I force myself to take a deep breath.
This is not about me and Seth.
This is not about my dad.
I’m just having an emotional reaction on behalf of my friend that I will no doubt have to apologize for later.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Dezzie. “Have you called the other lawyers?”
“Not yet.”
“You should do it right away, before people leave the office for Thanksgiving. Get to them before Rob does.”
“I know. I will in a minute. I just feel completely discombobulated.”
“Have you talked to Alyssa?”
“No. I feel like she’s going to say I told you so.”
“God, Dez, no. Alyssa wouldneverdo that. Besides, she didn’t predict this.”
But Seth did.
In our bet.
The thought gives me chills.
“I know Alyssa thought I should leave him,” Dezzie says. “She basically implied it when we took the kids to Six Flags last month. And she was right.”
“Well, she’ll certainly wish she’d been wrong.”
Dez puffs out a breath. “Honestly, I’m just glad I found out before I got pregnant.”
“Yeah. Bullet dodged.”
“Huge bullet.” She pauses. “You are so smart, you know that?”
I’m taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve never given a real fuck about men. Never arranged your life around romance bullshit. I used to think you were pathologically cynical, but now I think you’re a genius. Rejecting all these toxic institutions.”
It’s not great to be called pathologically cynical by someone who has known you since elementary school, but I try not to get tripped up.
“What toxic institutions?” I ask, though I suspect I know.
“Marriage. Love. ’Til death do us part bullshit.”
She sounds so brittle.
She sounds like me.
I hate to hear it.
Seth has opened me to the possibility of these things. I’m not sure I fully believe in them. But for him, I want to.
“Dezzie, love is not a toxic institution,” I say. “I certainly don’t reject it. And as for marriage—some people seem to enjoy it. Who knows.”
But she’s not listening.
