“He wants a short engagement, but I’d rather just give it a few years until I’m settled into grad school.”
I am sitting with my sorority sister, both of us undergrad then, catching up over coffee.
“Have you decided where you’re going?” I ask.
“I need to turn in all the applications, still,” she says. She twirls the engagement ring on her finger, a half size too big. “Its hard to keep up with all of it, you know, with wedding planning and everything.”
“I think a longer engagement makes sense, then,” I say, “you can’t do everything at once.”
“Yeah, but you know how he is, he’s eager to make me his wife,” she smiles then. It is a good thing to her. I bite my tongue - I’m sure their Christian celibacy has nothing to do with his timelines.
Their wedding is six months after; small, a beautiful outdoor ceremony. She looks so young in the long white dress, but she is all smiles. He cries at the altar. This is good, I think, they love each other so much. Relationships are about compromise.
We fall out of touch when we graduate. He gets a big job, and they move. It happens.
The Instagram post is a year later; “we’re expecting!” A sonogram photo held to the camera. Big smiles.
“Congratulations!” I type in her DM’s, “I meant to ask - what school are you at? How’s the program?”
“Thank you!!:)” she replies, “No school yet! Life is so busy, with the move, job hunting, and now this! Lol :)”
I picture her typing it from their one bedroom apartment in the city he chose. I picture her fingers moving across the screen, adorned with a wedding ring she wanted to come later. I picture her still face as she types “no school yet!” after it being her number one focus our entire senior year. I picture the baby growing in her belly, another priority from her husband. A relationship built on compromises.
I wonder when he compromises.
