Free The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken by Mari Passananti

gay-thin. His ribs show through the fabric of his clingy black T shirt, which reads, “D&G: Diet & Gym,” and his jeans are skinnier than mine. His conservative barber shop haircut is gone, replaced by boyish tousled brown curls. My jaw drops when I notice that he’s wearing a touch of eyeliner. I can’t believe I slept with this man for years and didn’t see it. Or frankly that nobody else saw it and had the decency to tip me off, either. Though I’m not sure how such a conversation would have gone. But I have to hand it to my ex-fiancé. He was smart enough to fool everyone.
    Brendan blinks at me, waiting for some sign that he should continue.
    I finally find my voice. “Maybe I’m not in the mood to listen to your apology.” I back myself onto the sofa because I really feel as if I might faint. It kills me that he still invokes such visceral emotions.
    “You can listen or not, but I have to say it,” he says. He crosses the room and sits on the couch next to me. I try to slide away but there’s no place to go. I’m out of upholstery.
    Angela realizes that I’m not imminently kicking him out, so she excuses herself, “to powder her nose.”
    I top off my wine, and make a point of not offering him anything.
    “You have every right to be angry,” he says.
    I cut him off. “Angry doesn’t even begin to describe it. How about furious, and disgusted, and humiliated? How could you possibly wait so long to tell me? Our invitations were in the mail. We had the trip of a lifetime booked for our honeymoon. There’s an unworn Carolina Herrera dress in my mother’s closet that I can’t look at without bursting into tears. Jesus, Brendan, you must have known years ago, and you let me go through with the whole charade.” I feel tears starting to well and I fight them back down.
    I’d never admit this to him, but part of my malfunction is anger with myself. I don’t miss being with Brendan. For better or worse, our friendship ended the day of our break up. What I miss is being half of an established couple, the security of knowing I’ll have someone to come home to. Someone who doesn’t care if I wear yoga pants and a pony tail most of the time. I also miss knowing that I’ll always have plans on Saturday night and New Year’s Eve. And that I won’t need to face family holidays alone—a poor, pitiable pot without a lid, as my mother would say.
    Brendan interrupts my private moment of self-indulgent self-pity. “I’m sorry you’re still so upset with me, and I hope time will heal some of your wounds.” I can tell by his intonation that he’s rehearsed this. Just like he used to rehearse his moot court arguments, and later, his answers to common interview questions, in front of our bathroom mirror. “But I need to tell you that I’ve been seeing Steve off and on, for the last three years.”
    “Steve? Who’s Steve? Wait, my hairdresser Steve?”
    Brendan nods uncomfortably.
    “Steve, who spent two hours rehearsing my hair and veil so I could marry you ? Steve whom I’ve seen twice since we called off our wedding?”
    He shrugs. “You always knew he was gay.”
    I will myself not to throttle him. Instead I fly off the sofa and start to pace a tiny circle on the carpet, wringing my hands behind my back, to prevent myself from slapping his smug face.
    “Until it came down to the wire, I thought I could do it. I thought I could play it straight, and keep Steve and that whole part of my life in a box off to the side, at least until my parents died.”
    “You were planning to marry me until your parents’ death did us part?”
    “Steve was dead set against that and he got me to focus on what I’d be giving up. The holidays, the vacations, and the public recognition of our union.” He actually gets misty-eyed saying this last part.
    “Your union?” I repeat dumbly.
    “We’re making it official before the end of the year, and my shrink says I cannot walk down the aisle before I make things right