Chapter Thirty-Nine

WITH ONLY FOUR weeks until the big day, Joey decided she needed to make one last play, and she needed to do it soon. If it failed, she’d still have time to be the best maid of honor ever. And if it worked, she was pretty sure her family could get at least some of their deposits back.

And so, she’d asked Dan to meet her at their apartment the next day before a work dinner she knew he had to attend. She didn’t call it their apartment but gave him the address and said it was important. On her way, she stopped at Target to pick up a blanket, candles, and sandwiches. It had to be just how he’d done it, or she’d never convince him.

She got there fifteen minutes before him, and set everything up, including the CD player she brought from her house, and the mix CD she’d assembled for the occasion, with all the songs she could remember from that night. When she heard footsteps approaching, she pushed play and waited for him to walk in. Then tried to stay calm when he did.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” she said.

“How?” Dan said, walking into the living room. “How did you know about this?”

Joey had to pay the apartment complex owner $100 to let her use their apartment for the night, but she remembered he was kinda shady and knew he’d take the bribe. She was just glad no one else was renting it at that moment.

“I want to tell you a story.” Joey sat down on the floor, the way they had when Dan had set this same picnic up for her. Dan looked behind him at the door and looked ready to protest but was clearly intrigued. He sat down with her, and she took that as a sign to continue.

“Imagine that I didn’t leave last year,” she said.

“But you did,” he said, a pained expression across his face.

“I know. But you told Betty you never really loved me, and you’d always loved her. I just want to say this all once, and then I’ll never say it again. Please…let me get it out.”

He looked like he was going to say something before she stopped him with the “please,” but on she went.

“Imagine a version of our lives where I didn’t leave last year,” she said. “You would have proposed to me that night, and I would have said yes. We end up here, in this apartment, where we live during school. We would be married by now and so broke we can barely afford to eat some days, but so in love we don’t care. Every day is an adventure because we have each other. And soon, we have not one, not two, but three kids. You are the best daddy in the world, and you love our little family more than you ever dreamed you could.”

Joey saw the tears rolling down Dan’s face but kept going.

“I know you, Dan. I know you better than anyone and I know you’re not happy. And I know I’m the one who made you unhappy. But if you’ll let me, I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life making it up to you. And even if a day comes where you start to drift away from me, I’ll find a way to bring us back together. Because this is it. It’s you and me. It has always been you and me.”

She stopped talking as “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” ended and waited for him to say something. Anything.

“I never said that to Betty,” he said at last.

“What?”

“I never told Betty I didn’t love you. And I definitely never said I’d always loved her.”

“You don’t love Betty?” Joey was filled with hope.

“I do. It’s just…different. And she was there for me when you left. I didn’t think I could ever love someone again, but she told me you kept saying how much better off you were without me. I started to think maybe I had fallen for the wrong sister. But now you’re here and I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Dan, if you love Betty and want to be with her, just say the word and I’ll stand beside you on your wedding day and smile. But if you don’t, you need to break it off.”

Dan looked around the room and shook his head a few times. Joey knew it had been a low blow to set things up the way he’d done for her on their first night in the apartment, but if she could just unlock the part of his heart that still held space for her, she knew they could get back to where they’d been.

“How do you know about this place? How do you know everything you just said?”

“Because I’ve already lived it,” Joey said. “We’ve been married for nineteen years. On the night of my twentieth high school reunion, I was sent back in time to see how it would have turned out if I’d ended up with someone else.”

Dan stared at her, then frowned.

“Why would you have wanted to see what your life was like with someone else? Assuming what you’re saying is true, which I don’t believe. But pretending it is, what’s so wrong with our life that you had to come back and change things?”

“Something changed that last year. I’m not sure what happened, but I think you stopped loving me.”

“Impossible.”

“Impossible then, or impossible now?”

Dan stood up and pulled Joey into his arms. “Impossible always,” he said into her hair. Then he pulled away for a moment to look at her and kissed her.

They kissed and cried and lost track of time, even forgetting that the rest of the world existed. When they pulled apart, Joey thought she’d never been so happy until she saw the look on Dan’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Betty,” he whispered.

Heartbroken, Joey knew her efforts had been too late. Dan might have loved her first, and maybe even more, but he was too honorable to just end things with her sister. She would have loved him even more for it if it didn’t mean the end of her chance to be with him.

“You’re still going to marry her,” she said.

“No, I don’t believe he is,” came Betty’s reply from behind her.