Page 43 of Ruined Vows

A family? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about a family? I stare at him, bewildered. I thought we were on the same page. No kids. No kids till I have at least two clinics established and well-underway?—

“This is the perfect neighborhood for young families,” Mrs. Price says excitedly. “I know the price point can be intimidating for young couples, but that’s why I got so excited when Carol mentioned you might be moving in. It’s not like money will be a problem for your family,” she laughs, waving a hand.

But I’m still stuck on the part where Drew thinks we’re movinghere. To the same neighborhood our parents live. To start afamily.

“Um.” I smile, heart racing and breathing getting short, then tap Drew’s knee. “Why does Carol think we’re moving here?” I whisper to him when the Prices move on to a conversation with others around them. “I thought we agreed that I’d need to get a practice established in the city first.” And then I figured once we got settled somewhere and started putting down roots, I could convince him to stay there.

He just shrugs, an easy smile as he nods to someone else down the table. “Wouldn’t that just be a waste to get a practice up and going if you’re only going to quit a few years later once you get pregnant? Then you’d just end up leaving your clients in a lurch. It’s much smoother if we only move once.”

I cough a little, bringing my napkin to my mouth. He massages my knee gently under the table. He can tell I’m getting upset, and this is one of the tricks he does sometimes to help me calm down. Usually, I love it because I’m so starved for touch. And it feels like a secret language between us—him seeing my anxiety in a way that feels like he’s seeingme.But what he’s just said…

“I don’tintendon giving up my practice. I’m getting my degree because I want to do important work. There are a lot of people in our community who need good psychological care?—”

He chuckles under his breath. “Not inourcommunity?—”

I gasp and yank my knee away from Drew’s previously comforting touch.

Mr. and Mrs. Price’s eyes have zeroed back in on us, bouncing between Drew and me like a tennis match. A fact that’s not lost on Drew.

“Let’s talk about this later.” He grasps my cold hand underneath the table. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

“Yes,” I say succinctly.

Drew starts to discuss his father’s campaign, and I go quiet again, focusing on my breathing instead of my mounting frustration. This is nothing. All couples fight. And we’re barely a couple. Lord knows how Drew is planning to make a baby, considering he can’t even get it up around me.

God, that was an awful night. It was graduation night of our senior year.

I’d finally gotten over him… mostly.

We were all but inseparable senior year. He might have hung out with whatever girlfriend he was currently with during school—he never kept them for long because it was generally known that he slept around on them—but it wasmehe spent hours with after school in his SUV.

And I’d read enough romance novels to hope that someday he’d open his eyes andseethat if he could just find the rightone, he could settle down. Obviously, I was the right one, there in front of him all along. I was the one he depended on when things with his dad got bad. He put on a front with everyone else at school, but he confided in me. I was the only one he wasrealwith.

I was the one he needed.

I kept my hope alive all the way up through prom, a secret little seed inside me wishing that he’d ask me. His latest girlfriend had just thrown an iced coffee in his face when she found out he was cheating on her. I knew he’d only acted out because he’d gotten into a particularly brutal argument with his father the day before.

That day after school, he lay in my lap, silent tears running down his beautiful face. I’d run my fingers through his hair, my heart beating so wildly in my chest, it had taken everything I had not to let theI love youbeating with every thump burst out of my lips. I only kept it inside because I actuallydidlove him, and I knew that, with all the pain he was going through, it would be the most unloving thing I could do to burden him with my emotions right then.

Still,still, I thought, he has to feel it. He has to know.

And so, when the week of prom came around, I got it into my head that he finally reciprocated my feelings. He saw the gem I was inside and out, and he’d pull out all the stops for some ridiculous prom-posal that would sweep me off my feet…

Instead, he asked Hannah Bradley, the longtime girlfriend of one of his basketball buddies. Theo had recently broken up with Hannah because he didn’t want to do the long-distance thing in college. After school, Drew joked with me:Wasn’t it lucky Theo wanted to be free to fuck college girls?

When I wasn’t obsessing about Drew, I read books and had recently begun watching YouTube videos about mental health. One nugget of truth I kept coming across was: When people tell you who they are,listen.

Drew had been telling me who he was all along, hadn’t he?

“Kira?”

I blink and look up. Drew and my mother, along with half the table, are looking at me as if waiting for a response to some question.

“Yes?” I ask weakly, looking from face to face.

My mother grins in that polite way that manages to hold a furious glare of disappointment underneath for losing track of the conversation. “Mrs. Garcia was just asking who’s designing your wedding gown. I told her how I’ve dreamed of my daughter wearing my own vintage Dior since the time you were a little girl.” She looks around the table, giving a calculated but gentle laugh. “But of course, she’s got her mind set on a Carolina Herrera. Young people. What are you going to do?”

Laughter echoes from around the table. Ah. My mother is in her comfort zone, holding court.

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