Always Something There to Remind Me (21 page)

But this? This was different.

The wind had shifted.

If only she and Theresa had taken a little longer at
any
of their stops today, they wouldn’t have run into Todd at all and none of this would be happening.

If only she had ignored the phone when it rang last night.

A million things rushed through her mind, things that she should have done instead of what she did:
No, Todd, DO NOT COME OVER
, or maybe,
Todd, I love Nate and I’m not going to betray him
. Of course, no one really talked that way, the need for it was only apparent in hindsight.

What about just ignoring his flirtations at the movie entirely so he didn’t even get so far as to ask for her number and have her—ugh—write it down there where anyone could have observed what was going on? Why didn’t
that
possibility occur to her before it was too late?

She was a jerk, that’s why. She’d traded a few minutes of flattery for Nate’s heart. She’d flirted with his friend in front of everyone, tried to make him jealous so he’d pay more attention to her because … what? Why did she need
more
from him? He’d given her his heart. It was unbelievably selfish, she knew that already, but now it looked so much worse. She’d heaped on the disrespect over and over. On some level she must have known she was taking that chance, so on some level she must have decided that chance was worth it.

That was the thought that shamed her more than any other.

Why wouldn’t he be pissed? She’d gambled his heart, his pride, everything, on a little ego from a pretty-eyed drunk.

She slowly turned back toward the house and saw Theresa and Todd had come out and were looking at her.

“Wow, I guess he’s really upset about the divorce,” Todd commented.

Erin looked at him like he was nuts. “
What?
”

“You know, his parents getting divorced. They told him yesterday.” He let out a breath and shook his head. “I didn’t know he was so bummed.”

Erin felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

Nate’s parents were getting
divorced
? On top of all of this, he’d just found out his parents were getting a divorce? No wonder he’d been so quiet last night! He’d just found out!

And instead of being there for him, Erin had, as usual, been there for herself, worried about him catering to her, trying to make him think he might lose her.… Her timing on that couldn’t have been worse.

Now he thought … Oh, God.

She felt like she was going to throw up.

“He needs to know I didn’t cheat on him,” she said, half to herself. But he did need to know that nothing had really happened physically between her and Todd. He needed to know she hadn’t slept with his best friend.

“Why would he think
that
?” Theresa asked, looking completely confused.

“Because … Todd…”

“But
I’m
here. Why would he think you’re cheating on him with someone else here watching? That makes no sense!”

“It’s not this, it was last night. I…” Erin sighed. She just couldn’t explain right now. “Nothing happened.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Todd asked her. He didn’t look nearly concerned enough.

“Of course!” she snapped. “You need to tell him the truth.”

“I will.” He nodded and glanced down the street where Nate had driven and she wondered what he’d really say.

That couldn’t be a conversation that would go comfortably.

“Take me home, Theresa,” she said, suddenly nauseous. What was she going to do? She had to call him. She had to get through to him. She could do that. He’d understand. “Please.”

Theresa didn’t argue. They got in the car and drove the longest ten-minute drive of Erin’s life. She gave Theresa the overview, and Theresa almost had her convinced that Nate would see how small and silly this was by tonight and everything would be back to normal. Todd was drunk and stupid, he’d put Erin on the spot, she didn’t want to send him out on the road drunk, she’d let him sober up and had kicked him right out of there. It wasn’t a great situation, but it was no great sin either.

But something about that wasn’t ringing true to Erin. When Theresa dropped her off at her house, it was beginning to snow, fat icy flakes slamming against the windshield and sliding down in wet rivulets. The cold outside now felt like it went straight to her bones, and she went inside to what she didn’t fully realize at the time was a whole new life.

Chapter 14

Present

“You’re m—?” I couldn’t finish the word. I was still looking at his reflection in the mirror, my eyes fixed on the belt loops of the jeans he’d put back on. He looked ridiculously hot, but I couldn’t turn and face him.

He kept his eyes on me. “Yes.”

I guess I’d hoped there was some other explanation. When he confirmed there wasn’t, the vulnerable heartache that had started in me froze into anger immediately. I slammed the ring down on the counter and turned to him, no longer conscious of my nakedness. “Fuck you,” I said, well aware that I had done just that only fifteen minutes earlier. I shoulder-bumped him as I passed, glad for the dull pain in my body instead of just in my stomach.

The rest was a blur. I went to his room and shoved my clothes on.

He was
married
.

Nate was
married.

He was someone’s husband. Someone was his wife. They’d met, flirted, gotten to know each other, had first
I love you
’s, and had progressed through a relationship far enough to promise each other they’d be together forever.

So presumably he’d fallen in love with someone much, much more than he’d loved me.

It’s not like the idea had never occurred to me, and I was certainly aware that he must have dated after we’d broken up—it had been a long time; it’s just that I’d scarcely allowed myself to think about it. It had been bad enough to torture myself with thoughts of him making love to another girl back when I was still crying over him every night; and I’d imagined it all, his tongue in her mouth (or worse), his hands on her body, his thoughts on her instead of on me.

But he’d actually fallen in love with someone else and
married
her. Made vows. Wore her ring … at least sometimes.

Good God, did he have
kids
too?

“Erin—” he began.

I turned to him, ready to kill. “You have a
wife
.”

And he had every right to have a wife. Despite whatever feelings of propriety I had about having been there first, despite all the childish feelings that he should always have wanted me first, no matter what time or distance separated us.

That part broke my heart.

But he should have told me he had a wife before he had sex with me.

That
part made me angry.

He met my gaze. “Yes, but—”

“But what?” I challenged, perhaps hoping on some level that he’d … what? Tell me he was a widower? Divorced, even separated, but using the ring as a sink decoration? What could he possibly say that could make this better?

“It’s complicated because—”

“Oh,
fuck
that,” I snapped, well aware that I was careening toward shrill. “I realize this … what happened between us today … wasn’t planned, but you
certainly
could have mentioned a
wife
before things went too far.”

One side of his mouth cocked into an ironic smile. “If I had, you would have left.”

Would
I have? I’d like to think so, but I wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter because he never even gave me a chance to make that choice. He’d lied by omission—to
me
, of all people!—and that hurt.

“I’m leaving now.” I turned on my heel and hurried down the stairs. “Have a good life.” This was humiliating. I was so stupid. Why did I just
assume
everything was just like we’d left it? There was no such thing as time travel, yet here I’d been, making out with my old boyfriend as if the passing years hadn’t meant a thing.

Now, like a fool, I felt like I’d lost him
again
. How much could one person take?

I was a living, breathing cautionary tale.

He came down behind me, seeming to be right on my back even though he seemed to move with the ease of a lazy cat.

I threw the door open, my mind still racing with questions I’d never get the answers to now.

Or so I thought.

Because as soon as I stepped out into the twilight, a car pulled up. A neighbor? His mother?

But, no, it was worse. Far worse.

It was his wife.

The pieces came together for me with swift, horrible certainty as I realized who that was.

His wife.

Theresa.

*   *   *

When we were in high school, Theresa was always the one who was boy-crazy. She’d be with one guy one day, then another guy the next, and sometimes a third guy on the third day. Literally.

Not that she was a slut, really—she was always looking for love. The problem was, she was always thinking she’d found it, no matter how unlikely a package it was in or how obvious it was to the rest of us that she had picked another loser.

Nate used to be right on board with Jordan and me when it came to Theresa. He was kind to her, and about her, but he certainly never harbored any secret lust for her. I mean, he might have—one might even argue that he
must
have—but I hadn’t seen it. And I was really sure I knew him inside out.

Evidently, something had changed.

But when I saw her out front of his parents’ house, in that one brief moment between recognizing her and having to
say
something to her, time stood still and a million thoughts raced through my mind.

The ring.
N & T
.

They’d gotten married. They’d had rings engraved.

They must have fallen in love.

In love enough to get
married
. Grown-up love, not the youthful kind that ends in tears on the front stoop and calls that are never returned.

Had they always had a spark between them that somehow I’d just missed?

Two people I’d once imagined I’d know and love for the rest of my life had floated out of my awareness and into each other’s. Was that not as shocking and devastating as it felt?

Maybe I had no right to be pissed or proprietary about that. But I was anyway.

How astonishing that on this day, which had started out weird and then had a delirious moment of completion, had now come to this.

“Oh, my God!” Theresa gasped. “
Erin?
Oh, my God, is that really
you?
”

“Yes,” was all I could say. There were so many ways she might have meant it.

Of course, I had information she didn’t.

She threw herself into my arms. She was skinnier than she’d been in high school. She felt bony against me. “I can’t believe it! I just saw your mother at the grocery store and she said you were over at her place! I
actually thought
about going by!”

“Really.”

“I swear it!” She beamed and looked at Nate. “Can you believe this?” She raked her hand through her short dark hair. It looked cute on her, I hated to admit. Sort of pixieish with her super-slim frame.

“No,” he said evenly. His gaze was impassive, like he was looking at his neighbor or something instead of his wife. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I had to take those old clothes over to the church for the women’s shelter and I felt sorry for you, doing all this work on someone else’s house, so I decided to stop at the Giant and get you some fried chicken. I hope you haven’t been working on an empty stomach.”

I felt like I could empty mine. “Theresa,” I said, “it is so good to see you, but I just came out for a run and really should get back to pick up my daughter at my mom’s house. She has a … thing tonight. A”—I thought quickly—“birthday party to go to.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “Did you and Nate get to catch up, at least?”

I felt the blood race into my face and she
had
to have seen it. “A little bit. It was such a surprise to run into him, though, that we only had a minute. He was just telling me you two were blissfully married when you drove up.”

She went over to him and slipped her hand around his waist.

It was a small gesture that would have gone unnoticed if her husband were anyone else, but we all knew she was doing it to mark her territory as surely as if she’d peed on him.

And there was a small part of me, there really was, that wanted to turn and run away from a scene that—as small as it was—felt like it might be more than I could bear. Because
that
gesture with
that
guy used to be
mine
. And she knew it, she’d known it then, she’d been around when it was NateandErin and none of us ever would have dreamed that someday
she
would be the one putting her arm around him and
I
would be the one who had no right to even think about it, much less feel jealous that she was doing it.

He was her
husband
.

Nate was Theresa’s husband.

Theresa’s.

It just didn’t compute.

“This is so strange, isn’t it?” she said to Nate. “We just saw Todd two weeks ago.” She looked at me. “He lives in Sacramento now, has the
cutest
twin daughters, just two years old.” She smiled, remembering, then added, “And here’s
Erin
. It’s like no time has passed at all!”

And there it was; the reason everything had gone so badly, the reason everything had blown up in my face, the reason Nate had not spoken to me for years, the reason my teenage years had ended up as shadowy memories of dark depression and anxiety, the reason—however indirectly it might be—that Nate was now married to Theresa and not me: Todd.

Todd, who’d gotten drunk, made a pass at me, been uneventfully rebuffed, but then had fucked up in getting the hell out of my space, and, in so doing, had
kind of
ruined my life.