Page 4 of One Hundred Lights
So we didn’t get divorced because of Britt.
But then again, we also kind of did.
It took me a while to realize how much I missed Britt. As a friend. I just have to be careful how I do this. Britt walked away from me then, and I let her go.
Of course I did. I was married. She was one of our best friends.
After growing up with parents who loved fiercely, fought wildly, and cheated without abandon before divorcing, I’d always wanted to provide the most stable, quiet, and even boring life for myself and my family.
Clearly, I fucked that up, taking it too far in the other direction in my marriage. I was too detached. Too unemotional.
Beefy dude walks away and I take his place in front of the barbells, removing one weight, two weights, okay, five more weights before starting my lifts. Keeping my back straight, I squat to grab the barbell, then push up hard until I’m standing with locked knees. I do four sets of five reps until my whole body is screaming.
Across the room, Laura taps at her phone by the front door, slipping on her winter jacket. She glances up and looks directly at me as she disappears into the winter evening. I clench my fists and curse under my breath.
My muscles aching, I stretch against a wall, pulling my quads one at a time, then reaching down to touch the floor, feeling a satisfying burn in my calves.
All my intentions of keeping my family life stable to counteract the one I had growing up were gone. I’d already failed Chelsea.
And now I can’t stop thinking about Britt. I need to talk to her. Smooth things over.
I miss her.
That means nothing except that we were close friends. I want to see her face again. Close up—not as she dives away from me at a school event.
I’ve never been so trapped in my head. I feel like our cat—Reese’s cat—must have felt when it got locked in the pantry for an entire workday. He was furious with us when we finally got home.
But at least he escaped. I’m still locked in that closet.
At my locker, I pull on my hooded sweatshirt and grab my keys and phone, letting the face ID unlock my screen and clicking through to my email by habit.
A message from Britt is at the top of my inbox.
My pulse races before I realize it’s an automated email from a school message board, not personally sent to me. Now that I’m running solo, I signed up for all the email notifications from school. There are so many emails asking for donations or volunteers or reminders about themed days or standardized testing. Why do high schoolers still have pajama days?
I didn’t realize how much Reese had been doing all these years.
I let out a rush of air and click the message.
To: All Parents
Subject: Urgent Winter Dance Volunteer Meeting
Hi Everyone,
I’m your new Winter Dance chair because Vicky had to step down. There will be an urgent volunteer meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) evening at my house at seven o’clock. I need some help to wrap things up and make the night magical for our children!
Let me know if you can come.
Thank you, Britt
A smile creeps on my face. It’s so Britt to volunteer to chair the dance last minute. I wonder if she’s wrapping gifts for each student, or personally monogramming backpacks. Britt’s an incredibly thoughtful gift-giver. Last year, she bought Reese a stack of international travel guidebooks—actual, physical copies with gorgeous color posters—because Reese had mentioned going to Scotland or Europe with Chelsea. And she’d ordered a half dozen bags of my favorite coffee beans from the Jersey Shore, where we’d all rented a house together two summers ago.
Thinking about it now, I see how Britt had integrated so deeply into our lives. Our marriage. But it felt natural, as if she was an extended family member.
And last year, we’d all signed up for CrossFit together. Reese bailed at the last minute when she threw out her back, and never did join us. And then, it had just been the two of us. Me and Britt. Too much time spent together. Too many days we’d gone for a drink afterward and laughed and talked and let our bond grow.
Shit. Why’d we do that?
