in the same dumpy coffee shop during my junior year at UMass when I was going through my pink-haired, I’m-a-liberal-artist phase, and his extracurricular activity was pursuing me. He was French and exotic, and I was in from the moment he opened his bow-shaped lips and spoke in his flowery accent.

The morning shift was brutal, but when Christophe was there, I was eager to get to work. Being with him was like a drug, and soon I was ditching classes. We’d go on impromptu field trips into the city for a new art exhibit, to a local winery for free tastings, or to trivia night at a bar. After several months of these outings, I was addicted, and I fell in love with him hard.

Six months into our relationship, Christophe’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was stage two, but she needed chemo, radiation, and a mastectomy. Christophe was from a small village outside Bordeaux, France, called Agen, and he had to leave school to return home while his mother went through her treatments. As soon spring semester was over, I flew to France and became Christophe’s caretaker while he took care of his mother. She was a fighter, and I grew close to her over those months. She was keen to see her son settled down, but we laughed it off since we were only twenty-one at the time.

In the fall, I reluctantly flew back to Boston. Shortly after, her doctor gave her the news that the treatments had worked, and she shooed Christophe back to school. Going through something like that together connected us on a level that my friends didn’t understand. When Christophe finally returned, he had to arrive on a tourist visa and applied to renew his student visa, but it was denied since he’d dropped out of school the previous semester.

My whole world was Christophe, so when he suggested we get married to procure a visa, I didn’t hesitate. We flew to Vegas, got the marriage license, did the whole married-by-Elvis-in-the-little-white-wedding-chapel thing, and flew back.

But then things changed. Christophe became distant and detached. When I tried to talk to him about it, he snapped and belittled me. I assumed he was going through some delayed grieving and anger for what his mother had been through. He’d been so involved in her caretaking that he hadn’t had time to deal with his own emotions.

He spent most of his time with the international students, telling me I should stay home because I wouldn’t understand with my brainwashed, small American mind. One night he came home high on drugs and lashed out at me, manic and nasty.

He packed his things and told me he was moving out. I begged him to stay and said how much I loved him. When all his clothes were shoved into the back of his black Jetta, he turned on me and told me he didn’t love me, that he had never loved me, and had only used me for a visa.

Those words crippled me. How could I have been that blind? A grade-A fool. As I watched his car drive away, the world around me went black. One of my friends found me in my apartment parking lot and called Natalie. It was the first of many panic attacks. Eventually, I went to therapy and learned how to manage them, but after that moment, I swore I’d never let a man—or anyone—have control over me or my emotions.

That’s when I turned my focus on interior design and started my blog, and I didn’t look back. Not even to question why Christophe had never filed for divorce. There’d always been a small part of me that liked that we were still connected, knowing he couldn’t marry anyone else if we were still married.

And then when my career took off, the fact that I was technically married became convenient.

Until I received that envelope, stuffed with divorce papers.

Asking Christophe to come back into my life now as part of a charade was never gonna happen.

“Count, Catie,” Natalie’s voice pulled me out of my past, and I listened to her instructions.

One, two, three, four. Breathe. Hold. One, two three, four. Release. One, two, three, four. Breathe.

Light filters in, and I blink back into the room.

“I’m sorry,” Natalie says. “Of course we won’t ask him.”

I sit back on my haunches, Sam hovering close by, and I’m surprised by the fear in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” I say, brushing them off. I gulp down another mug of water and then hand it to Natalie. She takes it and busies herself gathering the dirty glasses. She knows the last thing I need is to be doted on after an attack.

It’s quiet, and I glance at Sam. His gaze is filled with worry, and my stomach tightens at his concern. “I’m okay, Sam. I promise.”

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