“Guess so. Sorry, kid.”
I swat at her with one of Whitney’s seventy decorative throw pillows before turning serious. “We also haven’t been… as close as we used to be this summer.” I grab another pillow, fidget with a stray thread. “I’ve always assumed you’d be on Mom and Dad’s side.” Like her love was conditional on me being part of B+B, the way I thought my parents’ was. “It’s this one thing we all do as a family, which sometimes doesn’t leave any room for us to do anything else.”
“I’m so sorry.” She stares down at her nails, painted white to match the romper she wore. “I want to say it’s because I’ve been wrapped up in the wedding, but that’s not an excuse.”
“That’s what I’ve been worried about too. That you’ll be married, and your work is all about weddings, and I wouldn’t be part of any of it. I just—I don’t know what our relationship is like if we don’t have that connection.”
Asher’s face falls. “I had no idea. Oh my god. Quinn, I—I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m not becoming a different person just because I’m getting married. I still have hopeless crushes on both Chris Evans and John Oliver. And you’re going to be part of my life whether we’re working together or not. Sure, that’s easier when we’re working for B+B, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop seeing each other now that you’ve left. Which, if I’m being honest, is still hard for me to wrap my mind around.” She offers a small smile. “I’m working on it, though.”
I want to believe her—that we won’t stop seeing each other. Even if logically, I know we won’t, it’ll still take time before we feel as close as we once did.
“I can’t help thinking about how it felt when Mom and Dad separated. That’s the other reason I held on for so long.”
Something strange flutters across her face, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s recognition. And that’s a shock, since the separation is so often on my mind. “Right. The separation,” she says. “Sometimes I forget that even happened.”
“I guess you weren’t around very much.”
“Shit. I’m sorry again.”
“I get it. You were fifteen. The last thing you wanted to do was comfort your little sister. But… we never talked about it, Asher. No one talked about it, which made it a thousand times more confusing.”
She’s quiet for a while, taking all of this in. “You need to talk to Mom and Dad about it.”
“Like they’ll want to.”
“Trust me. Ask them about it.”
I do trust her, so I promise I will.
After a few moments, she lies down, tapping my ankle with her toes. “Should we talk about Tarek?” she asks.
“I think I’ve deeply fucked it up, so there’s probably no point in thinking about it.” I hold a pillow over my face, muffling my words.
“You don’t think all couples fight? Last week, Gabe and I argued for twenty minutes about the proper way to load the dishwasher.”
Tarek said the same thing, but I don’t know how to explain to her that it felt worse than a fight. The look on his face, the knowledge it was my fault…
“I wouldn’t know how to fix it, even if I wanted to,” I say, but as the words leave my mouth, I’m not sure they’re true. All I know is I don’t want to not be with him. “I’ve spent so long convincing myself that romance isn’t real.”
To her credit, Asher doesn’t bat an eye. “Even me? With Gabe?”
“Well…” I trail off, unsure how to respond. “You don’t feel like you’re performing, in a way?”
“Quinn. We’re all performing. Like, all the time. You think I act the same way around you as I do around Mom and Dad? Or that Whitney pole dances in front of her third graders?”
“One would hope not.”
Maybe what I’ve been most scared of is really wanting the kind of love I’ve been around all my life and not receiving it in return. I chose hookups so I could convince myself that was what I wanted: to not be loved. Any time those relationships flirted with emotion, I ran. Over and over, I put myself in these situations that guaranteed I’d get an outcome that confirmed what I already believed: that I didn’t want romantic love.
Except with Tarek, I wanted more. For the first time, I let myself have a taste of it, and then once again, I sabotaged myself. I was so close to that feeling in his favorite movies, the one where you lock eyes with someone across a crowded room like they’re the only one there. The one where you just know, the way Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks do at the end of Sleepless in Seattle.
And now I’m certain he wants nothing to do with me.
“How do you convince yourself that it’s worth it?” I ask, voice shaking. “Even knowing it might end in disaster someday?”
“You take a chance,” she says simply, like it really is that easy to close your eyes and leap. “And you hope the other person takes the same one.”
27
An unexpected upside of having attended hundreds of weddings over the course of my life: I know exactly how to crash one.
You want to wear something that helps you blend in. Bright patterns will get you noticed by the guests and wedding coordinators right away. Larger weddings are, of course, easier to crash, easier to lose yourself in. You don’t want to catch anyone’s attention, either—no rushing the dance floor when your favorite song comes on.
We’ve dealt with our share of crashers. Most of them, my parents have politely asked to leave, though at one wedding, the bride and groom were so amused, they let them stay.
It’s another one of those perfect Seattle summer days, ideal for a brunch wedding reception. By the time Julia arrives, I’ve narrowed my list
