Irene looked at the accessories but made no move to grab them. Instead, she said, “I like your dress.”
Retta pushed up her glasses. “Thanks. I like yours too.”
They both laughed a little bit before Retta once again held out her hand with the earrings and said, “All right. I’m going to head on inside—”
“Is this weird for you?” Irene asked, blowing a big puff of smoke into the air from the corner of her mouth. “Being here?”
Maybe it was the fact her charade with Duncan was winding down, but Retta stopped short of responding with her usual pacifying answer. “Yes.”
“Why did you come?” Irene asked.
Shrugging, Retta said, “Because people expected me not to.”
“So, you’re trying to prove something?”
“Yeah, that this”—she gestured around them—“doesn’t bother me.”
“But it does,” her cousin said.
Retta had spent a year saying none ofthisfazed her, acting cool and collected as her ex’s new relationship played out in front of her. But she’d had a lot of feelings.
“Can I ask you something?”
Irene paused with her vape pen in her mouth. “Sure.”
“Why him?” Retta briefly questioned the wisdom of broaching this overdue conversation at this moment. “Out of everyone on this damned planet, why him?”
It had been salt in the wound, no, a gut punch when she’d been confronted with Chris and Irene’s relationship on social media a month after her breakup. She’d literally chucked her phone across the room when she saw the picture of them smiling in each other’s embrace. There’d been a lot cussing, some rageful prayer, and an emergency friend hangout with Nia and Kym.
Irene sniffled and avoided eye contact. “I didn’t do it to hurt you. Chris is so impressive and accomplished, and I was drawn to that after years of dating guys who didn’t keep stable jobs and couldn’t bother to remember my birthday. If it could’ve been anyone else…”
Retta nodded, looking up to the sky and blinking rapidly. She’d bottled up her anger, disappointment, and hurt for so long.
That approach had stalled her emotional recovery in service of not giving people any more reason to pity her. Her pride had been on the line.
When Retta finally got a grip on her tears, she found her cousin watching her.
“I’m sorry,” Irene said.
“It’s fine.” Retta shook her head. “That’s a lie. I was pissed. It felt like a betrayal, and it was embarrassing having everyone trying to figure out what flaws made Chris dump me for you.”
While they stood in silence, staring at the untidy bush in front of them, something from Retta’s soul released. Her admittance made her lighter.
“But if I’m being honest, you and him are more compatible,” Retta said. This was her olive branch. She didn’t want to spend the next decades avoiding her cousin and building resentment over a guy she didn’t even have feelings for anymore. “Country clubs and fancy events have never been my scene.”
Irene laughed, wryly. “They get old fast.”
“Yeah, they do, don’t they?” Retta said, smiling as she produced the earrings she’d been sent to deliver. “This has been an unexpected but nice conversation—”
“I never dreamed about my wedding day until I was planning this one,” Irene said.
“I don’t think that’s unusual,” Retta replied, dropping her outstretched arm.
“But I also have this feeling that this will be the last interesting thing I do with my life.”
Retta frowned. “That’s not true. You have plenty to look forward to. You still do pageants, right?”
“I stopped two years ago.”
