Page 23 of When Love Gives You Lemons
“Marriage at eighteen feels a bit sus,” Monroe says. “But I get the sentiment.”
“So Ricky has a new boyfriend? That guy?” Tyler points so brazenly at Cam that I reach for his arm and slam it down.
“Dude, you have no chill,” I say.
Monroe snort-laughs.
“I ask ’cause Ricky has been hardcore staring at you,” Tyler says.
I want to look for myself, but my head weighs a billion pounds and I won’t turn.
A bubbling anxiety in my chest makes me nauseous, and I can’ttell if it’s nerves, anger, or something more, something I wasn’t expecting. Ricky’s impersonal postcard plays in the back of my mind like subtitles in a movie. In so few words, he said so much. He hates me. Maybe he’s mad I blocked him and went zero communication, but he dumped me. Still, there was never anything passive-aggressive about our friendship-turned-relationship. We were each other’s everything, best friend, family, past, present, future. What happened? Did he do that thing that some people do post-breakup to heal and mentally turn their ex into a monster in their mind?
Am I Ricky’s monster?
I sit back as Matty continues to talk about me and Ricky’s relationship to Monroe and Tyler as if it’s some storybook romance, a canon fairy tale with a whole fandom complete with cosplayers and fanfic.
Seeing Ricky now, unexpectedly in such close quarters with a boyfriend on his arms, is jarring, and because even though he hasn’t been my boyfriend for over thirteen months, I guess I just assumed Ricky still loved me the way I still loved him because it was embedded in our DNA. It was our history, our future. The poem he wrote in his journal I found the morning he left, hell, everything in that journal, all the love letters to me I was never meant to read but have read over and over again the last thirteen months told me a story that we would find our way back to each another.
Yet here he is, with a boyfriend. While I was cycling through boys like parts on a factory belt in an attempt to avoid dealing with his absence and fill the hole—insert obvious joke here—he left, actually moved on. Maybe that’s why he said that in his postcard; he thinks I would cause some sort of scene at Topher andSienna’s wedding, that I would see Cam and act like a complete psychopath and push him into their tiered wedding cake and light the whole villa on fire or something. Which, fair point.
But no. Ricky is wrong.
My fingers tap the pocket of my shorts where my phone rests.
Tap-tap-tapon the screen.
I go to pull it out, hide behind it, scroll endlessly, get lost in DMs and comments and tweak drafts of whatever content I have set to go live later today, tomorrow, three, four, five, six days from now, anything to distract me fromRicky, Ricky, Ricky.
Benny crashes next to Tyler. “What’s the game plan?”
“There isn’t one now,” I deadpan into my screen, responding to a new comment. “He’s got a boyfriend. There’s nothing to p—” The word gets lodged in my throat.
At once, in an uproarious fashion, Matty and Benny yell at me to fight, and the rest of the plane looks in our direction.
“Incognito mode, guys, really,” Monroe says in exasperation, shaking her head. Then she turns to me. “You’re giving up? That easy?”
Not looking up, I shrug. “Nothing to give up.” I heart a few more comments.
“This defeatist attitude will not win you any heart,” Benny says. “You have to be doggedly persistent for the guy you love. My aunt and uncle are selling their house because Sienna is gone and Ricky lives in Seattle now. What if this is your last chance?” His eyes widen. “Ohmygod, the rom-com basically writes itself. Picture it: Italy. Last-chance romance. Star-crossed lovers. VeryMy Best Friend’s Wedding. You’re Julia Roberts. It’s divine intervention! Cosmic design!”
“I don’t know that reference, but I’ll take your word for it.” I’m razor focused on the comment section, particularly drinking in the thirsty comments from guys who post “woof” with heart-eyed emojis. A piss-poor substitute for actual affection, but alas, here we are, trapped in a steel box of emotion with our ex and his new boyfriend over an ocean, so this will do.
“It’s a classic,” Matty says.
“Of course you know that movie,” I say.
“We have a long flight to Naples,” Benny says. “We can stream it. Consider it a study session. Win back what’s yours.”
Monroe waves him away. “Pin in that. Back to reality. You do love him, right?”
Matty plucks my phone from my hands. “Pay attention, dude.”
Tyler’s eyes widen, shell-shocked.
“Ricky isn’t a prize to be won.” My hands are shaking. “I love him. Even after he . . . broke me.” An echo of the howling ocean breeze from our last night together fills my ears. Everything we were, and could be.
Matty puts his hand on my shoulders. “If you don’t want to do this—”
