Love in Slow Motion

1. Quinn

1 QUINN

Someone once told me that getting divorced is often harder for people on a psychological level than losing your spouse to actual death. Something about the sheer rejection of losing someone you thought would always love you, I suppose.

Not for me. As I walk out of the mediator’s office one husband lighter, I feel like someone unlocked the door to the cage I’ve been in. I can see the sunshine. I can feel my body unfurling. I can breathe.

“Quinn! Wait!”

My shoulders slump, and I come to a halt in the mediator’s lobby. The doors to freedom are right there. I can practically smell the Boston smog on the other side. I turn and face my ex-husband. Looking at him and thinking that word—ex-husband—has a shiver going through me, even though it won’t be final for a little while.

For the past three months, while we’ve dealt with the mediation and moved our lives around, none of it has really felt real. I kept feeling like I was waiting for life to go back to normal. But there’s no such thing as normal anymore. Normal now looks like living alone in a big, empty house, job hunting, eating dinner at a reasonable hour instead of waiting around all the time for Chase to get home from work.

Or home from fucking one of his many mistresses, as the case may be.

“What do you want, Chase?” All things considered, Chase has been a pretty good sport through this whole divorce thing. He could have fought me over the house; he could have tried to get me to call the whole thing off; he could have found a way to screw me out of money that I don’t have. But instead, he paid for the mediator, gave me the house, and is mostly letting me out of this arrangement free and clear.

Which just goes to show how invested he was in the marriage to begin with.

Chase, dressed in one of the gray, pin-striped suits he usually wears to work, comes to a stop in front of me. Behind him, the woman sitting at the reception desk isn’t even trying to hide the fact that she’s watching us. I’m sure she gets soon-to-be ex-spouses fighting in front of her desk all the time.

But Chase doesn’t look like he’s about to pick a fight. He’s got that expression on his face that has afforded him an entire lifetime of forgiveness from everyone around him. His eyebrows curve in, and his big eyes are perfectly round. He looks like a puppy at a shelter, begging me to take him home.

“Listen,” he says, his hands up between us like he might have to fend off an attack. And if he doesn’t let me leave pretty quickly, he might be right. I might be tempted to stab him with my new Quincy Bay Mediation Group pen. “I know you hate me right now, and of course I get it, but I need a favor.”

I scoff. “You’re kidding, right?”

His hands drop to his sides with a soft smack . When someone has to politely squeeze by us to get to the front desk, Chase motions at me to follow him out onto the sidewalk. The sidewalk where I was supposed to be free. Instead, I’m still somehow shackled to Chase and his puppy dog eyes.

“I know you don’t owe me anything,” Chase goes on, speaking louder now that he’s having to yell over the traffic on the street. It’s rush hour in downtown Boston, which I’m hoping will be enough to get him to get on with whatever he’s asking me to do. Not only am I late for dinner with my best friend, but I’m starting to sweat in my sensible black heels. “But I really need your help.”

I roll my eyes. “Would you just spit it out? I’m late.”

He scowls, all trace of the please sir, can I have some more? facial expression gone. “Late for what? A date?”

“Jesus Christ,” I growl, glancing over at a homeless man crouched against the pink marble building so I don’t have to look at Chase’s face, a face I’ve spent the last five years staring at, a face I hardly recognize anymore. “I’m not going on a date fifteen minutes after my divorce mediation, not that it’s any of your business. Unlike you, I figured I would at least wait until the divorce is final.”

He flinches like I stepped on his toe. “Yeah, I get it. I won’t keep you. But here’s the deal. I talked to my mother yesterday. I called to tell her we wouldn’t be going out to the lake house this year, and she was pretty bummed about it. I guess Sabrina doesn’t want to go this year either, and you know Reed never goes. So, Mom said she would up the price.”

Up the price . Every summer, my mother-in-law (at least, until the divorce is final) hands each of her children a $100,000 check if they show up for the family vacation at her lake house in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. Madison Lynch has had the words “independently wealthy” attached to her name since she was my age, but spoiling her kids was never a concept that seemed particularly interesting to her, so the only time she willingly gives them money is for showing up to the lake house.

While Chase and I were married, Madison gave us $100,000 each, a hundred grand for me and a hundred grand for Chase. If anyone else in the family found it unfair, they never said so. Of course, the only person around to complain was Sabrina, Chase’s sister, who hardly cared about the money anyway.

And Reed…well…Reed never goes to the lake house. Everyone says he used to go, but for as long as I’ve known the Lynch family, he’s never shown his face in New Hampshire.

When I don’t respond, Chase continues. “Since nobody was planning to show up this year, she’s only upping the price if all the kids come: me, Sabrina, and Reed. $500,000 a piece if we all show.”

The amount almost makes me choke. It might not seem like all that much to the Lynches, but I didn’t grow up with that kind of wealth, and I never really got used to it while I was married to Chase.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with me,” I say, beginning to feel antsy. Brooke is sometimes late to dinner, and if I don’t hurry up, we might not get a table at our favorite place. “I’m not part of this family anymore, remember?” I gesture toward the building behind him. The sun is spearing off the gold lettering beside the door, blinding me.

Chase sighs. “Well, as far as my mother knows, you are.”

His words echo in my head, swirling around in my brain along with the noise of honking cars and people on the sidewalk muttering into their cell phones. Does he mean what I think he means?

“Chase, please tell me you told your mother that we’re getting divorced.” His mouth falls open in a guilty look, and I groan, my hand going up to my hair. Better to grab my bangs than his neck. “Chase! What the fuck is wrong with you!” I turn and start down the sidewalk. I cannot be that close to him anymore. I can’t stand to look at him, can’t stand the sound of his voice, can’t stand the never-ending idiocy that I used to be able to overlook and no longer can.

“Quinn, please.” Chase catches up to me at the crosswalk, and in that moment, I hate that I’m the kind of person who lawfully waits for the sign to change. Everyone else would just wait for the break in traffic least likely to leave them flattened. “You know my mother adores you. I didn’t want to break her heart. It’s not like I wasn’t going to tell her ever ; I just didn’t want to tell her right then, over the phone, when she was already upset about nobody going out to the lake.”

The little person appears on the crosswalk sign, and I hurry away from Chase. But he’s not wearing heels and is able to easily keep up with me. “Again, I ask, what the hell does any of this have to do with me, Chase?”

He wraps a hand around my elbow, pulling me to a stop once we reach the other side of the street. Once we’re eye-to-eye again, the rest of the foot traffic seamlessly parting around us, he sighs and says, “She won’t give any of us the money unless we’re all there. Including you.”

I yank my elbow out of his grip. “Well, then I guess you should have thought about that before you cheated on me. Why don’t you share that with your mother?” Ignoring his heartbroken expression, I turn and rush down the sidewalk.

To my surprise, Brooke is already seated and waiting for me when I get to the little Italian bistro we like, Michelangelo’s. She waves at me from a two-person table beside the far window, and I head over, feeling the stress start to seep out of my pores at the sight of her. When I’m with Brooke, it’s like stress has lost my address.

I fall into my chair with a sigh and immediately catch a whiff of the massive pizza that Brooke has ordered for us. Margherita. My favorite. The cheese on top is about three inches thick, and my stomach growls at the sight.

“How do you feel?” Brooke asks with the brightest smile on her face. “Was it everything you ever dreamed of?” She makes it sound like I just came back from a trip to Disneyland.

“Divorced at twenty-five isn’t exactly ideal, but sure, I’m happy it’s over.”

“Me, too,” she says, offering the pizza a conspiratorial look. Brooke was never Chase’s biggest fan. I guess I should be grateful that she hasn’t said anything along the lines of I told you so since we found out that Chase was cheating. She has offered to murder him several times. After I tested positive for chlamydia, confirming Chase’s extramarital activities, Brooke may have almost run him over with her car, but by that point, I was teetering over to the side of violence as well.

“You’ll never believe what Chase did.”

Brooke’s eyebrows shoot up. She picks up a slice of pizza from the tray, the melted cheese stretching as she plops it down on the paper plate in front of me. “Is it worse than having multiple sexual partners that aren’t his wife and then giving you an STI?” She takes a slice of pizza for herself and nods toward mine, silently urging me to eat.

“I guess worse isn’t the correct way to look at it. It just is . And what it is, is moronic.” I hold up one finger. “First, he didn’t tell his family about the divorce. Except Reed. Reed definitely knows. He told me months ago that he was sleeping on Reed’s couch, so I just assumed he had told his whole family. My mistake.” I put up a second finger. “Second, he followed me for like six blocks to talk to me after the mediation.” Third finger. “And third, he asked me for a favor .”

Brooke emits a laugh so loud and sharp that the couple at the next table startle, their shoulders going up around their ears as they look at her. I send them an apologetic smile, even as Brooke continues to laugh. “Is he kidding?” she demands. “I swear, the fucking balls on that guy.”

“I know.” I finally take a bite of my pizza, closing my eyes at the greasy, cheesy goodness. I moan quietly, and when I open my eyes, Brooke is smirking at me.

“Geez, I didn’t realize you were so hard up that all it would take is a slice of margherita to get you off.” The startled couple sends Brooke another scathing glare. Brooke doesn’t notice, of course. Brooke has no interest in other people’s opinions. It’s one of the things I love most about her. Where I stress about the way I’m perceived by everyone, Brooke is who she is, no matter who’s looking.

“So, what was it?”

“Hmmm?” The soda in my hand is almost halfway gone, and I manage to pull myself away long enough to say, “What was what?”

Brooke blinks at me like I’m an idiot. “The favor. What was the favor that Chase asked you to do?”

“Oh, jeez.” I shake my head and roll my eyes. I can’t even believe it’s a thing that really happened, that he even had the audacity to ask me such a thing in the first place. “Madison is upping the summer allowance if everyone shows up at the lake house this year. $500,000. And since Chase never got around to telling her that we’re getting divorced, I’m included in the everyone of it all.”

Brooke’s disbelieving look makes me feel especially justified about the whole thing. “How would that even work? What, you pretend to still be married? Or do you show up and say, ‘oh hey, I’m not your daughter-in-law anymore, but I’ll take that half a million if you don’t mind’?”

“Hell if I know. I didn’t exactly consider the logistics. It’s not as if it’s going to happen.”

Brooke gets a far-off look in her eyes. She watches the traffic go by outside. I know that look, and I don’t particularly like it. It means she’s thinking about doing something impulsive, like trying to run over my ex-husband. The last time she got that look on her face where I could see it, she almost violently attacked her next-door neighbor, who, oddly enough, is now her boyfriend.

“What?” I ask her, wiping my mouth and staring longingly at the pizza between us. She got the whole thing, all eight slices, like we haven’t in a very long time. I want another piece, but I know I shouldn’t.

Her eyes travel back over to me. “Nothing. It’s just…half a million dollars is a lot of money.”

A humorless laugh bursts out of me. “Are you kidding? Stop it. Do not even get that thought in your head. There’s no way I’m going to that lake house. I’m done with Chase and his entire family, okay? I am no longer a Lynch.” When I say the words out loud, my chest gets tight and my stomach lurches. But that’s the reality of it. It’s time to move on.

“Right. Yes. Of course. You’re totally right.” She shakes her head, like she’s trying to banish the thought from her mind, and then she puts another slice of pizza on my plate.

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” I say, pushing my plate away, even as my mouth waters.

Brooke’s lips twist. “And why shouldn’t you?”

I meet her eyes. I can feel her disappointment across the expanse of the table. I sigh. “Come on, Brooke. You know how many calories are in a slice of pizza like this.”

Brooke’s jaw tightens, and her mouth forms a line. “Quinn, do you want the pizza?”

I hold her stare for a long time because we already know the answer, and I already know what she’ll say once I admit the truth. “Yeah, I want the pizza.”

She shoves my plate closer to me. “Then eat the damn pizza. He doesn’t get to tell you what you’re allowed to eat and not eat anymore.” She winks at me. “I love you.”

I laugh and pick up the slice as she starts telling me about her latest shenanigans at work. Brooke used to live in Boston, just like me, but when she broke up with her boyfriend, who she was sharing an apartment with, she had to move to Belmont. Even though Belmont is only half an hour away from Boston, it was hard for me when she moved. I used to be able to bike to her place, and now I have to wade through awful Boston traffic to get to her new apartment. Not to mention the fact that since she started dating Clay, she hasn’t been calling as much.

I know it’s not her fault, but when you’re used to having your husband and your best friend around all the time, it’s tough to find yourself alone most hours out of the day. These days, I’m lucky if I speak to another human being in the span of twenty-four hours.

“How’s the job search going?” Brooke asks when the pizza is mostly gone and I’m on my second soda refill.

“Going about as well as my marriage, I guess.”

Brooke grimaces. “I’m so sorry. I could easily get you a job at the bar, but it’s a long commute, not to mention that it wouldn’t exactly put that marketing degree to good use.”

I look down at the empty pizza tray between us. “I’ll figure something out,” I say, even though I couldn’t feel less confident about the validity of those words.