Page 7 of A Taste of Vanilla

“You know that one’s batting average.”

“I only know it because he yelled it during a toast last week.”

“You smiled when he hit that one home run.” The TV had only been on sports because one of the mean old ladies stole the remote, he had said.

He shakes his head. “I had gas.”

“You’ve never smiled when you’ve had gas.”

“I’m versatile.”

I laugh, and immediately hate how close I come to crying. Like laughing sounds wrong to my ears. The guilt creeps in.

Oliver’s face softens by half a millimeter, which to his standards is basically a hug. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Turn everything into a bit.”

I look down at my hands. My nails are painted a pale pink, but the polish has chipped on my pinky finger and thumb. I had been meaning to redo them before the tasting appointment for the wedding cake I was no longer ordering. I had a whole plan. Pink nails. White dress. Maybe a little bow in my hair because Grant used to say it made me look sweet.

Sweet. God. I hate that word now.

“I don’t know how not to be funny about it,” I say. “If I’m not funny, I’m just…”

Oliver waits.

I shrug, and the word comes out small. “Sad.”

He leans against the bar. For once, he doesn’t have a joke, and I think that makes it worse.

I blink hard and look away, gazing into the mirror behind him. My reflection looks like a woman assembled from pretty scraps. My blonde hair is falling out of its clip. Green eyes too bright from tears, with mascara smudged at the outer corner. Gold hoops hang from my ears, and my soft blue cardigan is buttoned wrong over a white tank. I look young and tired and exactly like someone who had learned a week ago that being chosen is not the same thing as being loved.

“Maybe I was too much,” I say again, softer. “Maybe that’s what happens. Men like me at first because I’m fun, and then eventually I’m just inconvenient.”

Oliver’s expression goes hard. “Grant cheated because Grant is a coward.”

I swallow.

“He cheated,” he continues, “because he wanted to. Because he liked being adored and admired and obeyed, and when reallife asked him to be a partner instead of a main character in a cologne commercial, he found someone easier to impress.”

I chuckle sadly. “That was very specific.”

“I’ve had a week to refine it.”

I pause. “He said I was emotional.”

“You are emotional.”

I look at him, wounded, but he rolls his eyes. “That wasn’t an insult.”

“It sounded like one.”

“Only because you’re letting him narrate.”

The words land harder than I expect.

You’re letting him narrate.