Page 84 of A Storybook Wedding

“No,” he cuts me off. “Not this time. I talk first.”

I stop. I feel the admonishment in my chest, its growing presence a bubble of unwanted pressure atop my rib cage.

“I don’t know what kind of ridiculous little stunt you thought you were pulling, but the charade is over now. You’re lying to everyone evidently, to Cecily’s parents, to the faculty and students here at Matthias, but I will be damned if you’re going to lie to me for even one more second. Now, Nate, you’re going to remain silent, and, Cecily, you are going to tell me exactly what is going on here.”

She looks at her lap, takes a shaky breath, and I do everything in my power to do as I’m told.

“First of all,” CJ begins, “I—we—are sorry. Like, more than you can possibly imagine. The truth is that back in November, after I finished my manuscript, you told me to get out there and experience the literary scene, and I found a reading that Nate was doing in the city and decided to go to it. I was nervous because I was by myself, so I drank some wine, and I really don’t drink, you know? As a result, I got a little buzzed or whatever. Maybe more than just a little bit. Anyway, Nate tried to sober me up, and I dragged him to the karaoke bar and made him sing with me, and we didn’t know that Questlove was there or that he was going to kazoo bomb our song, and I was stupid and got all caught up in the moment, and I kissed Nate. Me. Rewatch the footage. You’ll see it’s very obvious that I threw myself at him. Only then, when you found out, he thought he was going to lose his job, so he read through the HR manual and showed me the rules about student-teacher relations, and it basically said that he would be able to keep his job if we were married. So we got married. It was all my idea. I had to beg him to do it, because I didn’t want to lose the only friend I had here.”

She power breathes. The room becomes so still that I can feel the weight of the silence like concrete blocks tied to my shoes as I go for a leisurely dive off the edge of a cruise ship.

Dillon taps his fingers together and then cracks the knuckles on his right hand. “So all that business about having met before the pandemic and not wanting to miss out on the chance to be together a second time—all of that was a lie?”

She nods. Her face reminds me of how a puppy might look if it just got caught taking a shit in its owner’s shoe. “I’m sorry.”

“You both just worked out a story and figured I would be dumb enough to buy it.”

“Nobody thinks that. I think the world of you, just for the record. But yes, we lied to you. It was the only way for him to have a fighting chance at keeping his job. The whole thing was just a misunderstanding that was all my fault.”

“Cecily,” Dillon says, tenting his fingertips and placing them in the crease between his eyes while he takes a deep breath. “What is it about me that appears so unreasonable? What makes you think I wouldn’t have understood if you just told me the truth?”

“I, um…”

“I have a daughter, you know. She’s about your age in fact. We all make mistakes, and I am not some kind of monster who can’t understand that sometimes we don’t think things through in the moment.”

“I don’t know what to say,” CJ murmurs.

“You’d worked with me for months to that point. I could see how much it pained you to write the manuscript you submitted, and you told me that it was based on true events. I believed you, and I felt for you, and because of that, I was willing to go the extra mile for you as your mentor, because I believed that you were special—that your writing was special, and that you were telling a story that you needed to tell in order to seek out your own catharsis. That’s why it came as such a shock to me when all of a sudden, you and Nate were kissing on TV, and I was hearing about it from Alice.”

She nods, and I follow suit.

“But you lied to me, Cecily. I gave you a safe space to take your truth and turn it into something beautiful, and you took advantage of me. You lied right to my face.” He shakes his head in a slow, somber rhythm.

She begins to cry.

“Don’t,” Dillon says, his voice firmer now. “I will not have you manipulate me twice. You’ve both done a fine job of convincing me, and I would guess almost everyone else here, that you two are, in fact, a couple. I’ve seen you holding hands, canoodling. I can’t believe the lengths you would go to in order to play me like a fiddle. I’m very disappointed in you, but I’m also unbearably angry. What you did was wrong, and you made me look like a fool. I run this program, and I went to bat for you both. I had to present your case to the dean. You two were so selfish and juvenile that you thought you could just trick us all. Well, game over.”

I can’t not say something. “It wasn’t CJ’s idea,” I say.

“More lies?” he snaps at me. “She just said it was all her idea; now you’re saying it wasn’t? Would you like me to leave the room so that you two can conspire before you make up your next statement?”

“What I’m trying to say is yes, we lied, and yes, of course we’re sorry, but somewhere along the way, I want you to know that we fell in love—”

“Save it, Nate,” he says, slamming his hand down on the table, startling CJ. “That is quite enough.”

CJ begins to cry harder.

“You’ve made the rest of this very easy for me. Effective immediately, you’re both terminated from the program.”

“What?” she squeals.

“You can’t be serious, Dillon,” I say.

“You heard me. We’re done here. Now, please go.”

CJ covers her face with her hands, sobs shaking her whole body.

“Dillon, please don’t do this,” I beg.

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