My Life in Shambles(2)

“Can I just say one thing?” Angie asks, appearing beside us, holding a glass of wine.

“Angie,” my father warns because we all know it’s never just one thing when it comes to her, and whatever it is will probably hurt. She takes after our mother. I’m already wincing.

“No, really, it needs to be said,” Angie says.

I sigh. “What?”

May as well get this over with because I figured this would be coming.

“I knew that boy was no good,” she says. “I knew it from the moment you met him. I mean, come on. His name is Cole Masters. He sounds like a villainous douchebag from a show on the CW.”

“Douchebag!” Tabby yells, even though I know she has no idea what it means.

“Angie, your language,” my mother says, more for the fact that she hates vulgarity rather than any swearing in front of her grandchild. “You’re more civilized than that.”

As for my sister calling my ex-fiancé a douchebag, well, I can’t argue with her. A month ago I would have defended him, but now there’s no going back to that.

“I know,” I say, my heart heavier than ever. I hate that everything Angie had been saying from the beginning was right.

I met my fiancé … okay, ex, just a year ago.

We were at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Bedstuy.

Cole is handsome as all get out. Movie star handsome. Even Sandra said he should be in films. But Cole was all about New York money and had huge success with an app and now heads his own company, all at the age of twenty-seven.

He was also very enigmatic and persuasive and I fell for him hook, line, and sinker. The fact that he wanted me, just a lowly writer with more curves than straight lines instead of the size-zero Instagram models with pillows for lips that were throwing themselves at him, took me for surprise. I suppose I managed to charm him as much as he charmed me.

Our romance was a whirlwind that turned into a tornado that ended up in us getting engaged after only six months.

And exactly one week ago, Cole pulled me aside in our shared apartment in Brooklyn and told me he wanted to call off the engagement. He wasn’t sure about the marriage thing anymore but he wanted us to stay together regardless.

I told him I’d think about it. Went for a long walk to the river and back.

Managed to grow a spine for the first time in a year.

Told him if he didn’t want to marry me now, he probably wouldn’t later. And yeah, I will fully admit we got engaged too fast, but I wasn’t about to still stick around in a relationship with him when he didn’t want anything more.

Which meant, in the end, it was my fault that I had to move out of the apartment and sleep on my friend Brielle’s couch for the last few days, and also my fault that I lost the man that I loved.

Then again, if I really loved Cole, wouldn’t I have chosen to stay with him even if he didn’t want the commitment?

I just don’t know anymore.

But Angie seems to know. She has that look on her face, and it’s not just that her cheeks are raging pink like they always are when she drinks wine.

“Look, I’m sorry, I really am,” she says while my father snorts. She gives him the evil eye. “I am.”

“You just like to tell her I told you so,” my father points out before he has a long sip of his eggnog, the drink getting on his mustache.

“No,” she says, rolling her eyes, even though we all know my father is right. “I just know what kind of guy Cole is. Believe me, I’ve been there. He wasn’t any different from Andrew.”

My mom shakes her head, not amused. She hates any mention of Angie’s ex-husband, one I’m tempted to point out was way worse than Cole. But this isn’t a competition of who had the shittiest ex.

“Plus, he went to Harvard,” Angie adds. “That’s bad news.”

“You went to Harvard,” I point out.

“And that’s where I met Andrew,” she says pointedly. “Believe me, the guys that go there have egos the size of Jupiter.” She pauses. “It’s a wonder I managed to stay so humble.”

I exchange a wry look with my father before I say to her, “It’s Christmas Eve. I don’t want to think about how my life is falling to pieces right now. Let’s just drink the eggnog and pick on Sandra when she gets back.”

But when Sandra does finally get back from her shenanigans at the local bars in town, we’ve already had my mother’s Christmas Eve duck for dinner, my parents have retired to their bedroom, and Tabby’s fast asleep in hers, leaving Angie and me downstairs blowing through bottles of wine.

“Val!” Sandra squeals as she comes in the door, nearly falling over as she runs to me in her snow-crusted high heels.

“Careful!” Angie cries out, but Sandra just wobbles her way over to me, collapsing beside me on the couch in a fit of drunken giggles. She manages to drape her arms around me and starts swaying us back and forth.

“I’ve missed you soooo much.”

I pat her arms which are covered in some sort of shimmery lotion that sticks to me. “I missed you too. Last time you were in New York you didn’t even call me,” I point out.

“I know, I’m so sorry,” she says, burying her face in my hair and turning into dead weight. I think she’s fallen asleep for a second but suddenly she perks right up, staring at me with glassy eyes. “But I only had a few days and I had meetings the whole time. I know you understand.”