And Audrey had been right. Playing pretend-engaged as a joke to halt some Instagram moron’s gossip chain was fun. Continuing the play to get back at one’s mother at thirty-one was straight-up pathetic.

His mother must have read his thoughts, because she stepped slightly closer, lowering her voice to avoid eavesdroppers. “I was only trying to help.”

Clarke didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “By trying to force me back together with a woman I haven’t seen or even talked to in years?”

“Are you sure you and Elizabeth weren’t good together?” she asked, a thread of stubbornness in her voice.

Had they been? Truth be told, Elizabeth Milsap had always been a bit of a blind spot for Clarke. Despite being his longest relationship to date, he wasn’t sure he’d ever really known the woman, and he definitely hadn’t known himself when he was with her. She was different from every other woman he’d dated, or slept with. Driven, serious, a little bit quiet. She’d held herself, and everyone around her, to high standards.

And when she’d left, she’d made it quite clear that Clarke had never met those standards. And he’d told himself and everyone else that it hadn’t mattered.

But the truth was, her dismissal had burned. Because though he hated to admit it, even to himself, Clarke had been trying. He’d been trying to be everything Elizabeth wanted, everything, even, that his parents had hoped him to be. For the first time in his life, he’d put in actual effort to please someone else. He’d learned how to cook. He’d brought home the damned just because flowers that women were always claiming were so important. He’d learned how to make the weird loose leaf French tea Elizabeth had loved so much, and he’d dutifully gone to every lawyerly dinner party and fund-raiser, no matter how boring, and they’d been excruciatingly dull.

The worst part was, Clarke had thought he’d been pulling it off. He’d thought they’d been on a steady, albeit slow, path to maybe ring shopping in the not-so-distant future. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had made it quite clear when she’d taken the job in DC without so much as a conversation, that he was the fun guy you dated before you married—not the guy you actually married.

In hindsight, he was relieved. He was fairly certain that they’d never have made each other truly happy. In the moment, though, it had hurt, both his pride and his feelings, and he had no interest in repeating any of it. Ever.

“Couldn’t you have just asked me if I wanted to get back together with Elizabeth?” he asked his mom tiredly. “Didn’t the engagement party feel a bit much?”