Page 46 of The Work Boyfriend

“You’re the opposite of those things when you’re like this. I don’t like it, but you won’t remember that in the morning. You won’t remember any of it in the morning.”

“It’s a good thing there are so many hours left in the night, since the party broke up so soon. There’s plenty of time for me not to remember things.”

“Enough,” Rob said. “That’s enough.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I said, my voice cracking.

“You don’t want to do what anymore? Get so drunk that you embarrass me and all your friends? Make a fool out of yourself? Throw yourself at Garrett in front of me, in front of hisgirlfriend? Make a mockery of our life, like I mean nothing to you? Like it didn’t take every ounce of my courage to get that fucking ring out, to convince my mother that you were worth a lifetime together, that I know you better than you know yourself, and that we’ll have an amazing life if you could just open your stupid eyes and give it all a chance?”

“It’s too hard.”

“You make it hard!” he shouted. “It is the opposite of hard. All we have to do is love each other, and it’s fine.”

“No, it’s only fine if I fall in line—it’s not enough that we love each other, because everyone expects a next step. A giant wedding. A huge house in their neighborhood, on their dime, the life they see for you. A baby. Then another. Moving forward in some way. Everyone assumes that’s what’s going to keep us happy. Falling in line with what society expects, and then—”

“Kelly, there’s nothing that says we have to get married the way my mother sees it. There’s nothing that says we need to have babies. There’s no pressure. Iwantto be married. I couldn’t care less if we have a big wedding or if we go off and elope to a beach somewhere. I’m showing you that I need it in my life. The forever-ness of it. Serious. Adult.”

“There’s the rub.”

“You”—he couldn’t even get the words out right—“you need to figure it out. Be here if you want to be here. Go if you want to go, but stop telling me you love me and then making it painfully obvious that you would fuck that guy sideways if I wasn’t looking. I’m going to bed. You’re welcome to sleep out here.”

“Fine.”

I wish I could say I went after him to apologize. I wish I could say that he forgave me, and we spent the next day cuddled up, having great make-up sex all afternoon on that same couch where Garrett and I had collapsed in the drunken laughter that had proven to be the beginning of the end of the entire evening. But all I did was grab my BlackBerry, tugging the cord out of the wall so hard that I snapped back and bruised myself on the marble island that separated our kitchen from the dining room, and then stumbled back onto the couch.

Chapter 11

IDIDN’T WAKE UP on the couch but on top of various pairs of relatively expensive, now completely crushed shoes, with my mother standing over me. “For goodness’ sake, get out of the closet. You aren’t Sylvia Plath, and this isn’tThe Bell Jar, so stop being so bloody melodramatic. There’s a perfectly good bed over there. Who passes out in the closet?”

My sister was here too. They must have used her spare keys. From the looks on their faces I knew it must be very early in the morning. I was sure that I looked terrible; I was more hungover than I had been in ages. I could feel the makeup caked on my face and gluing my eyelashes together as I tried to open my eyes fully.

I crawled out of the closet and felt my entire body swoosh to one side and then the other. “What are you doing here?”

“You called me,” my sister said. “At three in the morning, bawling, because you had a terrible fight with Rob. You told me the whole thing was over, that you were over the barrel about Garrett. And then you asked me to get Mom to take you home today. So here we are. I called in sick to work.”

“I don’t need to go home, Mom. I’m sorry. I—” Standing up was proving near impossible, so I crawled over to the front end of the bed and leaned against it. “I had too much to drink.”

“Obviously,” my sister said, yawning. “Your place is a disaster. There are bottles all over your kitchen that need to be rinsed out, and it smells like a curry house.”

“It’s not that bad,” my mother said. “Your sister has a sensitive nose from being pregnant. I remember not being able to go anywhere near your diapers when I was pregnant with her. Oh, I threw up so much.”

“We had that dinner party,” I said as I pulled off first my tights and then the awful Spanx that had cut off my circulation. My stomach and legs had deep red welts where the elastic had bitten into them. The apartment was cold. Or maybe I was just shivering.

“You need a hot shower. Come on, get up.” My mother bent down and tried to tug me upward, like I was a toddler unsteady on her feet. She eventually gave up and said, “I’m going to get you some comfortable clothes. If you aren’t going to have a shower you at least need to get out of a dress that looks covered in sick.”

“No.” I needed to sleep. “Seriously, I’m fine. We had a fight. It’ll be okay. I’m sorry I drunk dialed you, Meghan, and you really didn’t need to call Mom. God, my head hurts.”

“How much did you have to drink?” Meghan asked.

“I don’t actually remember.” I tried to swallow, but my spit was tacky and it stuck in my throat. “Bottles, plural. And I didn’t eat anything. I’m pretty sure I had lunch, but I’m almost positive that I didn’t eat much dinner. Did I at least throw up in the bathroom?”

“As far as I can tell. You don’t smell too badly of puke,” Meghan answered.

“Here.” My mom handed me a pair of Rob’s jogging pants and one of our old Queen’s sweatshirts. “Put those on. I’m going to tidy up.”

“What happened?” Meghan sat behind me on the bed, and I rested my head on her legs.

“My friends from work came as planned. Garrett was fighting with his girlfriend, and then I think Rob and I broke up. There was drama. Rob thought I was acting ridiculous.”

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