by Leah Browning

(image c/o blogs.bridals.pk)

At dinner one night, listening to his girlfriend ramble endlessly about some reality show nonsense, not even bothering to swallow a mouthful of food before she went on about this drivel, he made the decision, as he had many times before, to break it off with her. 

The complication, as usual, was her apartment. If he left, he would have nowhere else to go, and so he went on nodding at her vapid comments, making noises that he hoped were appropriate, aahs and yeses and hmmms, as she droned on about these people he didn’t know and about whose lives he could not have cared less. 

That night in bed, when she placed one leg over his and began sliding her palm over his chest, he put his hand over hers and rose a little, giving her a decisive peck on the cheek before turning over with his back to her and making a big show of arranging his pillows just so. 

He heard her sigh and turn over. Good. The next day, he would start looking at rentals. He couldn’t face another six months of couch-surfing, as he’d done after the breakup with his previous girlfriend. He’d worn out his welcome with various friends and their girlfriends, not to mention that they’d worn out their welcome with him. They were all so deferential, with their bran flakes for breakfast and their “Emily wouldn’t like that”-type comments. What were they doing with their lives? It was sickening, if you asked him. 

Gradually, he stopped coming home for dinner or watching TV with her in the evenings. It was easier to work late and grab a burger. It occurred to him one night after she complained about never seeing him that maybe she would break up with him and he wouldn’t have to do anything except feign sadness for a couple of hours and then this would all be over, but he felt a jolt of alarm as they veered dangerously close to this because he still had not found a place he could afford that was close enough to work and the gym, and so when she started crying and said, “Maybe we shouldn’t even go to my cousin’s wedding this weekend,” instead of jumping for joy he said, “What? Of course we should,” and put an arm around her to comfort her though he wasn’t sure which cousin and was afraid she would start crying again if he asked. 

So he paid extra to get his suit dry-cleaned at the 24-hour place and signed his name on the card that went along with he’d-already-forgotten-what in the package. They drove two hours to the venue, a château-style hotel on a winding mountain road, and he had a headache by the time they arrived because he’d forgotten his sunglasses on the counter in her apartment. There was a string quartet playing Brahms on a back patio, and delicate glasses of champagne, not to mention the ceremony itself, and it had been a terrible mistake to come here, a certainty that crashed over him in wave after wave as he saw her posing for photos and dabbing her eyes and growing more and more drunk and depressed with each passing minute. 

There was a notification on his phone and he saw that she had just posted a selfie on Instagram with him standing in the background—me with my honey @ the wedding—and then maybe we’ll be next?—with the emoji of the praying hands—and seven of her most loyal friends had already clicked Like or even added a heart in a comment on the post—and he knew that her family would always look back the wedding photos after the breakup and think about what a son of a biscuit eater he was, because that was how they talked, on this side of the family. At least half of them were both Southern and religious. 

She was out on the dance floor, he saw now, just inside the open glass doors. The DJ hadn’t taken over yet and she was alone, swaying to the music with a glass of champagne in one hand, and he should have done something to rescue her in front of the family or at least to help hold her up, but he found himself watching instead with a sense of horrified fascination because the crash was inevitable, but what would it be? He could see vomiting, either in place or in the bushes lining the porch, or an embarrassing crying jag, or losing a shoe, one of those high heels with the straps, and falling—but before he could work out the odds, one of the bartenders, still wearing a black half-apron tied around his waist, smiled at her and slid the champagne flute out of her hand and set it on a table nearby, and put an arm around her waist, taking a few steps forward in a lively pantomime of dance more than actual dancing. 

As she looked up at the bartender, he could see that her eyes were glassy with tears, and for a second he was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t guessed this as his number one, but then he too saw how beautiful she looked like that, her cheeks flushed, rosy from drinking, her hair falling attractively from its neat style. He watched covetously as she took a few slow steps with the bartender. Wasn’t this some sort of professional violation? He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. 

“I think you’ve lost your lady,” one of her uncles said chummily, clapping a hand on his shoulder on the way by, and he frowned, his mind swimming, as the bartender slipped his finger under the thin strap of her dress, which had fallen down her arm, and lifted it back onto her shoulder where it belonged.

   

Leah Browning is the author of Two Good Ears and Loud Snow, a pair of flash fiction mini-books published by Silent Station Press, and When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain, a collection of poetry published by Kelsay Books. Her first full-length collection of short fiction is forthcoming. Website: https://www.leahbrowninglit.com Facebook, Twitter/X, and Instagram: @leahbrowninglit