They’d decided to meet at the ice cream shop on the pier before the rehearsal dinner. This seemed like a safe spot where they could talk uninterrupted. Brody was lactose-intolerant and Tom’s parents were intolerant of the frivolity of a shop that served only brightly colored desserts. Megs had assured Tom her side of the family wouldn’t show up unexpectedly; she’d rushed through an impromptu photo shoot with them (not that anything was impromptu by now) and suggested they go have a predinner cocktail on Happy Accident while she allegedly checked on some last-minute details.
Besides, Donna believed ice cream was more of an “afternoon delight.”
The route Tom took to the shop wasn’t exactly direct. He needed time to think. Process. And so he meandered through the evergreen trees and down to the beach and tried very hard to process forgiveness. Commitment.
For twelve years he’d dedicated himself to Megs. To their relationship. It wasn’t that other romantic opportunities, like Gina, hadn’t presented themselves; he simply knew what he wanted. Who he wanted. Getting to know someone new on that intimate level he already shared with Megs had held little appeal because he was with a woman who made him feel safe. Adored. Someone he could cry with as easily as laugh with; someone who gave killer pep talks and had long ago accepted him for exactly who he was.
And up until three days ago, Tom had been convinced he knew exactly who Megs was too: a whip-smart, funny, loyal, secretly goofy, gorgeous person. Someone he thought would never hurt him.
How was he supposed to make the decision to stay with Megs when she seemed so different to him now? It was as though she’d been wearing a costume since graduation. How was he supposed to just forgive her when he wasn’t even sure he trusted her anymore?
Eight years was a very long time to lie to someone. Even if that lie was a lie of omission.
By the time he arrived, Megs was sitting at a wooden picnic table, in full makeup and wearing her shimmering dress, illuminated by the lights of the shop. She held an untouched mint chocolate chip waffle cone in one hand and was partway through the ice cream cone in her other hand.
“You better hurry. Yours is melting.” She offered him the waffle cone.
He took a lick, relishing the freshness of the mint and the crunchy subtle sweetness of the dark chips. Her familiarity; her features, her scent. The facial expressions he’d long ago memorized. They’d been a source of comfort for him for so long. Maybe they could be again.
He might just have to fake it for a while.
They took a few minutes to eat their ice cream in silence. It seemed oddly appropriate. After all, the first time they’d told each other “I love you” had been over ice cream. It was the end of their freshman year and the compacted stress of finals meant they hadn’t seen each other all week, the longest they’d gone except for winter and spring breaks.
After Megs had stayed up all night reading, she’d taken her final final exam and collapsed on Tom’s couch immediately afterward.
“I’m already breaking out from stress and forgetting to shower, but is it wrong that all I want for breakfast is candy?”
Seeing an opportunity to make her happy, he’d said, “Give me five minutes,” strapped on his Nikes, and quite literally run two blocks to the nearest convenience store. He returned shortly after carrying grocery bags bursting with ice cream, miniature candy bars, licorice, and something he thought was sprinkles but had the added benefit of coming in the plastic casing of a tiny toy cell phone.
As worried as Tom had been about his exams, he’d been more worried about the semester ending. Despite he and Megs seeing each other exclusively, neither of them had “dropped the L-bomb,” as Leo had sarcastically put it. The words had nearly fallen out of Tom’s mouth hundreds of times, but fear of rejection had muted him.
Because what if Megs was just having fun? What if Tom was a placeholder to her? Spare parts until she found someone she really loved?
Megs had fallen asleep in those few minutes he’d taken to go to the store. Her hair was in a matted ponytail, her forehead showing a handful of those stress blemishes she’d complained about. He thought his heart would break free from his chest right then and there.
She opened her eyes, took one look at the spread of pure sugar on his desk, and said, “Hey, Tom. You know I love you, right?”
He’d immediately told her he loved her too, so much, and they’d spent the rest of the day on a sugar and love high.
The memory was one of his favorites. It seemed almost quaint now in its innocence. How could he be sure she hadn’t been thinking about Leo then too?
He crunched on a shard of dark chocolate, mentally renewing his vow to do things right today. “What flavor did you get?”
“Rocky road.” She winked at him and he almost gave in to the moment of dark comedy and laughed. Or maybe he wanted to cry.
“I thought you opted for ice cream with some sort of caramel or no ice cream at all. Isn’t that your dairy war cry?”
She took a bite of marshmallow. “That was my cry, yes. But then I thought that if I’m going to repeat the same day over and over again, perhaps I should start eating themed ice cream. Or perhaps I should try a new flavor every day.”
The smile disappeared from her lips at the same time his did.
They could be stuck in this day forever.
Trapped in a loop of the same conversations, the same stifling intentions, the same fight.
Tom couldn’t live like that, in the worst day of his life, regardless of how much ice cream he ate. No, they’d do what Megs had suggested that morning: they’d get things right today.
As though she sensed the change in his mood, her eyes dropped. He could see her professionally applied eye shadow shimmering, the thickness of her fake lashes.
To an onlooker, he thought, they were two lovers dressed in their finest, enjoying the innocent levity of an ice cream date. But reality could be coy; it could be cruel. And there was no escaping what had to be done.
They needed to plaster smiles on their faces, pretend they were the same people who’d proposed to each other under a ceiling of plastic glow-in-the-dark stars, and make it through the rest of the evening on their best behavior.
Megs looked serene sitting there on the pier, wearing the champagne dress she’d been so excited to show him, licking ice cream as though she didn’t have a care in the world. God, she was beautiful. He’d thought so from the very first day she sat beside him in Natural Disasters.
Of course, he’d encountered beautiful women all his life. Wealth offered a myriad of ways to make someone aesthetically appealing. But something about Megs had been different. It was as though there were a lamp inside her, permanently flicked on. Everything shone. Her eyes danced when she spoke. Her mouth broke into easy grins. She laughed unselfconsciously. And there was something else there…a kindness at her core. One that drew him to her. Megs was a lighthouse.
More than anything in this moment, he wanted to love her freely again, with all the stresses of adulthood yet to come.
“I sent Leo packing.” The words had come out with difficulty, even though he could tell she was trying to pass it off as something as simple as mailing a letter.
An unnameable feeling contorted in his chest. She hadn’t wanted to do it. It was in her voice, the rigidness of her posture. The idea that Tom would always be her second choice chilled him.
He couldn’t think about that. Not now. They had to do things right. And so he said, “Okay,” and nodded. Too many times. He was still making things complicated. So he followed it up with a simple “Thanks,” begging his mind to stop the side-by-side comparisons. Of Megs and Leo. Of Megs and him.
She polished off her ice cream and stood up to throw away her napkin. Tom wasn’t hungry anymore. He discreetly threw his cone in the garbage behind them, not wanting to hurt her feelings by not finishing it.
“Hey, so you know how when we were freshmen and I thanked you for writing me that note? The morning after I broke down in front of you for the first time?”
He squinted, staring off into the middle distance, as though attempting to recall a vague memory.
“Remember?” she prodded. “That note that said it didn’t feel like you were falling, it felt like you were soaring?”
Of course he remembered. Because when she’d brought it up, covering him with kisses and thanks, he’d put two and two together; after all, the quote was a rip-off of an Edward Albee line Leo liked.
“Yeah. I remember.”
“You didn’t write it.”
Tom shook his head. “No.”
What she didn’t understand, might never understand, was how badly he’d wanted to be the person who’d written her that note. It was why he hadn’t corrected her years ago. It was why it stung to admit it now.
He’d been in second place his whole life. Trying to keep up in that race for his father’s approval. Trying to get his mother’s attention.
“You let me believe you did.” Megs’s accusation was pointed but not angry.
And then, when he’d found someone he cared about more than anyone else, his best friend had tried to undermine that. But back then, Leo had temporarily fallen in love with every woman—and most reciprocated. Tom figured if he left it, didn’t cause a stir, Leo would move on to someone else. Someone who wasn’t Megs. As far as Tom knew, that’s what had happened, because he could still remember the impressive parade of girls walking in and out of Leo’s room the rest of the year.
“I did let you believe that,” Tom agreed. There was no point denying it. He hated lying. He was terrible at it.
“Well?” She was waiting for an explanation he didn’t have.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Because those two words felt like the least complicated path.
“Okay.” She nodded. “I’m sorry too.”
What was her apology for? Sleeping with Leo? Not loving Tom best? Some yet-to-be-unearthed indiscretion?
At that point, on his third journey through this day, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were doing everything right.
He took a breath, took her hand, and made himself smile as they walked to their rehearsal dinner.