Carissa sat down, twirled spaghetti around her fork, and was two bites in when he said, “So my ten-year reunion is next month, and I need Nikki to come with me.”
At first, the sentence did not register as language.
It was sound. Air. One more distraction in a life full of them.
Then it arranged itself.
Nikki.
Her younger sister.
Need.
Come with me.
Carissa kept chewing because sometimes the body moved more slowly than humiliation. She swallowed. Set the fork down. Looked at him.
“What did you just say?”
Damen rolled one shoulder as if she were the one making the moment heavy. “My high school reunion. Next month. I need Nikki to come with me.”
Carissa stared long enough for a lesser man to feel stupid. Damen only reached for the Parmesan.
“Why,” she asked carefully, “would my sister be coming to your reunion?”
He didn’t look embarrassed. That was the first wound.
He didn’t even look cautious. That was the second.
“Because I need her there,” he said.
The kitchen went strangely clear around her. She heard the ceiling fan, the refrigerator compressor, the muffled rumble of an L train a few blocks away. Small household sounds seemed to sharpen whenever something catastrophic was trying to masquerade as ordinary.
“Try again,” Carissa said.
Damen sprinkled cheese over his pasta like he was explaining weather. “Back when we first started dating, some of the guys met Nikki at that barbecue your cousin hosted in Naperville. They assumed she was my girlfriend. I never corrected them. It was nothing. Then people moved, years passed, social media did what it does, and they all basically think I ended up marrying her.”
Carissa did not blink.
Damen looked up finally, saw that she wasn’t following his timeline toward the place he wanted it to end, and added the part he clearly thought would solve it.
“So I need Nikki to come with me as my wife.”
He said wife in the tone a man might use for coat or receipt.
Carissa felt the blood drain out of her face so completely it almost fascinated her. “You told your friends you married my sister.”
He exhaled, impatient already. “I didn’t tell them. Exactly. I just didn’t correct anything.”
“That is lying.”
“It is not a big deal.”
He said that too fast.