The thought of our upcoming marriage ceremony sends bile up my throat. I don't think that I can fake happiness in front of my whole family. I can't remember the last time I truly felt happy alone with Cas.
I think about ending things between us and then change my mind, and then change my mind again.
After things finally end I try to get back in touch with Izzy. We stopped talking around the same time Cas and I started dating. Now that Cas is gone, I miss her.
Things go well for a while until she remembers what a crappy friend I was.
"As soon as you got a boyfriend you stopped talking to me," she accuses.
"I know," I say.
"You didn't go to my Dad's funeral," she says.
"I didn't."
"I don't have time for a friend like you," she concludes.
I have half a mind to ask her what the hurry is but I stop myself. I think about telling her about Cas. About how lonely I felt with him near the end. About how desperately I missed her friendship. About how wrong I was. But I can't stomach the thought of telling her how it was at the end.
I remember now.
I'm screaming at him that I hate him; that there's a million guys out there better than him. And he's screaming at me that I owe him for this, that or the other; that I should be grateful for what I've got, because it's all a girl like me can get. And the next day he's apologetic, and I'm convinced that we can at least be friends, that maybe he doesn't have to move out right away; maybe just taking a break will resolve things; that we don't have to end it completely.
There's a certain point, though, where the jumping back and forth becomes old, and the fights end with me asking calmly if he's found another apartment yet; if he's looking; when he's going to leave.
Michigan gets engaged at 18, much to her mother's disdain. But when her relationship becomes abusive she's left in the apartment they got together in a town where she's unfamiliar having alienated almost everyone from her past (some for good reason). Through a series of flashbacks she tries to piece together what went wrong, graduate high school, and become a fast food manager who's not constantly drifting off into anxiety driven panics.
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