On the Rocks(4)

“I don’t know. Since I saw you break up with me on Facebook while I was wearing a wedding dress. It seems that time sort of stands still after that.”

“Come inside, we need to talk,” he said as he extended his hand to help me up. I glared at him before smacking it away and climbing up off the floor on my own, busted shoulder and all. If he didn’t want to give me his hand in marriage, I didn’t want his hand at all—unless it was to shove up his own ass.

“You think we need to talk? Oh, I don’t know, Ben, maybe we could just start talking solely via Facebook posts since that seems to be your preferred method of communication these days. Actually talking to your fiancée must have gone out of style. Did Michael Kors announce that on Project Runway or something?” I wiped tears from my cheeks and tried to find the Ben I loved in the one I was looking at. He opened the door, and I followed him inside.

“I don’t even know what to say to you,” he said, his back turned toward me as he stared out the window. I had been in denial the entire time I was sitting on the floor in the hallway. It had been nice while it lasted.

“So it wasn’t some sick bachelor party–type joke?” I asked, my voice shaking so badly it actually cracked like a prepubescent boy’s.

“No,” he answered flatly.

“You actually wrote that.”

“Yes.”

This isn’t happening. I won’t allow it.

“What’s the problem, Ben? What in God’s name made you spaz out like that?” I felt like if I just kept talking I wouldn’t have to deal with listening to him speak. “Are you nervous? Because that’s totally normal, I forgive you, but you can’t just go around writing things like that on Facebook without thinking them through. Your little freak-out has gone viral. I’m getting condolence posts from people I haven’t seen in ten years. How am I supposed to fix this?”

“Abby, it wasn’t a freak-out. You can’t fix this, there’s nothing to fix. I don’t know how to tell you this, but I can’t get married,” he whispered, as if it pained him to say the words, although apparently not to type them.

“Yes, you can. And you will. See this?” I held up my left hand and wiggled my ring finger, the emerald cut stone I had fished out of a chocolate dessert only a few months before, a clear indication to sane people the world over that a wedding was going to happen. “This is the ring you gave me when you asked me to marry you. And when you ask someone to marry you, you don’t get to change your mind. This is not like ordering delivery and deciding that you’d rather have pizza than Chinese. This is not up for debate. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but we are getting married. End of discussion.”

“I know this is hard for you to understand,” he said as he stared at the floor. “I hate myself for doing this. I do.”

Nope. Still not letting this happen.

“No, calculus is hard for me to understand. Quantum physics is hard for me to understand. The Kardashians’ fame is hard for me to understand. This isn’t hard to understand. This is insane. I mean, where is this even coming from? Did you wake up this morning and think, ‘Gee, I’m going to have a bagel for breakfast, and then I’m going to break up with my fiancée?’ What planet are you living on?” I was hysterical, and still I thought that if I just kept talking I’d somehow be able to talk him out of it. Not exactly the way I imagined my marriage beginning.

He stared at me, or rather, through me, like I was some kind of apparition and not actually there. “Is there somebody else?” I asked. My breath caught in my chest, figuring that the only way he’d ever leave me was if he had someone else to run to. He didn’t even know how to do his own laundry.

“No, I swear to God there’s not,” he said.

“You’re not even leaving me for another woman? You’re just leaving?” I shrieked so loudly I was pretty sure people on the street outside could hear me.

“I’d have thought that’d be a good thing,” he replied, a bit stunned by my reaction.

“Think again.” I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t either. But it wasn’t.

“Thinking is all I’ve been doing, Abby. It’s all I’ve thought about since the day after I proposed. I don’t think I’m ready to get married; there’s still too much I want to do with my life. I want to travel. I want to experience life outside of the Northeast. I don’t want my Sundays to f*cking revolve around Tom Brady.”

“Then don’t watch the Patriots! What does that have to do with me? Are you listening to yourself?” He didn’t flinch. He might have been in the acceptance phase of this process, but I was very much still entrenched in denial, and I was planning on setting up camp there. “Okay, this is completely fixable. This is good, because I can travel. I’ll go anywhere you want! I can get a passport. I like hotels. I know how to say hello in, like, three different languages! We’re going to Hawaii on our honeymoon; I have no problem with traveling. Aloha.” I knew I sounded desperate, and I didn’t like it. The problem was, I disliked having my fiancé leave me for reasons that so far made no sense to me whatsoever even more.

He sat down on his large leather man-couch, rubbing his face like he was trying to rip his own skin off. I figured if he was unsuccessful I could just do it for him. My nails were longer.