Page 10 of The Frog Prince

“Jean-Marc,” I croak because I’m thinking of the lawn where I’d pictured the swing set and the little guest room off the master bedroom, where there’d be a bassinet and a changing table. Baby clothes are so small and sweet, and babies after a bath smell so good, and I really wanted the whole thing—the family. The love. The happiness. “Please,”

“Give it time, Holly. You’ve only been in San Francisco a couple months.”

I don’t want to give it time. I want him to say he’s sorry, that he’s made the worst mistake. I want him to say he’s lonely and his bed feels empty and that no one makes him laugh like I do, and no one is as fun, and no one looks as cute eating an orange as me, because those were the things he used to say to me. Those were the things that made me feel beautiful and special.

But he’s never once said he wants me back, not even when he admitted—very quietly a couple of months ago—that he never meant to hurt me. Apparently things just got carried away. He should have put a stop to the wedding plans before they got out of hand. Sadly, he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“Cherie, forgive me,” he says now, “but I’ve got to get back. They’re calling me.”

He’s sorry. But for all the wrong reasons. He’s sorry because he’s going to hang up on me.

Why did he let this get out of hand in the first place? He didn’t need a green card. He didn’t need money (not that I have any). He didn’t need a social life.

What was I?

But he can’t tell me that, or won’t tell me that, and I’m left tangled up in knots, knuckles white from gripping the phone so hard.

“Don’t go, Jean-Marc—”

“It’s going to be okay, Holly.”

It hurts so bad; his words hurt endlessly. It’s like when my dad left my mom, but it’s worse because this is Jean-Marc leaving me.

“Holly.”

But I don’t speak. I can’t. My chest burns. My heart, even with the hole, aches, and I screw my eyes closed even tighter. I feel like shit, like the worst person alive. I did love him. I really believed in him.

I believed inus.

“Take care of yourself,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Gone.

For thirty seconds I think I’m going to be sick. For thirty seconds I want to rip my heart out and throw it in the street and hope some goddamn cable car runs over it, but that’s really dramatic, a little tooGladiator, not to mention Lorena Bobbit.

Before Jean-Marc, I was the most romantic person I knew. I was going to be the one who never got divorced. I was going to be the one who did it right. I grew up on Barbara Cartland romances (with some Erica Jong and Xaviera Hollander thrown in for good measure), and I believe in soul mates. Marriage. Commitment.

Being good doesn’t really pay off.

And I didn’t know it until now. My mother (God forgive me) not only read me the wrong books, but told me a pack of lies. Everything she passed on to me had to do with being good. And there were so many goods I can’t remember them all, but in short, these were some of the biggies by academic year:

Kindergarten: Good girls don’t show boys their underpants.

Second grade: Good girls eat their lunch quietly.

Fourth grade: Good girls go to church on Sundays.

Sixth grade: Good girls don’t backtalk their parents.

Seventh grade: Good girls sit with their knees together.

Eighth grade: Good girls do all their homework.

Tenth grade: Good girls don’t kiss on a first date.

Eleventh grade: Good girls don’t go past second base.

Twelfth grade: Good girls don’t get reputations.