Page 82 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
Three weeks after that, Mom and Wayne eloped. Then, they bought a boat, sold everything else, and decided to live on it. She told me all this over a nine-minute video chat, her and Wayne laughing like kids the entire time as they told me how crazy but right it felt. I couldn’t have been happier for them, but it reminded me in a place far in the back of my mind just how lonely I was.
And so, I threw myself back into work and managed to finish out my online master’s degree, but I made sure I scheduled in fun. I went out with the crew after work, happy hours and Pirate games whenever I could. I explored more of my city, even taking the time to go up on the Duquesne Incline to see it from the best view. Jenna flew in for one week in March and it snowed, so we went sledding for the first time in our lives at a park just outside of the city. I still talked to Mom whenever I could — whenever she wasn’t busy traveling with Wayne — which was rare, but I took any chance I could.
Three people were promoted before me, and in August, almost a year to the day since my first promotion, I made Literary Agent.
I already had an impressive list of clients, and they started growing rapidly once I had the official title and the means to get things done my own way without jumping through as many hoops. Commission was steadily building, changing my income in ways I wasn’t expecting, and Randall knew me by name, which I couldn’t say for everyone in our office. It seemed I had made just as many friends as I had enemies — which meant I was doing something right.
Everything was looking up. Jamie and I were actually succeeding at being friends. We didn’t talk all the time, but we texted when we could, and called each other from time to time. That familiar ache and burn was still there when we talked, especially when he brought up Angel, but it wasn’t as loud, and I was busy enough not to let myself dwell on it. Everything was fine.
Everything was just fine.
The phone rang three times on September 3rd, on a gray, cool day in the city. I watched the drizzle settle like fog over Market Square out my window as I answered.
He said only three words, but it was everything he didn’t say that I heard loudest. Because you see, I was waiting for him to tell me why. How. I was waiting for him to tell me he was kidding, or that I’d misheard him. I was waiting for him to take it back, to rewind time, to let me figure out how I hadn’t seen it coming. But he didn’t say any of that. He said only three words.
“I’m getting married.”
I ended up in a bar that night — the bar right under my apartment building. I flipped a manicured middle finger up to the voice in my head telling me I was stronger, that Jamie Shaw rehab had worked, that I had a program I could follow to find solace. It was all bullshit. Those three words hit me over and over and over again, each time with more force, each hit reminding me just friends was just impossible. So, I self-medicated.
Three shots of Fireball.
And then River walked in.
“YOU’RE FUNNY,” I SAID, smiling as I poked River in the chest.
He quirked one brow, amused, and lifted his gin and tonic slowly to his lips. “Am I now?”
I nodded. “Mm-hmm.” Then, I sipped my own drink — my water — because clearly I had had enough. In fact, I couldn’t even remember why I said River was funny. Did he make a joke? I wasn’t sure.
I wasn’t sloppy drunk, but I was definitely solidly buzzed. My feet were warm, smile loose, eyes hazy. I was still dressed in the yoga pants and loose t-shirt I’d been wearing in my apartment, and I didn’t even feel a little ashamed about it.
I thought it would make me feel better to drink, to get out of the house, but it didn’t. That fact didn’t stop me from word vomiting to River in the hopes that it could change.
“Did I tell you he asked me to be his Best Lady?” I laughed, stirring the black straws in my glass of water, wondering if it would turn to vodka if I stirred long enough.
“You did.”
“You know. Like the best man, like his number one. Except I’m a girl.”
“Right.”
“I said yes, of course,” I added quickly. “Because we’re so close, and I love him, but like… really?” I shook my head. “It feels weird.”
“Feels to me like this guy really did a number on you,” River mused, turning to face me more head on. His legs were so long, stretching out to rest on the heels of my own bar stool. I looked at him more closely that night, noting the light tone of his hair, the brightness of his eyes, the way his hair was always so put together.
