Chapter Thirty-One

Kit

Thank Spirit I'm not booked for anything until after the wedding ceremony, because my brain—and also my intuition—are mush. The soft mashed potatoes you get at a Golden Corral. I am playing a steady repeat of all my favorite tracks from last night.

The way Julia smiled, with her whole body and all her feelings, when she talked about her dad and stepmom, Ana. Who never had more kids but did adopt a menagerie of pets including chickens, a tortoise named Ted, three ball pythons, and "the most hideous dog to ever grace the planet Earth." Literally. She showed me the awards.

The way she got passionate about her desire to build an agency on her own, to provide not only a place for diverse couples to feel safe to express their wildest wedding fantasies, but a place for her to help couples see this new beginning is about more than the party. It's about choosing each other and making that choice count.

The smell of her neck, the taste of her sex, the way her eyes get a little hooded with sleep, and how her hair is wild when she wakes up in the morning.

I don't know exactly who she is, or what happened between high school and today, but the mystery of Julia Kelley is the most exciting one I've yet to unravel.

I flip my hair back and turn off the blow-dryer. I have about an hour to get ready and get centered before the ceremony begins. I don't have to be on duty for the ceremony, but Millie asked if I would come and contribute good energy to the vibes. And of course I will, but also any excuse to be in the same room as Julia is one I will gladly take.

I set the dryer back on the vanity, using my fingers to brush through the gentle waves. I usually add in some texture with an iron. I know it's not the TikTok way, but I tried those no-heat curlers and didn't find them reliable to use for an event where my hair has to actually be photo ready without fail.

While the iron heats, I put on my primer, my mind wandering. This wedding is over tomorrow, which means we leave the desert tomorrow , back to LA, back to real life. Back to my divorcing parents who are selling my childhood home. Back to a world where the only people who know I'm queer are my best friend and the girl I'm dating—oh my God. Back to figuring my shit out, but now with this new, scary, exciting thing in play.

Julia and I live in the same city. Tomorrow we have to leave this oasis, but we don't have to go our separate ways. Her life and mine could intertwine. We could go on dates and get to know each other as who we are now. Memorize each other's coffee orders and figure out sides of the bed. We could go on vacations and sneak off to see matinees on a weekday. We could fall asleep in front of the TV and buy each other lingerie.

When she starts her business, I could help her set up the space, and after time has passed—once we've gotten tired of keeping a toothbrush and toiletries at each other's places, when a drawer isn't enough to fit all our clothes, when we're not just falling in love but deep in it, all the way—we could find a place we both call home. Somewhere I can grow herbs in the window and she can have a little home office. We could adopt a dog and fight about what to name them.

Then she could get on one knee and I could meet her down there because I was thinking the same thing. The I want you forever thing. And we wouldn't want to wait another second to get started building the rest of our life together.

We could have a life together.

A whole life.

Two of us making it up, together. Whatever we want it to be.

If Julia were one of my exes, I'd call Nina right about now to get her to talk me out of these daydreams. They're just the product of the Ideal Rom-Com Life Path, and expecting that from another person is foolish. Asking for it is childish. Hoping for it is how you get your heart broken.

I close my eyes, trying to tune in to the compass. That spinning, off-kilter inner guide that I've been forcing to point me down a path I didn't even really want—or at least, I didn't want in the narrow, ultraspecific way I was going after it. I want to believe it's stopped swirling because I've finally given up pretending, and not only because I found Julia again.

My phone buzzes, dragging me out of my inner world.

It's a text from Dad. Oh shit. I swipe the notification open. He's sent me a screenshot of my mom's Facebook status.

In a relationship

Then another screenshot. This one is of her and the woman. Willa.

Pretty, extremely fit, and openly snuggling with my mom on my parents' front porch. The front porch that leads inside the house. The house that leads to the backyard where the pool house is situated. The pool house where my dad is currently shacked up.

I'm typing a reply when the phone starts to buzz with an incoming FaceTime.

Dad, of course.

I answer, fully expecting his breakdown mode to be in high gear. Weepy eyes, glasses off, probably a glass of merlot in hand. He's all those things, plus a sun hat because he's sitting in a float in the dead center of the swimming pool.

"Dad, what are you doing using your phone in the pool?" iPhones can handle getting dropped in water, sure, but even the newest ones have limits. And I know for a fact Dad has already dropped his in the toilet and the birdbath twice. Each.

"They are Facebook official now!" he exclaims, ignoring my warnings.

"Dad, nobody cares about Facebook anymore," I reply, rolling my eyes.

"Well I do!" he cries. "All our friends do. The guys at the club do—she's brought her to the club. They golfed nine holes and then did the sauna before taking a photo together in front of everyone right there on the veranda."

"I know this is hard, but you two are breaking up. You had to expect that she would bring her out and about. You had to expect she would introduce her to your friends."

"I did, I did, but now that it's all happening, I just want it to be over."

I know he means the meet and greets and not his life, but I make a mental note to see if Nina can go over and check on him this afternoon.

"She served me papers."

"Divorce papers?" Now, this does surprise me.

"It's over and I don't know what to do without her," he says, his face breaking down as tears well in his eyes. "It's just happening so fast."

It hurts to see Dad in this state. It makes me angry again at Mom for making choices that put him here. And that thought makes me a whole different kind of angry. I want to put all of this on Mom, but I'm leaving out a crucial part in the narrative. Dad is a hopeless romantic who has built his happiness on someone else, and as he did, she felt trapped, went behind his back, just because she wanted something different for herself. Just because she wanted to look out for herself and her own happiness for once.

I'm afraid of being like him in a relationship. Of someone else's love defining my joy.

But there is an even deeper fear buried under the surface. Scarier for me to consider.

I'm afraid of becoming like my mom. Following my heart and breaking someone else's in the process.

As much as I want Julia to be my true north, I don't know if making her that is fair. To her, or to me. I don't know yet if I can let my intuition lead without a point I've designated as the end. If I can see life as a joyous adventure and not worry so much about reaching a certain outcome.

An ideal outcome. A Happily Ever After.

I want to believe that the more I trust my inner truth, the more that truth will set my path free. I want to believe that even if Julia chose to walk away, I wouldn't crumble without her. No matter how much I want the life we might build together or how much I'd miss her if she were gone.

My mind conjures an image of the World tarot card, the meaning rising to the surface.

Life is more than just a The End .

The End is really only the beginning.

I look back into the FaceTime camera and talk Dad down from yet another wine and social media ledge. I promise him when I'm home tomorrow I will help him sort all this out. He's not alone. And then as soon as I hang up, I text Nina to do some stand-in-daughter recon, which she's happy to do after her dog-walking gig.

I want to be with Julia. For now, that's the only part I need figured out.