Page 115 of Backslide
I hope Ben and Cara had the day they needed yesterday to recenter. I hope they’re both feeling more themselves.
It looks like it. Whatever stress my best friend was feeling is gone from his face now as he gazes at his wife like she is the beginning and the end.
“I love you even though you’re terrible at making beds,” Cara is saying now, her eyes welling. “Seriously. No one is worse. I love you even though you still put Ansel’s diapers on backward sometimes—and it’s been years! You really should figure that out. Stickies at the front. At least you also clean up the leaks.”
Laughter titters through the crowd. Ben offers up a sheepish shrug.
And it occurs to me that maybe there is value in knowing the bestandthe worst of someone before you agree—or in this casere-agree—to spend your life together. Maybe Ben wasn’t sure he wanted this whole crazy celebration, but he looks full up right now as they choose each other again.
“But, most of all,” Cara says, “I love you because you are my partner in crime. Not today. Not tomorrow. But always. Of course, you’re the father to our incredible children—and I can give yousomecredit for them. But having this time to be with you here without the kids has also been so incredible because it’s allowed us to just beusagain—the us we have been since we met so many years ago. The us we still are. And theusI hope we will be for the rest of our days.”
I know in that moment that Cara has gotten the confirmation she needed that, though time has passed and life is bedlam, she is still herself, that they are stillthem.
There is not a dry eye in the house. Even Damien, sitting on my other side, has misty eyes.
When Nell and I got back after our adventure, it was hard not to experience a little comedown. It was such a gift to retreat from the rest of the world together. It didn’t help that the first person I saw—after she and I parted ways and I began unloading the trunk full of party stuff—was Damien.
“What’s up, man?” he said, giving me a pound.
“Not much,” I said, immediately tense. I wasn’t even sure why.
But then he leaned up against the car without offering to help, chewing his gum with his mouth open. And I remembered. Right away, he started in: “So, you got stuck, huh? Alone with Nellie?”
“Yup,” I said, tight-lipped, as I pulled out the cooler of oysters. Turns out maybe Mike was extra strong ’cause that thing was heavy as hell. Got to give credit where credit is due.
“How’d you swing that?”
Setting the cooler down, I paused and looked up at Damien, this old friend of mine who hasn’t been feeling like a friend at all. “I didn’tswinganything. There was a flood. Turns out I don’t control the weather.”
“Right,” he said, staring me down. “So, did you tap that?”
Everything in me wanted to stand up to full height and punch him in the face in that moment. Because of the way he cheapens things. Because he’s circling this girl he knows I love. Because I can’t tell him the truth—that somethingdidhappen between me and Nell, and I’ve never been so fucking happy for even a modicum of a chance to win her back.
I wanted him to back the fuck off before he tainted this.
Instead, I exhaled. “D, grow the fuck up.”
“Is that a yes?”
“No. That’s a grow the fuck up.”
“I’m pretty fully grown,” he said, pulling out a dab pen and dragging on it. He slipped it back in his pocket and rose to standing, stepped in closer to me than he should. “You don’t have to tell me, anyway, bro. Doesn’t matter. This is just a trip.”
I didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what he meant. This is a short vacation, but he lives in the same city as Nell. He can play the long game.
“Good luck, D,” I grunted, because I couldn’t say anything else without revealing the truth—something I promised Nell I wouldn’t do.
“I don’t need luck, baseball boy,” he said, close enough to my face that I could smell the stale weed on his breath. “We’re not in high school anymore.”
He shot me a peace sign, then strutted away.
I watched him retreat, my face pulsing with anger, wondering how I never saw him clearly all these years.
I always thought Damien kind of had a thing for Nell. I guess I can be honest with myself about that now, sitting next to him watching our friends tie the already-tied knot. I remember he once told me I was lucky because I’d snagged “the perfect girl.” But I never cared. Because I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell. The sentiment seemed almost sweet. And it was convenient, having my best friend and my girlfriend mostly get along, at least on the surface.
Plus, as far as I was concerned, Damien wasn’t interested in being with one girl, ever. Nell worried that was true about me too, occasionally, which is why we broke up for super-short stints those couple of times. Because she lost patience. With how much I liked the attention. With how much I sometimes flirted.
So, when she and I were on one of our pauses, and he started talking to her regularly on the phone, it seemed a little weird. But I figured it was helpful to have someone in my court.
