Things To Say Before I Go

Chapter 27: Jess

*** FOUR MONTHS LATER***

"Oh and Jess, honey, you HAVE to sing something!" 

I was sitting staring out the window at the rain with my chin in my hand, trying to block out my mother and sister that were busy planning her wedding. That's right! Ali was getting married. His name was Tom and they had met 2 months ago at a bar in Queens. Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like it's going to last. And you'd think my mother, a divorced mother of two, would have the sense to tell her daughter that they should take a little more time to figure out whether they should be getting married just yet. But no, because remember this is the same woman who shows up at my doorstep for no reason at ungodly hours of the night and is all too obsessed with Red Lobster. However, I digress. 

They were trying to convince me to play and sing at the reception. I mean, yeah, sure,  I'm exaggerating when I say I'd rather blow my own head off than sing at her reception because I thought this wedding was going last an even shorter amount of days than Kim Kardashian's, but I still didn't want to do it. 

I must have really looked zoned out, because my mother eventually snapped her fingers in my face obnoxiously and said, "Jessica, would you wake up please? This isn't about you, this is about your sister. Now why don't you go make yourself useful and look at those bridesmaid dresses." 

I begrudgingly got up from the table and went to look at the book my mother was referring to. I didn't want to be in this bridal shop. Everything was white, even the walls, so you couldn't stare at anything too long for fear of going blind. I started paging through the book of dresses that were way too expensive. 

"I don't know why I'm the one doing this," I called over to them. "Isn't this a job for the maid of honor?" Yeah, who, by the way, wasn't me. 

Ali's maid of honor was her friend Julie from high school. Apparently, they made this promise in junior year that they'd be each other's maids of honor. So no, her blood sister is not her maid of honor. Did it really bother me? No. Because that means I have less responsibility. Unless I end up singing, the only other responsibility I have is to show up. And I'm not 100% confident I'm even going to do that. 

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By the time I made it back to my house, I was exhausted. I closed the door and leaned against it, sighing. Why did I get stuck with the weird family? Before I could slump to the floor, I stood up, went into the kitchen and got a bottle of water. I thought about going to the gym, something I had started doing out of a lack of other things to do. I guess you could say laziness drove me to the gym, which is so fucked up, I can't even begin to explain. 

I sat down on the couch and put my feet up. And to think I took a day off from work for this bullshit. I started to imagine would it would be like if Nate and I had gotten married. He would probably have moved in here with me and we'd probably be pretty happy. I didn't even think about kids. That was something the two of us never discussed, oddly enough. I just don't think it was ever a concern. The thing that I felt about us was that we weren't like a lot of other couples. I feel like if we got married, we wouldn't find ourselves someday so out of love. 

And as good as it felt to imagine all of these things, Nate was miles away. It had only been a day since we talked last on Skype, I still missed him. Sure, it got better after the first month, but no matter how long it was that we were apart, I still remembered when he was here, when I could see him everyday. I sighed once again and drank the rest of my water. 

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"So, I'm going to be playing the lead role and we start rehearsals next week. I'm so excited!" Kailey was back on at Mike's, getting as much money as possible to continue getting through NYU.