I sigh, like it’s a big hassle, but inside, I’m bee-bopping that he wants to know anything at all about me. Yeah, it’s the dark, festering, diseased side of my past, but he still wants to know. That’s a good sign, right?
“Okay, like I said, he’s my ex,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. It’s harder that I thought it’d be, elation, terror, and disgust threatening to jerk my voice in five different directions at once. “After high school, I went to college like a good little girl, and my parents—my dad, mostly—set up some business exchange where I was the primary export product of the Edwards family. He sold me to the highest bidder, not literally but damn close, and I was suddenly dating Robert Gunze the Second. All capitals. For real, that’s how he says it.”
I roll my eyes at the memory of how Robert always tossed his name around like it came with special privileges. ‘Do you know who I am?’ was an actual thing he said, unironically.
“I know it sounds stupid, but it didn’t seem weird. In our circle, that’s just kind of how things went. You see the same families at every event, summer together in the same vacation areas, travel in the same social circles. It’s only natural to pair off within the group, you know.”
“So you dated,” Kyle says, cutting through the bullshit. “Then what?”
I lean back, letting my eyes unfocus as I try to recall everything accurately. “I was about two years into college, and there was a party at our house. The whole gang was there, everyone mingling around the pool, sipping drinks, and eating hors d'oeuvres with pinkies out.”
I mime holding a snack, nibbling the air in front of my hand with my pinkie high. “And my dad cleared his throat and tapped on his glass, saying he had a happy announcement to make. Then he called me up to stand beside him and Robert walked up. I found out later that he already knew. But I had no idea—”
I break off, blinking several times as the scene plays out in my mind, so vivid and real I can see Mom’s sappy smile, smell Robert’s too-strong cologne, and taste Dad’s careless betrayal. There was Robert on Dad’s left, and me standing on Dad’s right in a red sundress that I’d had a big blow-up with my mom about wearing. ‘Only harlots wear red, Carly,’ she’d said, so of course, I’d worn it.
“He announced my engagement to Robert. Not that Robert or anyone else had asked my opinion on whether I wanted to get married, or God forbid, my permission or agreement on the matter. So there I am, gobsmacked while Robert’s shaking his fist in the air like he won a prize pig at the county fair. People were congratulating him and asking if I was planning a fall or spring wedding.”
I shake my head, clasping my hands together. “It was ridiculous. And when I argued about it, first with Robert and then with my parents, they all assured me it’d be fine. Basically told me to sit down and mind my place.”
Kyle smiles a little, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. “I can’t imagine that went well for them.”
I blush and shrug. “Unfortunately, back then, I was still a little . . . softer? I rebelled, but it was always in small ways. A red dress instead of tan, karate instead of ballet, stuff like that. I was still growing into the Queen Badass I am now. So, next thing I knew, I was planning a wedding. Robert didn’t care about it at all. He couldn’t be bothered. The one time I brought it up to him, he told me just to make it worthy of the paper’s society pages and washed his hands of the whole thing, leaving it to me.”
“Fuck that guy,” Kyle growls, and a sad laugh escapes my lips, finally happy that someone gets how weird and crazy it all was. “But . . .”
I nod. “That was stressful enough, but then Robert got stressed at work or something. He started coming home late, going out with the guys more.”
“You lived together?”
I plaster my hand to my chest in horror, gasping in the perfect imitation of a horrified debutante. “Of course not, that would be inappropriate.” But I smile, dropping back to my normal voice, “But yes, it’s not really announced like other things, but