Jessica Martinez - The Vow

“What are you thinking about?”

“Huh?” My head jerks up. Annie’s digging through the key jar.

“What are you thinking about? You look like your brain is hurting.”

I point to the Kaplan text, which isn’t even open.

“That makes sense then. I’m going to work, and I’m stopping by the grocery store on the way home. Any requests?”

“No.” I stretch my arms above my head. Unless Kroger is selling sanity, I can’t be helped. “Wait, can you get more of those chicken nuggets in the shapes of dinosaurs?”

“Dino-Nuggets? You know they taste the same as the regular-shaped ones, right?”

“Supposedly.” Should I bother explaining? I used to tease Sarina about begging Mom to buy them, and now they remind me of her. Annie would understand, but I’m still too weirded out by my own weird thoughts and just want her to leave.

“Oh, and don’t forget we’re doing bridal portraits tonight,” she adds.

“What?”

She rolls her eyes. “We talked about this after Sam called the other day. That girl I told you about at work, Kristen, is bringing her dress for me to borrow. I told her my cousin is getting married and I want to show my mom the beading to see if she can do it, but I have to take it back to her tomorrow.”

“Holy elaborate lie,” I say.

“I know, but it’s not easy to steal someone’s wedding dress for a day when you’re already married.”

“And bridal portraits?” I know enough to know I shouldn’t admit to only vaguely recalling the conversation with the ever-demanding Sam about them. She brings out the “tune out” side of me. But I’m remembering now. We need pictures for our interview. That’s right. “Wait, why are we taking wedding pictures when our official story is we eloped?”

She sighs. “Not wedding pictures. Bridal portraits. It’s not like we’re hiring fake guests or anything. We’ll just go outside and use the timer to take a few shots. Sam said it would be smart to have something sentimental that makes us look like we’re actually happy to be married, you know, since we didn’t have a big wedding. Even elopers might do that. Elopers—is that a word?”

“Yeah. But the whole concept seems lame. Wedding glamour shots? Really? People do that?”

“Of course people do that. And Sam said good pictures go a long way in showing a couple is really in love.”

“And if Sam told us to jump off a bridge, would we be doing that too?”

“Yes. Now stop fighting it. We’re doing the pictures.”

“Fine. But I’m not taking my clothes off for the camera. Not ever again. I said no, and no means no, Annie, so stop pressuring me.”

She grins. For such a scrawny girl, she has nice full lips. They’re pink even first thing in the morning before she’s put makeup on. Probably soft too.

Annie shakes the keys in front of my eyes. “Earth to Mo.”

“Maybe I’m having a delayed-onset concussion.”

“The hit was almost two weeks ago. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s not medically possible.” She leans over and gently puts four fingertips on my lightly bruised face. I don’t know why she has to always go touching it. I can smell her deodorant. Linen fresh , according to the stick in the bathroom, but it smells more like flowers. I don’t even know what linen would smell like. “I think you must be a slow healer,” she says, still touching me. “But I like the yellow. It’s not as scary as the blue and purple and green were.”

“Glad my rainbow of pain is making you happy.”

She steps back. “No offense, but you should take a nap or something. Maybe go for a walk before the apartment fever sets in and you start talking to Duchess again.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’ve got to go,” she says, picking the keys back up. “Keep it real.”

Keep it real, keep it real, keep it real. My mind turns the words over on themselves, linking ends to beginnings, like Satan’s Cat chasing its tail. Keep it real, Mo, even though it’s NOT real, because we’re best friends and this whole thing blows up if you get confused with a real feeling. Because this is not real. But keep it real.

Thanks a lot, Annie.

Annie

That’s not real.”

I close my eyes. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s him. Instead, like an idiot, I just stand there clutching a box of frozen Dino-Nuggets, my entire body chilled and goose-pimpled from his deep voice and the freezer.

“Not real food, I mean. They use the parts of the chicken you don’t want to eat, grind it up, add some filler, and freeze it for years. By the time it gets to your oven, it’s more freezer burn than chicken.”

“Microwave,” I say, and finally turn around. “These are going in my microwave.”

He looks good in the worst way, muscly and tan, and his hair is a little wet like he just showered, but I’m not going to stare at him. I slide the box into my basket and wait for him to say something so I’ll know how this is going to go. Angry, awkward, or fake-fine—those seem like the most likely options, but it’s definitely his choice, given the way things ended. The polite smile I hadn’t even realized I was giving him is starting to hurt, so I let it fade. I have no business smiling at him anyway. I’m the lying, cheating ho of an ex-barely-girlfriend.

“So, how are you?” he asks finally.

“Fine. You?”

He stares like it’s the dumbest question in the world. I’ve missed his eyes, brown and warm behind those stupid, adorable glasses. I look back down at the contents of my basket.

“Not that great,” he says.

“I’m sorry.” That should cover it: I’m sorry he’s not that great, I’m sorry for hurting him, I’m sorry I can’t make it better, and I’m a sorry individual. Also, now, as the silence stretches beyond uncomfortable into excruciating, I’m sorry to be having the most miserable social encounter of my life. I need an excuse to pull myself away, but my mind is numb with him still looking at me like that.

“Do you want to get some coffee?” he asks.

“What?”

“You’re probably busy.”

“No.”

I’m not busy, but I don’t know if I want to get coffee. Except I do. But I don’t want to sit close to him and talk with him and feel his eyes on me and let myself pretend for one second that things are different. I don’t have room for more hurting right now.

But I’m not busy. Myrna asked me to stay late and help rearrange the yarn bins, so it’s too late now for bridal portraits, which means I’m going to have to pretend to forget to bring the dress back tomorrow. Mo is at home, most likely watching SportsCenter . Or staring at Duchess.

Reed’s waiting. I can feel my cheeks turning red. “I mean I’m not busy,” I say. “Coffee sounds nice.”

“Are you almost done?”

I look at my basket, barely recognizing the food I put in there. My mental grocery list vanished about thirty seconds ago, so I don’t know what I’m missing. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got a few more things to get,” he says. “You want to walk with me?”

I follow him zombie-like from frozen foods to produce to checkout, barely saying a word. I wonder if he’s heard that Mo and I are married. Probably. E-town is too small to hide from gossip that big. But if he knows, why would he invite me to coffee? He has to hate me.

“So you’re really getting those,” he says, eyeing the Dino-Nuggets as we stand in line.

“They’re not for me.”

“Oh.”

His face. I look away.

Why, oh why, oh why, oh why did I say that? Cringing, I stare at the magazine in front of me, focusing on the beep of the grocery scanner and the smack of the teller’s gum. I want to bite my whole tongue off.