Page 43 of The First Kind of Love
We all gather around her, some of the bridal party in tears as they take in the elegance of the dress, and a few sniffles even provoke some of my own. I could only hope to look half as beautiful as her on my own wedding day. I mean,ifI get married.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve always wanted to get married one day. But dating is hard. Putting yourself out there is hard. Pair that with my obligations and my baggage and, well, marriage becomes a thing of fairy tales rather than a conceivable reality.
There’s a pain in my chest that wasn’t there before, and it’s not from acid reflux. It’s something cancerous that lives beneath the surface, that thrives in the dark shadows of my heart, that constantly reminds me of a life I don’t know if I can ever have. It’s like the kind of parasite that wraps around one’s tongue, cutting off the host’s food supply without them even knowing. And then it sits there with its gluttonous mouth,feeding on every ounce of happiness, only to leave behind an emaciated husk with no autonomy, whose only avenue of calm is grouted in worry and dread.
I know I should be happy for Aeris—and I am—butGod, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t envious.
14
PHONING MR. RIGHT
May 4th, Sunday, 11:52 a.m.
SHILOH:Hey, do you want to grab lunch? I heard they’re serving sesame tempura shrimp.
FULTON:…
SHILOH:Ful?
FULTON:Hey! Sorry, I was partially drowning in the ocean. Yeah, I’d love to grab lunch.
SHILOH:You werewhat?
FULTON:Oh, don’t worry. Nothing bad happened.
SHILOH:Um, consider meextremelyworried.
FULTON:I wanted it to be a surprise, but I got you something.
SHILOH:Ful, we’ve been over this. You can’t take hermit crabs from their natural habitat. No matter how cute they are.
FULTON:What? No! I would never. I took a clam instead.
SHILOH:Excuse me?
FULTON:In my defense, it was already dead when I found it. So, I decided to crack open the shell to see if anything wasinside, and…
SHILOH:?
FULTON:I contacted a jeweler here and asked if there was any way he could fashion the pearl into a necklace.
SHILOH:A pearl? A necklace?
FULTON:For you.
SHILOH:For me?
FULTON:You ask a lot of questions.
SHILOH:This is serious, Fulton! You didn’t have to go through all that trouble for me.
FULTON:Sunshine, this is barely scratching the surface of trouble I’d go through for you. Plus, I thought you might like it better than those tacky gift shop necklaces.
SHILOH:I don’t know what to say. That’s so sweet, but I couldn’t possibly…
FULTON:If your next text consists of the words “accept it,” I’m going to lose my mind.
SHILOH:Has anyone ever told you how incredible you are?
