I know why he won’t. His mother’s been nagging him to marry and give her grandchildren to rank from most to least favorite, depending on whose physical features our unfortunate progeny inherit. If Nicholas jumps ship now, Deborah will revert back to nagging him to procreate using the frozen, ten-year-old eggs of her friend from tennis, Abigail, who died a year ago and for whatever ungodly reason left her eggs to the Rose family. Heather, Nicholas’s sister, is to be the incubator for this abomination of a child.
I can’t jump ship, either. I’ve been shouting to the world that I’m perfectly happy in my perfect relationship, and if I run now I’m going to look like a fraud.
Aside from that, Mrs. Rose has hinted more than once that if I back out, she’ll bill me for her troubles. If I leave her son, she’ll undoubtedly take me to small claims court to be reimbursed for Swarovski crystal candleholders customized with the letter R (everything has been custom-ordered to feature the letter R), which I wasn’t involved in picking out. I don’t have a ton of savings, but I do have a little bit tucked away, and I’ll defend it with teeth and nails.
“Mom’s still going on and on about the prenup,” Nicholas is saying from the next room. Maybe we’ve been here all evening and my imagination made up going to Brandy’s. I’m sitting in the same spot, while staring at the same spot, and that uneasy churning in the pit of my stomach is a third, invisible member of our party. It materializes reliably whenever we talk about the wedding.
“I told her no way,” he continues when I don’t respond. “She and Dad never got one. Why should we? It’s not like you’d ever leave me.”
Nicholas loves to congratulate himself for not getting a prenuptial agreement. He thinks about it all the time, which I know because he won’t stop bringing it up. He’s waiting for me to jump in with a pat on the back, but I leave him hanging.
“Mandy’s haircut looks awful,” Nicholas remarks, darting a shrewd glance at me. “Those bangs. Ugh.”
He knows her name is Brandy. I mention her at least once a day. I’m smoking at the ears not just over this, but because I had bangs when Nicholas and I met. He says all the time how pretty I was, and how he fell for me immediately, and yet for about a year now he’s reminded me every time he sees a woman with bangs how much he loathes them.
“They look cute on her,” I say defensively. It’s true. Brandy’s got these quirky piece-y bangs for her shag cut and she pulls it off so well. Her hair’s always top notch. She experiments a lot with colors, and the style of the month is a mesmerizing blend of black and garnet. When she stands outside, the effect that sunlight has on her stunning hair belongs in a commercial. She never leaves the house without a full face of flawless makeup, and is the only person I know who can pull off a combination of electric blue liner, orange ombre eyeshadow, and fuchsia lipstick.
He whistles a low, innocent tune. It feels like If you say so.
I’m losing it so quietly that I am almost not even here. In my mind, I click the file on my computer that notes a list of Nicholas’s positive attributes, running through each memorized line. They’ve lost their power to impress, I think because I’ve reread them so many times that I’ve become desensitized.
Nicholas holds the umbrella for me and makes sure I don’t get wet. When it’s raining and we park, he sidles up so that my passenger door opens to the sidewalk and not the muddy, grassy part of the curb. He has my order at all our restaurants mentally bookmarked, so he can recite exactly what I want to the waiter while I’m in the bathroom.
He has thick, beautifully rumpled chocolate-brown hair and he gets side-eyed by a lot of women whenever we go out. He says my eyes are the color of champagne, which became his favorite drink after we met for that very reason, and I had a wonderfully bubbly, fizzy sensation course through my veins whenever he smiled at me.
He likes dogs. Not enough to get one, but enough to chuff a laugh while I kneel to pet someone else’s dog, just before he says jokingly, “Don’t get any ideas.”
He doesn’t sneakily watch our favorite shows without me. If a song comes on the car radio that he hates, he doesn’t automatically change the station but first asks if I like it. He still wears a pair of socks with a poodle print that I got for him when we were first dating, even though it was a joke gift.
These might sound like minor traits, or even givens that I should take for granted, but I hold on to them like life preservers.
I love these things about the man. But I do not love the man.
I know this with all of my heart, sitting here in the house we live in together, the countdown to our wedding ticking louder and louder with each passing day. A doomsday clock. He and I are going to be a disaster, but whenever I think of taking proactive steps to avert the disaster, my tongue rolls up and my limbs paralyze. I can’t speak out. I can’t be the one to end this.
If he has a list about me, I’m sure it’s much shorter. I have no idea what I’m bringing to our relationship right now aside from the fact that I’m keeping dead Abigail’s frozen eggs at bay.
Thinking about this is prodding the wound, making it bigger, making it worse because I’m growing more aware of the breadth of my anxiety, the depth of my dissatisfaction. It is both therapy and torture. Something is not right. Something is missing. I am in knots.
I have no right to feel this unhappy, and I wish Nicholas were inarguably horrid so I could justify leaving. I fantasize about happening upon him with a dental hygienist in the back of his car at a shopping mall.
He thinks our relationship is perfect, or so he says. It’s what I say to people, too. He tells everybody that I’m great. He thinks I adore him. We’re the only ones who know what Real Love is.
“What do you want for dinner tomorrow?” I ask in a tone that sounds like I love him. It’s an effort, and I’m exhausted.
“You pick.”
“Chicken tacos.”
“I was thinking stir-fry,” he replies, and I know it’s utterly unfair but my ten percent drops to nine. At this stage of the game, it takes nothing at all to dock points. If he breathes too loudly in his sleep tonight he’ll wake up to a score of negative fifty. Keeping points like this is terrible. I’m terrible. Our relationship might be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but when I go over it while in a positive frame of mind, it doesn’t look that bad, so then I’m unsure.
How did I fall in love with Nicholas? How did we even meet? I can’t remember anything good because it’s been overshadowed by the intense dislike I feel now. Maybe we met on a dating app. Maybe I was getting a crown put on. Maybe we were both walking briskly around a street corner from opposing sides and ran into each other like something from a movie, loose papers and to-go cups and my purse clashing in the air. All I know is that a few months ago I woke up from a very long sleep and discovered I was engaged to someone I can barely stand.
“Sweetie,” he says, which is what he calls me when it’s payday or his favorite team won or he knows he’s screwed up and needs to grovel. “I forgot to say. Mom had an appointment with the florist earlier and she wanted me to tell you she’s changing it from delphiniums to carnations or something like that.” He waves his hand in a circle. “You’d probably know better than me. Flowers are more important to women.”