when Trey suggests we play).
We stay up later and later each night. We scribble celebrities’ names onto pieces of paper, mix them up, and stick them to our foreheads for a game of twenty questions in which we guess who’s on our heads, with the added obstacle of every question asked requiring another drink.
It quickly becomes obvious that none of us has the same celebrity references, which makes the game two hundred times harder, but also funnier. When I ask if my celebrity is a reality TV star, Sarah pretends to gag.
“Really?” I say. “I love reality TV.”
It’s not like I’m unused to this reaction. But part of me feels like her disapproval equals Alex’s disapproval, and a sore spot appears along with an urge to press on it.
“I don’t know how you can watch that stuff,” Sarah says.
“I know,” Trey says lightly. “I’ve never understood her interest either. It’s at odds with every other thing about her, but P’s all about The Bachelor.”
“Not all about it,” I say, defensive. I started watching a couple seasons ago with Rachel when a girl from her art program was a contestant, and within three or four episodes, I was hooked. “I just think it’s, like, this incredible experiment,” I explain. “And you get to watch hours of the footage compiled in it. You learn so much about people.”
Sarah’s eyebrows flick up. “Like what narcissists are willing to do for fame?”
Trey laughs. “Dead-on.”
I force out a laugh, take another sip of my wine. “Not what I was talking about.” I shift uncomfortably, trying to figure out how to explain myself. “I mean, there’s a lot that I like. But one thing . . . I like how in the end, it seems like it’s actually a hard decision for some people. There will be two or three contestants they feel a strong connection with, and it doesn’t just come down to choosing the strongest one. Instead, it’s like . . . you’re watching them choose a life.”
And that’s how it is in real life too. You can love someone and still know the future you’d have with them wouldn’t work for you, or for them, or maybe even for both of you.
“But do any of those relationships really work out?” Sarah asks.
“Most don’t,” I admit. “But that’s not the point. You watch someone date all these people, and you see how different they are with each of them, and then you watch them choose. Some people choose the person they have the best chemistry with, or that they have the most fun with, and some choose the one they think will make an amazing father, or who they’ve felt the safest opening up to. It’s fascinating. How so much of love is about who you are with someone.”
I love who I am with Trey. I’m confident and independent, flexible and coolheaded. I’m at ease. I’m the person I always dreamed I would be.
“Fair,” Sarah allows. “It’s the part about making out with, like, thirty guys then getting engaged to someone you’ve met five times that’s harder for me to swallow.”
Trey tips his head back, laughing. “You’d totally sign up for that show if we broke up. Wouldn’t you, P?”
“Now, that I would watch,” Sarah says, giggling.
I know he’s joking around, but it irks me, feeling like they’re united against me.
I think about saying, Why do you think that? Because I’m a narcissist who’s willing to do anything to get famous?
Alex bumps his leg into mine under the table, and when I glance at him, he’s not even looking my way. He’s just reminding me that he’s here, that nothing can really hurt me.
I bite down on my words and let it go. “More wine?”
The next night, we eat a long, late dinner out on the terrace. When I go inside to dish up gelato for dessert, I find Alex standing in the kitchen, reading an email.
He has just gotten word that Tin House accepted one of his stories. He looks so happy, so brilliantly himself, that I sneak a picture of him. I love it so much I would probably set it as my background if both of us were single and that wasn’t extremely weird for both Sarah and Trey.
We decide we have to celebrate (as if that isn’t what this whole trip has been), and Trey makes us mojitos and we sit out on the chaise lounges overlooking the valley, listening to the soft, twinkly sounds of nighttime in the countryside.
I