I Erased Our Marriage Timeline novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Ring

Jocelyn and Esteban are engaged, Esteban plans to move Marisol out, and when she tries to get Jocelyn screened for cancer he shoves her down at the campus gate.

Esteban opened the front door before I could find my key.

He looked at me, then at my backpack.

"Why are you back?"

So it wasn't his idea.

"Joss called," I said. "She said she had news."

"Mari!" Jocelyn's head popped out of the kitchen, flour on her cheek. "Sit. Don't help. Esteban, entertain her."

She pushed the remote into my hand and pushed him toward the couch across from me.

Then she went back to the stove, humming.

Esteban sat down and folded his hands between his knees.

A game show played on the TV.

Somebody won a boat.

"Marisol."

I looked at him.

His voice was low, so it wouldn't carry to the kitchen.

"Focus on school. Keep your feet on the ground." He held my eyes. "And don't think about what you shouldn't."

My chest went tight.

Not because it hurt.

Because I'd heard the end of that sentence already, from a phone in El Cajon.

"Understood," I said. "I won't."

He blinked.

"Dinner!" Jocelyn called.

She'd made her mother's lasagna, the one with three cheeses, and she'd burned the edges the way she always did.

She waited until we had full plates.

Then she put her left hand flat on the table.

A diamond the size of a pea caught the light.

"He proposed," she said. "This afternoon. On the pier. He got down on one knee and a seagull stole his hat."

"It wasn't my hat," Esteban said. "It was a pretzel."

"It was a very romantic pretzel."

I put down my fork and went around the table and hugged her hard.

"Congratulations, Joss. I mean it. Both of you."

Over her shoulder, Esteban's hand stopped on his glass.

He was watching me.

I sat back down and ate my lasagna and didn't look at him again.

Jocelyn kept rubbing her left thigh under the table.

"Leg okay?" I asked.

"Pulled something at boot camp. It's been grumpy for a month."

I nodded and kept eating.

After dinner I did the dishes so I'd have something to do with my hands.

In the living room they were already planning.

Jocelyn wanted a garden.

Esteban wanted whatever she wanted.

I dried my hands and walked toward the doorway to say goodnight.

"Once she graduates," Esteban said, "I'll buy her a place near campus. She moves out."

I stopped in the hall.

"She's twenty-three," Jocelyn said. "She's not a lamp, Esteban. You don't just move her."

"She's grown. She needs her own life." A pause. "And we need our space."

I turned around and went up the stairs on the outside edges, where they don't creak.

I took my backpack and left through the garage.

From the corner I texted Jocelyn.

Studio emergency, had to run back. So happy for you. Love you.

Moving out was my plan anyway.

I just hadn't expected him to want it first.

On Wednesday I was on the fourth floor of the library, reading about load paths for a midterm, when my hand stopped.

Pulled something at boot camp.

At the funeral, eight years from now, Jocelyn's mother had held my wrist with both hands.

"Her leg hurt for years," she said. "Years. She thought it was from running. By the time they scanned it, it was in her lungs."

My chair went over behind me with a crack.

Everyone on the floor turned.

I didn't pick it up.

I ran down four flights with my phone already at my ear.

"Joss. Are you free this afternoon? Let me buy you coffee."

We met at the place on Park Boulevard with the bad parking.

I'd practiced the lie on the drive.

"The school wants a full physical before thesis year," I said. "Blood work, scans, everything. I'm scared to go alone."

She tilted her head. "Since when are you scared of doctors?"

"Since always. I hide it well."

"You really don't."

"Come with me," I said. "Get one too. Think of it as a premarital check-up."

She went pink to her ears.

"Marisol Ochoa."

"You're marrying a man who eats gas station sushi. You need a baseline."

She laughed so hard the barista looked over.

Her phone buzzed on the table.

Esteban.

"Where are you?" I heard him say.

"Coffee with Mari."

A pause.

"Come home early."

She hung up and rolled her eyes at me. "He's turned into a mother hen overnight. It's adorable. It's also a lot."

"Saturday?" I said. "For the check-up?"

"Saturday. Fine. You owe me a croissant."

I walked her to her car and drove back to campus for my four o'clock.

Esteban's black sedan was parked across the main gate.

He was leaning on it in his charcoal suit, arms crossed.

Students went around him.

He pushed off the car when he saw me.

He didn't say hello.

He took my wrist and pulled me off the path, past the gate, onto the concrete by the bike racks.

"Stay away from Jocelyn," he said. "Whatever you're doing, stop."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Coffee. Phone calls. Showing up at her door at night." His grip got tighter. "I know what you're like, Marisol. I've known for years."

"Let go."

He let go.

He let go by flinging my arm away from him, hard.

My heel caught the edge of the curb.

I went down sideways onto the concrete.

My palms tore open.

My knee hit last and hardest.

When I looked down, my jeans were dark and wet, and blood was running into my sock.

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