Page 84 of F*ck Marriage

“She wasn’t you,” I say. “She was a modified version.”

“True that.” Billie sighs, slipping the bracelet over her wrist. “Well, I’m back. Full force.”

I don’t have time to respond; we’ve arrived at the next pub.

“Shall we?” I hop down from the carriage and hold out my hand.

Phil gives us a little more time for dinner since all we’ve had sloshing around in our stomachs for four hours is alcohol.

“Eat!” he calls as we walk toward the restaurant. “Or you will drown from the inside out.”

Billie is sleepy-eyed when we slide into the tiny corner table. She tucks her hair behind her ears then rests her hands flat on the table while she waits for me to shrug out of my coat and sit. She’s beautiful—a little windblown, the tip of her nose kissed pink. There is a deep recess in my heart, a place I keep shut up, that aches whenever I look at Billie. For that reason I look away, at anything but her.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

She glances up from her menu, eyebrows raised.

“I suppose so,” she says, setting it down. “Will it make me cry?”

“Oh God,” I say. “Please don’t. I don’t do well with crying women.”

“I highly doubt that, Satcher. With the trail of broken hearts you leave, I bet you’re good at comfort.”

I grin. She’s right, of course.

We pause to give our orders to the server. Once he’s gone, Billie turns to me. “Shoot,” she says.

“Why did you tell your parents you were the one who left Woods?”

Her lips disappear as she folds them in and looks away.

“How do you know about that?”

“The hospital ... your mother…”

“Ah,” she says. “Did you tell her the truth?”

I shake my head.

“Thanks.” Her voice is soft, and my heart feels her sadness in such a way that I’m compelled to touch her, as if I can soak some of it up.

“They’d have blamed me. No matter what—” she says quickly when she sees the expression on my face. “If Woods cheated on me it would mean I was failing him in some way. I guess I didn’t want to hear it, you know?”

“Understandable.”

She fidgets with the strap of her bag, one side of her mouth screwed into her cheek.

“Does it make you think of me differently?”

“No. Of course not. God, I’ve told my mom the reason I’m not married is because I have a small dick and no one will have me,” I tell her.

“Ah well, what a lie that is,” she sings, and her eyes dance with mischief.

“She knows that. She changed my diapers for three years.”

We’re laughing when the server delivers our drinks. High on penis jokes at my expense. I love it. I love that she doesn’t censor herself for anyone, and I love that she teases me mercilessly. When you date as many women as I have, you learn that everyone has a construct they want to portray. Personalities become like outfits: carefully curated, a smokescreen for the brokenness inside. It’s hard to tell what’s underneath the layers everyone is wearing. Billie is the first woman I’ve met who comes at you naked. She admits when she’s wrong, isn’t afraid of telling you the terrible truth about what she’s done, and doesn’t have a secret agenda. She is what she is and that’s exactly what I fell in love with.

“Sláinte,” I say, raising my glass.

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