On Valentine’s Day, I Issued My Fiancé and His Female Best Friend a License—By Morning, I Was Gone

At 11:30 AM, Ryan found me.

He didn't find me through my phone; he found me because he knew that whenever I was stressed, I went to a tiny, non-descript coffee shop on West Charleston that served burnt espresso and had no Wi-Fi. It was the only habit of mine he had ever bothered to remember.

The bell above the door chimed loudly as he pushed inside.

He looked terrible. His hair, usually neatly styled with pomade, was dry and tufting out over his ears. His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark, greyish circles that made him look five years older than he was. His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt—the shirt—was wrinkled at the elbows and unbuttoned at the collar, revealing the pale skin of his throat.

He spotted me in the corner booth.

He walked over quickly, his leather soles sliding slightly on the polished concrete floor, and dropped into the vinyl bench across from me.

"Nora," he breathed. He reached across the table, his fingers sprawling out to grab my hand.

I moved my hand three inches to the left, picking up my porcelain mug.

His fingers hit the cold wood of the table instead.

"Nora, please," he said. His voice broke on the second word. "You have to stop this. You've made your point. Okay? You made your point. I was an idiot. I was a complete, arrogant idiot for going along with Chloe and Ava. I see that now."

"You don't see it," I said smoothly. I took a small sip of coffee. It was bitter, dark, and hot. "You just don't like the paperwork."

"It's not about the paperwork!" he yelled. A man reading a paper two tables away looked up over his glasses. Ryan lowered his voice, leaning across the table until his face was six inches from mine. "Nora, I'm married to Ava. To Ava. Do you have any idea what that means?"

"Yes," I said. "It means under Nevada Revised Statute 125.010, she is entitled to fifty percent of any income you earn during the duration of the legal union, she has primary healthcare decision-making authority if you are incapacitated in an accident, and if you die without a will before the decree is final, she inherits your portion of the apartment interest."

Ryan’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language that he had once heard in a movie.

"We don't love each other," he whispered. "She’s my friend, Nora! She’s like... she’s like a sister to me!"

"You don't marry your sister for fourteen thousand views on a livestream, Ryan," I said.

"It was a joke!" he slammed his fist onto the table, making the spoons in the ceramic jar rattle. "A twenty-four-hour joke!"

"A marriage license is not a prop," I said. My voice was very quiet, very firm, the voice of a person who had spent four years watching people treat legal obligations like confetti. "It is an affidavit executed under penalty of perjury. You stood in front of my desk, you looked at my face, and you swore under oath that you were entering into a legal contract with Ava Brooks. I processed that contract because it met all statutory requirements. My job was to verify the signatures, Ryan. My job was not to save you from your own stupidity."

"So what about us?" he asked. His eyes were wet now. Real tears were pooling in the corners of his eyelashes. "Five years, Nora. We were getting married in six weeks! The caterer is booked! My mother bought her dress last Tuesday!"

"Tell your mother she can return the dress," I said. "Or she can wear it to Ava’s welcome-to-the-family dinner."