The doorbell rings early on Saturday morning. Ben woke me up getting in late last night. Knowing that it isn’t my best friend trying to get back in the house, I bury my head back under my pillow. It’s probably one of his latest dates trying for a repeat.

Another round of ringing and knocking rouses me for good this time, and I stumble into the hallway to find Ben’s beat me to the door.

“It’s for you,” he says, and holds it open so I can see who has been so insistent. I’m shocked that it’s for me, but I almost trip on the flat floor at the sight of Parker at my front door.

“Do you want me to let him in?” Ben asks, and I can tell from his expression that Ben is in full mama bear mode, and Parker had better not make a wrong move or he’ll be out on his ass in seconds. Probably with a chunk missing.

In the weeks since Shelby’s shower, I’ve gone into hiding. I tried texting Craig a few times, hoping that he didn’t hate me for everything that I put him through that day, but I knew it couldn’t last. I wouldn’t want to deal with my family either, or the fact that I’m such a selfish dickwad that I made my own cousin-in-law have a miscarriage. I’m totally not worth all that drama.

Ben hasn’t heard from Craig either, because of his new teaching job. Ben’s been the only thing keeping me going. I use his strength, because I just don’t have any of my own these days. He’s been a nonstop support, trying to fill the hole in my heart with Mario Kart and musicals. I might not deserve Craig, but I fucking miss him. Every day I think the pain will lessen, but it only grows worse.

“Yeah,” I finally say after making Parker stew on the landing outside. “Are you going back to bed?” I ask Ben.

“No, I’m sticking around for this,” he says pointedly as he finally lets Parker inside the apartment.

“I’ll make coffee for three, then.”

Parker looks around the apartment, and I offer him a spot on the couch. This is the first time Parker has ever visited me directly. Our interaction is almost solely at my parents’ house, which isn’t exactly neutral territory. Ben sits next to him, turned sideways so he’s staring – glaring, more like – directly at Parker. They’re silent while I prepare the coffee and bring it over on a tray with sugar and creamer.

“Thank you,” Parker says, and takes a sip of it black. I sit in the chair next to the sofa, but Mr. Perfection can’t bring himself to look directly at me. I have to wonder what terrible news he’s been tasked with telling me for him to be acting this nervous. I can wait until he’s ready, so I take my time preparing my coffee and enjoying the first sip.

Ben is not so patient. “What are you doing here, Parker?”

“Ben,” I try to put a warning in my voice. I’ve ruined this guy’s life. I’m not going to harass him now.

“No,” Ben says, setting his coffee down so hard that it sloshes over the sides and onto the table. “He just shows up out of the blue – I want to know why. Does he even realize everything you’ve been through because of his crazy wife?”

“That’s enough. He’s been through so much worse. What is wrong with you?” I can’t believe Ben is acting like this to a man who has just lost his unborn child. Maybe he’s got a hangover or he didn’t get laid last night or something, but there is no excuse for this.

“What’s wrong with me?” He stands and raises his voice simultaneously. “I’ve had to sit back and watch you torture yourself for weeks because you thought, you still think, that you are responsible for her miscarriage. You have lost the only person I’ve ever seen make you that happy, and you are in pain, each and every day, and what’s worse is that you think you deserve it. So excuse me for being concerned that you’re about to get hit with round two of this shitstorm, because I don’t know how much more you can take.”

I’m in total shock. Yes, Ben has been holding me together, but I had no idea he felt this way. He’s told me over and over that Shelby wasn’t my fault, but between that and losing Craig, I’ve been too self-absorbed in my own guilt and depression to really listen.

Parker stands abruptly. “I should go.”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Ben turns on him. “You do not get to show up like this, create all this chaos, and then leave without even telling us why. Is it going to hurt him? ‘Cause if it’s gonna hurt him, you can just tell me before I kick your ass out.”

“Jesus, Ben.”

“No, he’s right.” Parker turns to me, then back to the couch, like he isn’t sure if it’s okay that he sit down again. I sweep my hand out to gesture for him to sit back down. “I came here for a selfish reason, and I hadn’t realized what you’d been through or how you were feeling. Are you seriously blaming yourself?”

The whole world has gone crazy. How can he doubt that I’m to blame? “There’s a pretty logical correlation of events that indicate the blame for stressing Shelby and causing her blood pressure to rise falls directly on my shoulders.”

“Fuck,” he says, relaxing back against the couch and running a hand through his hair. “If I’d had any idea you were taking it like this, I would have talked to you sooner. Zach, one out of every five pregnancies ends in miscarriage during the first three months. That’s why normal people don’t even announce their pregnancies until after the first trimester is over. It wasn’t stress or blood pressure or you that caused it. It was sheer statistics.”

“That can’t be right. That many? Why don’t you hear about it more often, then?” I’m doubting everything right now. Parker’s just saying this to make me feel better, or to make himself feel better.

“I promise you,” he says. “After it happened, I spent hours talking to the doctor, looking up information online, and going through packets of information that the hospital gave to us. You can Google it if you want, but I’m not exaggerating. Shelby’s miscarriage totally, one hundred percent had nothing to do with you.”

Ben has a neutral expression right now, which must be killing him since I know he wants so badly to say “I told you so.” I honestly don’t know how to feel. Still petty that I acted that way at her party? Okay. But blameless? I don’t know. “So you aren’t mad at me?”

“Of course not. If I’m going to be honest, though, there is something that has happened that is your fault.”

Fuck, I knew I couldn’t get off that easy. Ben’s mouth drops into a frown as he eyes Parker.

“Shelby and I are getting divorced.”

“What?”

“I think we’ve grown in different directions for a while now, but I wanted so badly to hold on to the idea of marriage and a family that I refused to admit it to myself. After the way she acted, first at the party and then at the hospital, I knew I didn’t want to be married to someone like that. It was like all the makeup and dressing melted away and I could finally see what a witch she was underneath.”

“Well, damn.” Ben clasps his shoulder and gives it a hearty pat. “Congratulations.”

I’m assuming a hearty rendition of “Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead” would be pretty tasteless right now. But damn, it’s hard to refrain. Instead I ask, “Are you okay?”

Parker shrugs with a sigh. “Yeah, I will be. Actually, that’s why I showed up today, although now that I know what I’ve put you through, I feel bad asking for favors.”

“What’s up?”

Ben gets up to get himself more coffee, and I wiggle my mug in the air so he’ll get me more too. He quirks a brow at Parker, but he waves a hand over his mug.

“Shelby’s in Georgia visiting her folks and won’t return until Thursday. I’m moving out while she’s gone, and then serving her with divorce papers through the lawyer as soon as she returns. She’s going to go completely mental, so I was hoping maybe I could couch surf with you for a couple of weeks until I can find a job and a place of my own here.”

Ben and I exchange a conversation entirely unspoken, and when I respond to Parker, I know we’re on the same page. “Sure. Are you moving to Fort Collins permanently?”

“For now. I thought a total clean slate would be best. No old house, no old job or friends or haunts. No chance that my mom, or even more likely your mom, gets roped into trying to intervene on her behalf. I want to just disappear off the face of the earth for a little while.”

“I understand that feeling pretty well these days.”

“Yeah, and now that you know you aren’t to blame, hopefully those days are over,” Ben says. “This calls for a celebration. I’m going to go get some pizza and some beer-”

“Champagne!” I interrupt.

“Champagne. Wow, weirdo.”

“To celebrate Parker leaving Shelby. It’s not weird. Pizza and beer for our celebratory brunch is weird. Ooh, we should do breakfast pizza.”

“They don’t have breakfast pizza,” Ben says.

“That one with the cinnamon and the cherries and the drippy glaze. That’s almost like a breakfast pizza.”

Ben rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m going to go out and get some things and we can all enjoy our Saturday with a clean slate.”

Ben doesn’t drink any of the champagne because he claims that it gives him a headache, but he does eat the pizza, and then insists on heading to the gym afterward. Parker and I hold a horror movie marathon for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon. We pretend all the clueless screaming girls are Shelby and cheer when they get the ax. If I were a little more sober, I might be disturbed by our behavior. Instead, Parker and I have polished off the bottle by the time Ben returns late in the afternoon, and he walks in on an obnoxious giggly mess.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m the adult in the room right now,” he says. “I think you guys need some food in your stomachs to soak up all that alcohol. I’ll drive.”

We head to the restaurant down the street and decide to sit on the pub side. The idea of playing pool and drinking pints is making Parker happy.

“Seriously, do you guys have any idea how long it has been since I’ve gone out with a couple of guys for beers? Shelby wouldn’t ever let me drink. It wasn’t becoming. Which is funny because the only reason we got together was because of a drunken hookup at one of her sorority parties. But all that history mysteriously vanished after a few years.”

“Tonight’s your night,” Ben says to Parker, “so go wild.”

There isn’t as much variety food-wise on the pub side, but Parker insists he doesn’t care. “Ooooh, you know what I could really go for? Your knots.”

I think I might die from laughing so hard, and Ben can hardly walk straight through the parking lot.

“What?” Parker halts in the middle of a spot, and we have to grab him to keep him moving.

Ben tells the story, and by the time we enter the door to the pub, I’m wondering if they’re going to willingly serve us. Despite Ben being sober, all three of us are staggering around in hysterics. I try my best to straighten up and seem halfway sane and sober so that we can grab a booth in one of the good spots. There are a few too near the restrooms or the TVs and it sucks when you have to sit there.

As I scan the room, my laughter dies on my lips when I see two men sitting in a booth. One is slender and hipster-y, with red hair. The other haunts my every waking minute, and most of my sleeping ones too. Parker, Ben, and I were so loud upon entering, they’re already staring at us. I watch as the smile that was on his lips changes to a grimace and the light in his eyes clicks off like a switch. He straightens and his whole body shifts from how it was previously leaning inward on the table. The redhead’s hand lingers in the middle. Were they holding hands? Was this a date? Fuck, I’m not ready for this. I can already feel the tears beginning to collect and I can’t. I just can’t.

I do the only thing I know how to do; I turn around and run.

Fuck, this is why he didn’t ever text me back. He’s already moved on. Of course he has. “Fuck!”