Chapter 1

1

WIBTA if I asked my ex best friend to be my plus 1 to my ex's wedding?

posted in r/AITAH by TealLightning ten hours ago

My ex (m34) is getting married this weekend and my date just bailed. I (28f) really don't want to go alone. I want to ask my ex best friend (m26) to be my plus 1.

But this ex best friend stopped speaking to me a while back. My older sister says it's because he's in love with me and I've been leading him on for years and he's just trying to get over me. But there's no way. My sister just got engaged and now she looks at everything with hearts in her eyes.

I miss him so much though. I feel like if he came to the wedding with me, it's a win/win. I'm not alone and we can catch up and it would be just like old times.

My younger sister says I would be the asshole if I did, because he would never be able to say no to me and I need to let his broken heart heal. But he's dated a ton of women who are not me since I last talked with him; clearly he's over his crush, if it was ever there to begin with. Which it wasn't.

Would I be the asshole if I asked him to the wedding?

thepoopsmith —YTA

itsholabitch3s —ur the asshole. just leave him alone. god. if he wanted to be friends with u he would be speaking to you rn.

shenanigans007 —NTA. Nothing wrong with asking. What's the worst that could happen? Seriously? A girl can't ask a guy to a wedding anymore is that what this is. This world is seriously f**ked up yall I can't even right now with this

raspberrylimeseltzerwater —wait you think it's a win/win because YOU wouldn't be alone and it would be "just like old times" when clearly something went down that must've hurt him and changed everything? you're the assholeeeeeee

iap384771oo1 —hey that's a good point. what actually happened last time you spoke to this dude, OP?

TealLightning —Nothing. I was at the bar he was working at and that's when I met my ex actually. That was the night my ex and I first hooked up.

raspberrylimeseltzerwater —something's missing from this story. why does your sister think he has a broken heart? what did u do to hurt him?

TealLightning —Jfc, I didn't do shit to him. So what if we kissed for the first time earlier that week? He knew it meant nothing, I knew it meant nothing. It meant nothing. Doesn't mean he gets to throw away sixteen years of friendship over it.

iap384771oo1 —seriously you want him to go to the wedding of the guy you chose after kissing him for the first time? after he's loved you for years??! you're the asshole

raspberrylimeseltzerwater —that's what i thought. we're always missing some part of the story. YTA, OP, sorry not sorry

shenanigans007 —yeahhh. yta. you're the f**king asshole bitch I can't even explain how much rn, god this world is so freaking messed up, a guy can't even try to avoid a girl he loves anymore, I just?? you know?

TealLightning —whatever. I'm gonna ask him just to spite y'all. And after that I'm deleting this dumb post.

I've been sitting in my car at the parking lot of Cranberry Rose Company for almost twenty minutes. My ex, Nate Bowen, owns the place.

But I'm not here to see him.

My sister Sage and her man, Tenn, work here, too. Not here for them, either.

I suck in a breath when a tall, dark-haired Cuban American fellow steps out of the barn, pushing a wheelbarrow full of…I'm not sure what. Wood chips?

"Finally," I mutter, and get out of the car.

I push my nerves all the way down as I approach him, until my legs feel steady enough to walk without tripping all over myself. All morning, my heart has felt like it's grown iridescent, indigo-bunting wings and is vibrating against my rib cage. I couldn't even eat breakfast.

Since when have I ever been nervous to talk to Carter?

Since he melted your boy shorts off with a single kiss last summer , my brain responds.

I close my eyes, and when I open them again, Carter's looking right at me, a line between his furrowed brows. "Teal? What are you doing here?"

I try not to notice the dark clouds in the distance. If I do, they'll get here even faster.

"I'm—" I cough. "Um." I stop when I'm six feet away. I'm close enough to notice the way he looks at me like I'm some kind of a stranger to him now. Like we didn't spend our childhood collecting coins for the ice cream truck, eating our Choco Tacos and strawberry shortcakes in the big alder tree behind his mama's old house. Like I didn't call him every time Johnny made me feel like shit, knowing that just Carter's voice would make me feel better about my life, about the fuckup I'd become.

I'm not close enough to him for dangerous things. Like to smell his cologne—Polo Green by Ralph Lauren, with its notes of citrus and leather. I'm not close enough to make out the sugar-sweet pink of his full lips. I'm not close enough to remember how they felt around my nipple through my bra—warm and wet and everything .

He frowns at me even more deeply. "Sage and Tenn aren't here today. They're working in the field."

"Carter," I say, and my voice breaks and I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Thunder rumbles way too close. I'm running out of time. I always feel like I'm running out of time when it comes to Carter these days.

This time, his eyebrows rise in worry. "Teal, what's wrong? Is it Nadia? Is it—"

"No. Nothing like that." I shake my head firmly and inhale. One-two-three-four in, and out to the count of eight. Just say it , I will myself. And I do, in one whole breath, so fast even I can barely understand myself. "Do you wanna go with me to Nate's wedding on Saturday?"

I'm not the asshole, I swear I'm not the asshole. Carter and I might've kissed— once —but if it meant something to me? I wouldn't have gone off with Nate just two days later. And if it meant something to him? He wouldn't have slept with every woman under the age of forty-five in Cranberry in the last year.

I just want my childhood best friend back. That's it.

But with the way Carter's jaw tightens, and his eyes narrow—it looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever. "Weren't you going with Andre Castle?"

"No." Yes. I was, till Andre got sick of my bullshit and dumped me just yesterday. "Anyway, I just thought we could, you know, go, as friends. And—"

"I already have a date, Teal." Carter's voice is as sharp as the art I saw at the gallery downtown a couple of weeks back, full of glass blown in veins of edges and blades. "And now I have to work."

He dismisses me by angling the wheelbarrow away and marching down the hill toward the garden beds.

For eight years straight, my sister Sage didn't cry, because when she did, my other sister, Sky, who we thought was dead, would appear to her as a ghost. Now that Sky is back, alive and well (as well as she could be, considering), Sage is making up for it. It seems like all she does is cry these days. She and Tenn move in together? Weeping-willow-turned-human. She and Tenn get engaged? La Llorona, showing off her artisan-carved engagement ring, with green-gold mushrooms swirling around one giant ivy-hued sapphire.

Sage and I used to have that in common, because I try really hard to not cry, in general. But it's not because the tears call a ghost my way. It's because—

A heavy splatter of cold hits my head.

Another hits my shoulder.

"Dammit," I mutter, glaring up at the sky, where the endless gray clouds have finally caught up with me. I wipe at my eyes violently, willing the salty wet to stay in , for the sake of old gods.

I run to my car, followed by a sheet of sleet. It's the end of March and we're supposed to be in the middle of a warm spring.

This is why I don't like to cry.

I lean my head against the driver's door and do the breath work the therapist taught me, the one who I saw exactly twice after I watched my baby sister fall eighty feet, screaming and screaming and screaming.

In, one-two-three-four. Out to the count of eight.

I thought Mama had taken my gift with her when she pinched that spot of lightning from my palm, but it showed up again, years later, about six months before my first period. But something was off with it. Even Nadia, who's seen some shit, didn't know what was all wrong with me.

In all of our known lineage—and I'm talking back and back to Texas, before Texas was even Texas—I am the first Flores woman who can't control my gift.

Sage basically winks at plants and they bloom. Into irises the color of strawberry frozen yogurt, into roses as blue as a cloudless summer sky set over the sea. Sky, her gift is criaturas—animals. She can coax a family of black bears into her lap for a nap. She spends her weekends braiding mountain daisies into her hair, and when she takes a walk, fucking pumpkin-winged house sparrows follow her all over the place, like a flaca, brown Snow White.

If things went right with the development of my gift, I'd be more like my sisters. I'd be able to snap my fingers for a light, warm rain. I'd be able to stop the snow of a blizzard, all with my thoughts and my will.

But what happens, instead, is this: sleet when I cry, rain when I'm depressed, gray storm clouds as dark as night when I'm nervous, endless flashes of lightning when I'm angry, and all kinds of variations between. I thought, for the longest time, that if I pushed down the turbulent emotions, I'd be cured, but that hasn't worked out, either. If I feel nothing—like I did when I was still with Johnny—the sky becomes this flat, overcast gray that's about as cheery as a pile of cinder blocks.

I was happy for about two seconds when Sky came back, before I started worrying about her again. The actual sky burst into rows and rows of rainbows, glimmering into each other like a psychedelic mirage, like somehow a giant, faceted diamond had inexplicably grown around Cranberry. It's the kind of weather event that would've made the news, but only one person got a photo before it disappeared, and as far as I know, they've just been accused of bad Photoshop skills.

There's only one way that I can stop sadness and disappointment and grief, at least for a little while, and I don't even hesitate right now, as I try to push Carter's rejection to the furthest, swampiest part of my brain. I pop in my AirPods, click on my phone's playlist, and turn around and run as fast as I can, toward the dirt road leading away from Cranberry Rose Company.

I run down the hill, where it turns into a paved road, and pass bluish-green fields of tobacco and barley. Every once in a while, a home whizzes by—little distant red farmhouses with white trim and picket fences covered in the hollowed vines of last year's morning glories, which will soon climb up again, dotting the perimeter of the land with blue, violet, and pink-trumpet flowers. The horizon is a curved line of soft hills, the ones Sage has called "mountains" since she was a little kid.

Soon I reach the woods and I veer right at the first trailhead I see. I hop around startled tourists, maps in their hands, jumping over fallen trees and baby boulders. The entire world becomes green, with the first flush of spring leaves surrounding me in electric lime. The wind feels cold against my sweaty skin. I can hardly breathe, but I don't slow, I don't trip, I don't stop.

Not until I reach a babbling brook at the end of the trail. With the rain we've been getting, it's too wide for me to rush through right now. But that's fine, because mission accomplished: I have run so fast and so long that all I can feel is the burn of my lungs and thighs, the pain in my right knee from an old injury. There is no disappointment. No anger. Just physical pain, and the oncoming runner's high that should get me through the rest of this morning. I nudge the voice of Taylor Swift out of my ears and shove the pods in my pockets. Now there's the sound of gurgling water and birdsong. I put my hands on my thighs and bend over, breathing the sweet, moss-smelling air as deeply as I can.

"Teal!"

I straighten and turn around, placing my hand on my chest. My next inhale stutters when I place who the hell is calling me, on a random run, this deep in the woods.

Carter stops six feet away, just like I had done earlier, at the farm. It's like we've both agreed to adhere to an invisible force field. Like maybe he's as wary as I am about the feelings, the memories, that pop up uninvited when we're too close.

His breath is faster than mine, and he bends and coughs. "Jesus Christ," he sputters. He's practically wheezing. "When did you learn to run like that, huh?"

I frown. "You know I've been running."

He coughs, choking on air. When he clears his throat, he says, "I was calling your name. For like, the last two miles."

I huff. "I had my AirPods in." My breath is back to normal. It's the other parts of me—my skin, my belly, my heart, that feel off. Like all my organs have grown fins and gills and are now swimming around inside, making me feel like I didn't just find my center with a quick three-mile run. Thunder echoes from far away and I glower at Carter. He's to blame for this. "You followed me all this way? For what? So you can blow me off again?"

He takes a minute to respond. His body has thickened up since we were kids, lined with hard, lean planes. He's in good shape, but I guess he doesn't run. He really needs to work on his endurance. If I were still training at the gym, I'd start him with just ten-minute intervals. In thirty days, he'd be blowing through a 5K. Midyear, a half marathon. But these thoughts are dumb and pointless. I was fired two weeks ago. And Carter, as far as I know, has never set foot in Cranberry Fitness Studio, anyway.

I roll my eyes. "Carter, what the hell do you want?"

He locks eyes with me and takes one sure, steady breath. "I'll go with you."

I freeze and then blink slowly. "To Nate's wedding?" I hate the way my voice squeaks with hope. I'd thought for sure he'd chased me down to finally tell me off for being such a shit friend to him.

He nods. "But then you owe me."

My eyes widen. "Owe you what? Sex?" I don't know why of all the words that can be worded, that's the one that chooses to rush out of my mouth in that moment.

Carter's mouth drops open. "Of course not, Teal! Christ!"

I'm almost offended at how repulsed he sounds. "Well, what do I owe you, then?"

His eyelids shut briefly. I've always thought his eyes were the wildest color I've ever seen outside of a fantasy film. They're brown and so light, they're almost sunflower yellow. They match all the Himalayan salt lamps Sage bought for her place with Tenn. "I can't say right now. It's not a sure thing. So I'll just tell you at the wedding."

"No way." I cross my arms, not missing how his eyes drop to my cleavage for a fraction of a second. I don't have a lot up top—I always joked that Sage stole all the boob genes before Sky and I could get any—but this sports bra is doing me wonders. I'm glad I wore it today. "I'm not agreeing to anything without knowing what it even is. Do you think I'm stupid or something?"

"Or something," Carter mutters under his breath, running a hand through his hair, his skin lighting up under the dapple of woodland light. Sage explained to me once that white gold always looks warm, which is why it's often plated in rhodium. That's what Carter's skin looks like to me—as smooth and warm as real, unplated white gold. "This is how it's gotta be, Teal. I'll go with you, and you owe me a favor. That's it. That's the best I can do."

If things were like before…I could get it out of him. I'd rush up to him, tickle him, climb over his shoulders saying Please please please tell me, Carter, I'll love you forever .

But the thought of breaking our invisible force field makes my stomach want to drop all the way to the ground, all the way through it, to the invisible mushroom map Sage and Tenn are always reciting poetry about.

Things aren't like before. And that's on me. Which means it's also on me to fix it.

I close my eyes and picture my list on the dresser, the one I made with my friend Leilani for the new year. Leilani was raised by second-gen hippies and has been on my case to make a vision board for years. The best I could do was a list, which made her do this wild, hair-tossing happy dance.

The first line on that list is 1. Stop being selfish.

Selfish Teal would've tried to figure out what's in it for her with whatever Carter's propositioning. What it's going to cost her. She would weigh all the options before taking the safest route, even if people were hurt along the way.

I don't want to be her anymore.

"The thing…it's not…" Carter shoves his hands in his pockets. "I don't even know if I can make this happen right now. I don't even know if I need the favor. I mean—"

"Fine," I announce, before he talks himself out of this.

His eyebrows reach his hairline. "Fine? Really?"

"Yes," I say, making a face. "You don't have to sound so shocked."

"But…you just agreed to it without, like—attacking me—"

"What about your date?" I interrupt. "Will it hurt her if you go with me instead?" If I'm going to be Not Selfish Teal, then I gotta think about things like this now. Even about the feelings of a woman I'm pretty sure I'd very much like to punch in the face, for reasons I don't want to investigate right now, or ever.

"No. She won't care." Carter shrugs again and lets out a long breath. We're both silent for a few seconds. "So you're uh—still parked at the farm? Wanna walk back together?"

The question is so absurd, I break into a laugh. I mean, what was I going to do, make him wait here fifteen minutes while I got a head start?

Carter's eyes are on me, unblinking, as his mouth curves into half a smile. He was always weird about making me laugh, even when we were kids. Acting like I broke into song or something, and it was his favorite sound in the whole world.

I push down whatever emotion is trying to ride up now at these thoughts and stomp around him. "Come on, flaco," I say. "You're probably still on the clock, aren't you?"

"Hey, I'm not flaco anymore," he says, jogging beside me, puffing his chest.

"Oh, I know," I mutter.

He leans forward, trying to catch my eye. "What was that?"

"Nothing! Just saying that Sky's the skinny one now."

We hike back to the farm in silence, probably because the pace I set is just short of running. But I'm scared I'm going to open my mouth and mess everything up again. So I just focus on the sun, breaking open through the clouds, steaking toward us until we're both aglow like living gold.