Twenty-Six

                                    

                                          
It's only once the elevator doors are closing around us that I realize what a bad idea being alone in an elevator is when you want to avoid your friends' questions. Where the questions on the way to the elevator had been whispered and measured, once we are alone together, the real juicy ones slip past their lips. 
"So you two are seriously going home together?"
"What happened to being fake married and getting a divorce?"
"I didn't think you were serious about actually going to his house!" 
I can't get a word in edgewise, but once the elevator reaches my floor, I talk over them. "Guys! We know Enrique. We like Enrique. I'm not—" I stop myself, because I was about to say 'I'm not getting married to the guy, we're just getting to know each other.' But that's sort of a lie. 
"We're just getting to know each other," I finish as I swing the door to my hotel room open. 
And suddenly I regret not cleaning up before we left. It looks like someone set off a suitcase explosion in my room. 
"Okay, but are you sure this is a good idea?" Lorena flops down onto my bed and spins around to look at me. "You don't know him that well and he's already asking you to stay at his house?" 
"He asked me to stay at his house a week ago and besides, it's just for show." 
Carla blows a raspberry and flings her shoes into the corner. "Yeah, right. Just for show. We don't need to pretend we believe you in here, do we?" 
"It is, he—" 
"Just promise you're going to be careful, okay?" 
The low, cautious way Lorena speaks the words makes me forget what I was going to say. 
"I will be careful. I know him, and we won't even be that far away from my house. If it will make you feel better, I'll even drive my own car. Would that make you feel better?" 
Lorena ponders my offer, but Carla cuts in before she can answer. "Lor, you need to chill. We like Enrique and we have no reason to think he's going to do anything weird. You are letting your hangups get the better of you. She is just going on a little mountain vacation and making everyone jealous." 
"I am not letting anything get the better of me!" 
"You're anxious about nothing," I point out. 
"I'm not anxious about nothing," she returns. "I'm anxious about how completely out there you idea is. This whole marriage is like something out of a drunken movie and you don't do that, Bianca. It isn't you. But you're right. We know him. We like him. It'll be fine." She pauses for a minute before adding, "But I still want you to take your own car." 
"Done," I reply, suddenly filled with another burst of energy. 
Lorena rolls over on the bed and pulls her phone out of a place I really wish she wouldn't keep her phone. "Ugh, I cannot believe I have six messages from work all in the last three hours. It's like..." she looks at the clock by the television. "Oh, my goodness! It's two in the morning there. What on earth are they doing up at this hour, not to mention texting me?" 
There's no use actually trying to answer her when she's off in her own world, so I turn to see Carla smiling into her phone screen, too. 
"Did you two suddenly acquire dates at Divya's super intimate wedding?"
Carla merely smiles at me. "A lady never tells." 
"You never cease to amaze me." 
I slip out of my dress and into some pyjamas before running a brush through my hair, a shiver distracting me as my mind suddenly draws back to how my hair pins managed to find their way onto a table. 
"Hey, Bianca?" Lorena's quiet voice is behind me as I pull the last few knots out of my hair in front of the mirror. "How are you doing with the whole Tyrone thing?" 
That brings me right back to the present moment, the memory of Enrique and I at Divya's wedding evaporating quicker than a puff of smoke. "What Tyrone thing?" I know where she's going with this, but I don't like it. 
"Well, you were still maybe holding a candle for him a week ago and now... now I wonder if this Enrique thing is a bad idea." 
She's looking at my reflection in the mirror as I stare back at hers. "I was maybe still mad at him a week ago. I wasn't exactly holding a candle, but I will admit I'm pissed he managed to get with her after what he did to me. He deserves nothing but the worst that there is." 
"See?" Lorena starts. Carla has mysteriously disappeared. 
"No, Lorena. Wait." I interrupt her and wait for her to cool off before I continue. "I'm pissed that he left me the way he did. I'm pissed he went and got with a literal supermodel. But you met her. She doesn't deserve anything less than a guy who puts her first. I wanted him to be dishevelled and a mess, so I could be doing better than him, you know? But he wasn't. He's put together and has an amazing life and, for her sake, I hope he's an amazing husband to her." 
"Well, when you put it like that." 
"When I put it like that it's a reminder that the goal here was never to get Tyrone back. It was to prove that my life was better than his, which it is. And now, it's to go see if this thing with Enrique has any legs. I mean, I don't know. I'd like to see who he is before I make any decisions, you know?" 
"Ten minutes ago you were saying you knew who he was, though!" 
"I know him enough to know his intentions of showing me the mountains lie firmly in the concept of the people we are once we're not on vacation." I don't know why I leave out the part about the high school reunion like I'm guarding a secret. "But I don't know if I could be married to him. Lor, you know me. I'm—"
"Aggressively cautious to the point of paralysis?"
"Not exactly how I would have put it, but basically yes." 
"That's true. I can understand wanting to make sure you've got it right before you commit." 
"And can you understand that there's no way I would be doing this if I weren't sure it was safe?" 
She sighs. "Yes, we can admit that. I just worry about you. This week has been a lot. And... I worry about Enrique. He's becoming quite attached to your amazing self." 
"And he'll come out of this whole thing with a good friend, at worst. Where's the harm?"
She doesn't answer me for some time. She doesn't have to say it. The worst that can happen is this marriage falls apart after we've had time to fall together. 
Her silent judgement screams that it's best if we don't fall together at all. 
But it's possible it might be too late for that.