Page 17 of The Summer I First Saw You
She chugs straight from her bottle of Malibu, holding mine.
I go to the microwave for the lasagna. I’m so hungry that I take a bite before it’s cooled off and scald my tongue, which I then soothe with a nice long sip of bourbon.
Her shoulders sag. She takes another drink of her rum. This is getting tedious.
“I could just take this to my room, you know,” I tell her.
“If you take that bottle to your room, I’ll take this one to mine and finish it,” she replies, satisfied with herself.
She’d do it too. If she could go without food for days as a toddler to prove a point, drinking an entire bottle of Malibu as an adult would be a walk in the park.
“How’s the lasagna?” she asks.
“Good, and the bourbon gives it a little extra kick. I’ll probably have more.”
Her nostrils flare, and she heaves a sigh. “Excellent. I’ll have more too.”
We’re at a standoff, and already she’s turned drinking into a chore, something I wish I didn’t have to do.Goddammit, Daisy.
I finish the first piece of lasagna. I finish most of the bourbon and refill it. She matches me sip for sip.
I heat up a second piece and carry it to the table. She follows, setting the Malibu down on the table with a heavy thud.
“So what happened with you and Audrey?” she asks as I raise the fork to my mouth, and every muscle in my stomach tightens.
“We split up,” I reply coolly. “I figured you knew, given it’s how you’ve maliciously inserted yourself into my life.”
She shakes her head. “No. I mean, whatreallyhappened? Because you wouldn’t be lying to everyone about a girlfriend if it went the way you said. You’d be out at a bar telling Liam how much those two months in London sucked and that it was time to pull the cord.”
“You sure seem to know a lot about relationships. Have you ever even had one?”
Her smile fades. She takes an extra sip of the rum though I didn’t sip off mine. “I have, actually. And you’re trying to change the topic. So what really happened?”
I’m starting to lose my appetite. I’d just go to my room but I know she’ll keep on asking every day she’s here until I’ve managed to kick her out.
I take a long swig of the bourbon. “There’s no secret story,Daisy, and if there were, do you really think I’d share it with someone already blackmailing me with the one secret she’s privy to?”
She drinks from the bottle of Malibu and stares at me, still waiting for the fucking answer. “I won’t blackmail you with it. I mean, I will if it’sjuicy. If it turns out you want to be diapered like a baby or are into coprophilia, it would be really hard not to blackmail you alittle.”
“What the hell is coprophilia?”
She grins. “Ah, now, who’s the innocent one? It’s when someone wants to take a dump on your face.”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that. And my marriage failed. That’s sufficiently embarrassing, I think.”
“Half of all marriages end in divorce, dude.” She’s already slurring a little. “There’s nothing embarrassing about it. So, I’m forced to assume the issue was coprophilia. Or, God…is itworse? I can only think of two things that are worse, and they’re both illegal. No, wait, I can think of three things. They’re all sexual, by the way. Nope, just came up with a fourth. Four things. Wow, I’m seeing you in a whole new light.”
I’m torn between laughing and walking out of the room.
“I’m scared to even ask what those four things are,” I begin and raise my hand when her mouth opens. “That wasn’t an invitation for you to tell me. And no, there was no sexual deviance underlying my divorce. What’s embarrassing is that I quit my job and sold my house and went halfway around the world only to pack it in after two months.” It’s partly true. Which, by definition, means it’s also partly false. And I’m not sure why I’m even replying to her, but the bourbon has loosened my tongue, and now that she’s clearly wondering if I’m a pedophile or human trafficker, the truth seems like less of a big deal than it did.
She laughs. “Poor Harrison. Failing at a relationship is aregular day on the job for most people. You were just too accustomed to being good at everything.”
She’s missing a lot of the nuance here, but she isn’t entirely wrong: Iwasused to excelling at life. There was a time when I had every fucking thing and couldn’t get through a day without someone mentioning how lucky I was. I had family money. I graduated at the top of my class and married a woman who was beautiful and brilliant and loved me enough to follow me across the country. Work came easily, winning came easily, and I assumed, soon enough, that parenting would come easily too.
And suddenly it was all gone, and nothing was coming at all, easily or otherwise.
“When I left, I was the top-grossing partner at my firm. Now I’m starting from scratch at thirty-two and everyone’s looking at me like I’m a clown for doing it, which I am.”
