We were naked and under the sheets minutes later as I moved on top of your body, skin to skin. You parted your legs so I could enter. You were so blissfully tight. Just like it should have been for a first time. I wondered if I was hurting you, half hoping that I wasn’t and half hoping that I was. I didn’t want you to ever forget this moment.

“Tell me you love me,” you whispered.

“I love you.”

25 MARISA

25

MARISA

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

8:00 p.m.

The afternoon quickly turned to evening as I sat at my computer, working. By eight o’clock, I’d finished the last of the backlogged files and emailed albums off to my clients. As I stared at the last image of my last January couple, taken on the snowy grounds of the Tuckahoe estate, I thought about what Richards had said. Everyone lies.

My work at this January wedding conveyed a happy couple, ready to spend a life together. The truth was that the bride was deeply in debt and had had to use six different credit cards to pay my fee. She hadn’t told her husband-to-be about all her pending bills because she was sure he’d understand when she told him after the wedding. The groom, who’d gotten really drunk at the rehearsal dinner, had said to me in passing that he’d slept with one of the bridesmaids last year. I was not sure why he’d told me. Maybe, all dressed in black as I was, I looked like a confessor.

They are all lying.

Still, it felt good to be caught up. My brain was clear, and the weight riding on my shoulders post-accident had eased.

I lay on the couch, rolled on my side, and stared out the large window toward the city. What lies had my friends told Richards? I’d lied about Jack and the drugs. Jack had lied about being in bed with me all night. What about Jo-Jo, Kurt, Brit, and even Clare? What else still lurked in the shadows?

The walls of my apartment felt smaller, tighter. The beast inside remembered the two sips of beer. Why hadn’t I had a few more sips? If two were fine, four would’ve been all right. No one would have known.

The beast was back, whispering sweet temptations.

I reached for my phone and texted Kurt.

Me: What are you doing?

Kurt: What do you have in mind?

Me: Dinner at J.J.’s Pub. Headed there now.

Kurt: Great minds . . . already here.

I was mildly surprised he’d chosen J.J.’s Pub. This wasn’t his neck of the woods. But maybe he’d liked it. Wanted to give it another go.