Start Me Up

July 2015

"He was so nervous all night, he kept sticking his hand in his pocket and I swear he dropped his fork like five times so I mean, I knew something was up." Tessa smiled gently over at Amelia as she told everyone the story of just how Shea had proposed the night before.

"And? How did he do it?" Lauren, Amelia's best friend, asked her excitedly.

Tessa watched as Amelia learned forward, and said with a big smile, "So finally he just gets up from the table and gets down on one knee. I think I dropped my fork then honestly."

"Oh that's so exciting!" Tessa nodded her head in agreement. Lauren held her hand out and said, "Let me see the ring again."

So Amelia held her hand out to show off the not huge but not necessarily modest diamond ring that had recently found a home on her left hand and that was when Tessa lost interest in pretending to be interested in the conversation.

It wasn't that she didn't care about Amelia's engagement, quite the opposite but she had already heard the story late the night before, she had seen the ring at least a hundred times now because she was the one who had helped Shea pick it out. She was happy for her sister but there were a million and one things she would rather be doing right now.

Like trying to save her own marriage.

She couldn't deny that it didn't upset her just a little; here was her younger sister getting married to the man of her dreams and Tessa, three years older, eight days before had been handed divorce papers like a slap to the face.

Tessa stood up from the chair in the hotel room Amelia was staying in and announced, "I'm gonna go have some breakfast. I'm starving."

"Okay but find me later I thought we could do lunch and some shopping maybe." Tessa nodded her head to say that yes she would find her sister later before she ducked out of the room as the wedding talk continued.

She found a two person table in the restaurant in the lobby and busied herself on her phone while she waited for the waiter to come by. She looked up in surprise when the chair across from her was pulled out and Shea dropped into it with a heavy sigh.

Her eyebrow raised as she asked, "Can I help you?"

He grinned over at her and told her, "I'm hungry and don't want to eat alone, figured you wouldn't want to either."

"Wouldn't be unusual." She muttered. When his eyebrow raised Tessa flushed and ignored her comment and his questioning look to tell him, "I guess you can stay and keep me company."

"Cool." She could have snorted at the dorky way he nodded his head and grabbed her menu.

With their orders taken; blueberry pancakes for her and a cheese omelette for him Tessa looked over at Shea and asked him, "So... Does it feel any different now?"

"What? Being engaged?" He asked and when she nodded he shrugged his shoulders and told her, "Not really. The only thing that's different is everyone's constant questions."

"What do you mean?" Tessa asked him curiously.

"Everyone keeps asking if we picked a date. Like we got engaged less than twenty four hours ago we were supposed to decide a date already? Or like how big of a wedding we're gonna have, and what kind of colors it's gonna be." He was ranting and they both knew it.

"You know with Amy it will be like a hundred and fifty people at least." Tessa told him and Shea groaned and nodded his head in agreement. Tessa laughed and told him, "I'll never understand that. Jake and I had sixty and that was still way too much for me."

"How many would you have preferred?" Shea asked her curiously.

To have not gotten married in the first place.

"No one. I would have preferred to elope frankly." Tessa told him, completely honest.

Shea's brow lifted, "Yeah?"

She nodded her head and told him, "Yeah, go somewhere were we could have gotten married in bare feet and in casual wear. Nothing but the two of us and some minister, maybe on a beach or something."

"You think I could convince Amelia to do that?" Shea asked her with a grin, and Tessa laughed and shook her head.

"Not a chance in hell." Tessa stated.

As she looked down at her phone when it beeped Shea watched her frown and pick it up off of the table, muttering an apology to Shea for interrupting their meal and she took a moment to furiously type away on her phone before she set it back down. Just as she placed the cell phone down on the table again it beeped, and Shea got a look at the name of the person she had been texting. Curiously he asked her, "Is everything okay?"

Tessa hit the power button on her phone and Shea felt bad for prying as she told him, "Yeah, everything's fine."

He cleared his throat, "I didn't mean to pry or anything. I was just... I noticed that you and Jake are in separate rooms."

"Oh, yeah, he's got some big work thing and apparently I talk in my sleep." Tessa lied, and Shea shot her a look that told her she had been caught lying and that was something they didn't do with each other. So she sighed, tucked her blonde hair behind her ears and admitted, "He's here because it's... something he should be here for."

"What does that even mean?" Shea asked her curiously.

She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell him it was nothing and to forget about it. She didn't want to do or say anything that would take away from this weekend for Shea and Amelia but she and Shea were close, much closer than she and Amelia had ever been and they had a thing about lying to each other. There were so many things about Tessa that Shea knew but Amelia didn't, and vice versa and she didn't want to start ignoring that now.

So she let out another sigh and told him, "It means that he's doing this one last favor for me and then when we go home he's selling the house and moving to New Jersey and I'm... not sure what I'm doing."

"Wait...what? So you guys are..." He made a hand motion, unsure of how to continue.

So Tessa told him the whole story, "Things have been rough between us for a while. Jake got a promotion that involved moving to Jersey and he came home and told me and then basically said that was it, he was going, I wasn't."

"So he doesn't even think you guys can or should fix things?" Shea asked her curiously, keeping his mouth shut as their waiter came back with their breakfast.

Once he was gone Tessa shrugged her shoulders and she kept her eyes trained firmly on her plate of pancakes as she told him, "That was him, texting me to ask if I signed the papers yet. I guess he wants to get them in before he moves."

"What did you tell him?"

"To fuck off." Tessa told him honestly and Shea laughed so hard that he choked on the forkful of eggs he had put in his mouth just before she said that. She chuckled at his reaction and then she said, softly and extremely uncharacteristically sad for Tessa, "I told him it could wait, that this was my family stuff and it was important and another two days wouldn't kill him."

Shea's cheeks flushed and he told her, "Shit... Tess... If I had known... I never would have picked now to propose. I could have waited."

She shook her head, took a sip of her juice, and held her finger up at him as she told him firmly, "No, don't you apologize. Shea it's fine really, I'm so happy for you guys."

"Are you gonna come to this thing tonight? You don't have to you know." Shea told her softly, and Tessa could tell he still felt bad.

She rolled her eyes at him and joked, "Of course I'm coming. Do I have to give a speech or anything though?"

"I think Amy was hoping you would." Shea told her, and when she sighed dramatically he was quick to tell her, "I can tell her you're not, I could-"

"Please don't." Tessa was quick to say, a little too quick and so when Shea's eyebrow raised in questioning she flushed and admitted, "I haven't... told anyone... you know, about Jake and I. You're the only one who knows and I know it's totally unfair of me to ask you to lie to my family but I just... haven't figured this out for myself let alone to tell her and my mom."

"Yeah... your mom will probably cry." Shea laughed.

Tessa nodded her head, a look of amusement on her face as she said, "Yeah, I always said she should have married him, not me."

Shea gave her a sympathetic look and told her softly, and completely honestly, "He's an idiot Tessa. Biggest mistake of his life, no question."

- - -

Hours later Tessa found herself standing in the bathroom of the restaurant they were having dinner at, staring at herself in the mirror hoping that she wasn't about to make a huge idiot of herself. She dusted a little bit of powder on the centre of her face to make sure she wasn't too shiny and she spritzed a little bit of perfume on, she felt like she was sweating buckets.

She glanced at her watch and decided she had been in there long enough so she smoothed her hands out over her dress and headed back to their table. She had been seated between her mother and Jacob, and she had to interrupt a very laughter filled conversation between the two of them to take her seat. Funny he could act cordial with her mother but he couldn't even fake it with her.

Shea set her a sympathetic smile from across the table as she leaned back in her chair and let Jake and her mother lean around her to finish their conversation. She could think of so many things she would rather be doing right now than this; electric shock therapy, having her finger nails pulled off, maybe a molar or two.

She glanced around the table, watching as Shea was slightly turned to his right talking to his father, and Amelia was engrossed in a conversation with Laura and that left Tessa; watching everyone's lives go on without her. At least that was what it felt like. Her mother barely picked up the phone anymore, Jacob was leaving her for a new job and a new life, Amelia was getting married and creating her own life. Everyone was making these huge changes in their lives and she wasn't sure she even had any choices anymore.

The last ten years of her life seemed like a big blur, and ever since they had gotten married six years ago her life had been all about Jacob. Jacob had the 'real' career, he needed her at home to take care of things, he needed her to cook dinners for clients and mingle with their wives, he needed her to dress up and let him show her off at business events. It seemed like her literal job was being his wife, only it didn't come with a paycheck, any respect or even the life partner she expected it to. She had somehow become a housewife, and now she had this huge bomb dropped on her that completely exploded her world and she realized she had nowhere to go and nothing to do now.

She was pulled out of her pity party when Shea nudged her foot from across the table, and she looked up to find everyone staring at her. Amelia was watching her with an amused smile and informed her, "I was trying to tell everyone how amazing my big sister is and then someone pointed out to me that she wasn't even listening."

Everyone chuckled and Tessa smiled, cheeks still pink, and said, "Right, sorry. I'm just so used to you spewing nonsense all the time that sometimes I tune you out and forget you might say something important every once in a blue moon."

Again everyone laughed, and Amelia narrowed her eyes at Tessa, but smiled nonetheless. She continued, "I was just saying that my whole life I always wanted to be just like you. I probably drove you crazy with that."

She paused so Tessa grinned and asked, "What else is new?"

There was laughter, and she continued, "I think every little sister wants to be just like their big sister at some point. But, anyway, I was lucky enough to get to watch you fall in love in with my most favorite brother-in-law."

"Your only brother-in-law, what a coincidence." Jacob joked.

"Well for a first and only I hit the jackpot." She said, smiling at both of them before she said, "I always wanted what you guys have. I always used to dream of some guy coming in and taking me by surprise and sweeping me off my feet like in a fairy tale. I couldn't wait to have what you guys do, and I just wanted to thank you guys for being the reason I never settled because if I had I wouldn't have met Shea and some days I wake up and I can't even believe this is my life."

Shea glanced over at Tessa, she noted it, it was as if he was trying to silently apologize to her. She forced a smile on her face, and hoped she didn't seem too shocked when Jake reached over and tangled his fingers with hers. Tessa kept her response short and simple and she told Amelia, "I'm really glad you didn't settle either, and I mean, I guess as far as brother-in-laws go you did pick me an okay one."

Shea narrowed his eyes at her and joked back, "I forgot us getting married means that I have to be related to you... maybe I need to rethink this decision."

"Don't you dare." Amelia told him, narrowing her eyes at him as he leaned over and kissed her sweetly.

Tessa downed half of the wine in her glass right then and there.

This was going to be a long year.