Love the One You're With

  Praise for Love the One You’re With

  “Giffin’s talent lies in taking relatable situations and injecting enough wit and suspense to make them feel fresh. The cat-and-mouse game between Ellen and Leo lights up these pages, their flirtation as dangerously addictive as a high-speed car chase. The ending isn’t explosive, but what Ellen learns is quietly thrilling: Sometimes, you have to do whatever it takes to be with the one you love.”

  —People, “People Pick”

  “Giffin is a dependably down-to-earth, girl-friendly storyteller.”

  —New York Times

  “A modern-day Jane Austen.”

  —Cincinnati Enquirer

  “Giffin excels at creating complex characters and quick-to-read stories that ask us to explore what we really want from our lives. Love the One You’re With skillfully explores the secret workings of a young woman’s heart, and the often painful consequences of one’s actions.”

  —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Giffin’s fluid storytelling and appealing characters give her novels a warm, inviting air, and her fourth is no exception. Giffin’s snappy prose makes Ellen’s dilemma compelling, once again proving she’s at the top of the pack.”

  —Booklist

  “Though it’s easy to resent Ellen for taking her ideal life for granted, Giffin’s vivid depictions of Ellen’s steamy past with Leo help you commiserate with this realistically insecure woman.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Giffin’s books are funny, sensitive, and truthful depictions of female friendships and the complexities of marriage and motherhood.”

  —Atlanta Peach

  “Ellen’s conflicting thoughts and emotions ring true from page one through the book’s teary (well, at least for this reader) conclusion.”

  —Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Giffin’s book is instantly relatable. Few don’t wonder how their lives would be different if they had turned left rather than right at life’s big forks. Her writing is realistic and entertaining. There are unexpected plot twists and measured jabs at materialism and Southern societal norms, and Giffin’s funny, honest voice lends credence to this modern riff on the old adage that the grass appears greener on the other side of the fence.”

  —Charlotte Observer

  “Giffin is a masterful storyteller and manages to infuse energy, freshness, and suspense into what could have been yet another predictable ‘woman-at-a-crossroads’ story. (Giffin could, in fact, teach some literary authors a few things about how to write compelling plots with strong motors.) The best thing about this book is Giffin doesn’t play it safe or shy away from allowing her heroine to explore lust, infidelity, and the road not taken. The dichotomy of passion and comfort, lust and security, is nothing new to literature, and yet in Giffin’s deft hands, I really had no idea who Ellen would wind up with until the very last page, and, more important, I actually cared.”

  —The Globe and Mail (Canada)

  “I so loved Emily Giffin’s last three books that I almost didn’t want to crack her latest effort, for fear it would be the Superman IV of the author’s literary opus. Mercifully, the new book not only lives up to its elegantly constructed predecessors, it arguably surpasses them in style, maturity, emotion, and overall relatability. Treading the fuzzy line between loyalty and obligation, self-interest and self- preservation, contentment and passion, Love the One You’re With is an achingly honest look at the notion of love as the sum of our choices as opposed to the contents of our vows.”

  —Edmonton Journal (Alberta, Canada)

  “Giffin’s books are smart, sad, and witty…. She is bold enough to allow a mainstream heroine to be happily married while still maintaining her curiosity about the road (or the guy) not taken, let alone considering infidelity. And she’s able to show the strains that these considerations put on family, friends, and husband….It’s the difference between appealing to a mass audience and a reader who wants her ideals challenged rather than affirmed, often intentionally ending in ambiguity and compromise. It’s the stuff of real life, stripped of literary pretensions.”

  —National Post (Canada)

  “Who hasn’t fantasized about what might have happened if? Giffin does an excellent job of letting us live that one out vicariously while telling us a story that is so modern, multilayered, and moving that you’ll feel a little sad when it comes to a close.”

  —Gentry Magazine

  “This sweet tale satisfies through well-drawn characters who are forced to make some tough real-life decisions.”

  —Star

  “Love that’s clouded by the memory of an old romantic relationship is the subject of Emily Giffin’s aptly titled Love the One You’re With. Readers will follow Ellen with fascination and trepidation as she enters the dangerous waters of what might have been—or still could be.”

  —Hartford Courant

  “As Giffin takes readers back and forth between Ellen’s frustrating memories of Leo and her storybook life with Andy, each detail highlights the severe contrasts of her past and present…. Love the One You’re With is a delicious novel for anyone ever caught between what is right and what is irresistible.”

  —BookPage

  “Giffin delivers another relatable and multifaceted heroine who may behave unexpectedly but will ultimately find her true path.”

  —Library Journal

  “Anyone who has been through a painful breakup will relate to Ellen’s dilemma: Should she stay or should she go? And with whom?”

  —Boston Common

  “Giffin’s fourth novel demonstrates much depth as she explores the conflicts that arise between passion and common sense.”

  —Kansas City Star

  “For anyone who has wondered about the path not taken. Thought provoking…and perfect for an afternoon in the sun.”

  —New York Resident

  “Giffin has a remarkable gift for taking banal relationship issues and infusing them with life through her characters. Ellen’s introspective narrative allows readers to become her as she tackles the problems every marriage faces. Her amusing thoughts make people and places tangible…. Love the One You’re With is Giffin’s most moving book yet. The romantic tension hangs off the pages like webs, trapping the characters as they attempt to live conventional lives. As always, Giffin’s writing will leave you fully satiated.”

  —Woodbury magazine

  “Emily Giffin delivers the characters and stories we love in her fourth novel.”

  —OK! magazine

  “Giffin’s characters are all quite likable, and this book is full of fun New York details and musings on the human condition that are more insightful than many books.”

  —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

  For my sweet Harriet

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chap
ter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A Reading Group Guide

  Preview

  Acknowledgments

  Preview

  One

  It happened exactly one hundred days after I married Andy, almost to the minute of our half-past-three o’clock ceremony. I know this fact not so much because I was an overeager newlywed keen on observing trivial relationship landmarks, but because I have a mild case of OCD that compels me to keep track of things. Typically, I count insignificant things, like the steps from my apartment to the nearest subway (341 in comfortable shoes, a dozen more in heels); the comically high occurrence of the phrase “amazing connection” in any given episode of The Bachelor (always in the double digits); the guys I’ve kissed in my thirty-three years (nine). Or, as it was on that rainy, cold afternoon in January, the number of days I had been married before I saw him smack-dab in the middle of the crosswalk of Eleventh and Broadway.

  From the outside, say if you were a cabdriver watching frantic jaywalkers scramble to cross the street in the final seconds before the light changed, it was only a mundane, urban snapshot: two seeming strangers, with little in common but their flimsy black umbrellas, passing in an intersection, making fleeting eye contact, and exchanging stiff but not unfriendly hellos before moving on their way.

  But inside was a very different story. Inside, I was reeling, churning, breathless as I made it onto the safety of the curb and into a virtually empty diner near Union Square. Like seeing a ghost, I thought, one of those expressions I’ve heard a thousand times but never fully registered until that moment. I closed my umbrella and unzipped my coat, my heart still pounding. As I watched a waitress wipe down a table with hard, expert strokes, I wondered why I was so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed utterly inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined sense; just in the quiet, stubborn way that unfinished business has of imposing its will on the unwilling.

  After what seemed like a long time, the waitress noticed me standing behind the Please Wait to Be Seated sign and said, “Oh. I didn’t see you there. Should’ve taken that sign down after the lunch crowd. Go ahead and sit anywhere.”

  Her expression struck me as so oddly empathetic that I wondered if she were a moonlighting clairvoyant, and actually considered confiding in her. Instead, I slid into a red vinyl booth in the back corner of the restaurant and vowed never to speak of it. To share my feelings with a friend would constitute an act of disloyalty to my husband. To tell my older and very cynical sister, Suzanne, might unleash a storm of caustic remarks about marriage and monogamy. To write of it in my journal would elevate its importance, something I was determined not to do. And to tell Andy would be some combination of stupid, self-destructive, and hurtful. I was bothered by the lie of omission, a black mark on our fledging marriage, but decided it was for the best.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress, whose name tag read Annie, asked me. She had curly red hair and a smattering of freckles, and I thought, The sun will come out tomorrow.

  I only wanted a coffee, but as a former waitress, remembered how deflating it was when people only ordered a beverage, even in a lull between meals, so I asked for a coffee and a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese.

  “Sure thing,” she said, giving me a pleasant nod.

  I smiled and thanked her. Then, as she turned toward the kitchen, I exhaled and closed my eyes, focusing on one thing: how much I loved Andy. I loved everything about him, including the things that would have exasperated most girls. I found it endearing the way he had trouble remembering people’s names (he routinely called my former boss Fred, instead of Frank) or the lyrics to even the most iconic songs (“Billie Jean is not my mother”). And I only shook my head and smiled when he gave the same bum in Bryant Park a dollar a day for nearly a year—a bum who was likely a Range Rover-driving con artist. I loved Andy’s confidence and compassion. I loved his sunny personality that matched his boy-next-door, blond, blue-eyed good looks. I felt lucky to be with a man who, after six long years with me, still did the half-stand upon my return from the ladies’ room and drew sloppy, asymmetrical hearts in the condensation of our bathroom mirror. Andy loved me, and I’m not ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were together, of why I loved him back.

  “Did you want your bagel toasted?” Annie shouted from behind the counter.

  “Sure,” I said, although I had no real preference.

  I let my mind drift to the night of Andy’s proposal in Vail, how he had pretended to drop his wallet so that he could, in what clearly had been a much-rehearsed maneuver, retrieve it and appear on bended knee. I remember sipping champagne, my ring sparkling in the firelight, as I thought, This is it. This is the moment every girl dreams of. This is the moment I have been dreaming of and planning for and counting on.

  Annie brought my coffee, and I wrapped my hands around the hot, heavy mug. I raised it to my lips, took a long sip, and thought of our year-long engagement—a year of parties and showers and whirlwind wedding plans. Talk of tulle and tuxedos, of waltzes and white chocolate cake. All leading up to that magical night. I thought of our misty-eyed vows. Our first dance to “What a Wonderful World.” The warm, witty toasts to us—speeches filled with clichés that were actually true in our case: perfect for each other…true love…meant to be.

  I remembered our flight to Hawaii the following morning, how Andy and I had held hands in our first-class seats, laughing at all the small things that had gone awry on our big day: What part of “blend into the background” didn’t the videographer get? Could it have rained any harder on the way to the reception? Had we ever seen his brother, James, so wasted? I thought of our sunset honeymoon strolls, the candlelit dinners, and one particularly vivid morning that Andy and I had spent lounging on a secluded, half-moon beach called Lumahai on the north shore of Kauai. With soft white sand and dramatic lava rocks protruding from turquoise water, it was the most breathtaking piece of earth I had ever seen. At one point, as I was admiring the view, Andy rested his Stephen Ambrose book on our oversized beach towel, took both of my hands in his, and kissed me. I kissed him back, memorizing the moment. The sound of the waves crashing, the feel of the cool sea breeze on my face, the scent of lemons mixed with our coconut suntan lotion. When we separated, I told Andy that I had never been so happy. It was the truth.

  But the best part came after the wedding, after the honeymoon, after our practical gifts were unpacked in our tiny apartment in Murray Hill—and the impractical, fancy ones were relegated to our downtown storage unit. It came as we settled into our husband-and-wife routine. Casual, easy, and real. It came every morning, as we sipped our coffee and talked as we got ready for work. It came when his name popped into my inbox every few hours. It came at night as we shuffled through our delivery menus, contemplating what to have for dinner and proclaiming that one day soon we’d actually use our stove. It came with every foot massage, every kiss, every time we undressed together in the dark. I trained my mind on these details. All the details that comprised our first one hundred days together.

  Yet by the time Annie brought my bagel, I was back in that intersection, my heart thudding again. I suddenly knew that in spite of how happy I was to be spending my life with Andy, I wouldn’t soon forget that moment, that tightness in my throat as I saw his face again. Even though I desperately wanted to forget it. Especially because I wanted to.

  I sheepishly glanced at my reflection in the mirrored wall beside my booth. I had no business worrying about my appearance, and even less business feeling triumphant upon the discovery that I was, against all odds on an afternoon of running errands in the rain, having an extraordinarily good hair day. I also had a rosy glow, but I told myself that it was only the cold that had flushed my cheeks. Nothing else.

  A
nd that’s when my cell phone rang and I heard his voice. A voice I hadn’t heard in eight years and sixteen days.

  “Was that really you?” he asked me. His voice was even deeper than I remembered, but otherwise it was like stepping back in time. Like finishing a conversation only hours old.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So,” he said. “You still have the same cell number.”

  Then, after a considerable silence, one I stubbornly refused to fill, he added, “I guess some things don’t change.”

  “Yes,” I said again.

  Because as much as I didn’t want to admit it, he was sure right about that.

  Two

  My favorite movie of all time is probably When Harry Met Sally. I love it for a lot of reasons—the good eighties feel to it, the quirky chemistry between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, the orgasm scene at Katz’s Deli. But my favorite part is probably those little, old, twinkly-eyed couples, perched on the couch, telling their tales of how they met.

  The very first time I saw the movie, I was fourteen years old, had never been kissed, and to use one of my sister Suzanne’s favorite expressions, was in no hurry to get my panties in a wad over a boy. I had watched Suzanne fall hard for a number of boys, only to get her heart smashed in two, more often than I had my braces tightened, and there was nothing about the exercise that seemed like a particularly good time.

  Still, I remember sitting in that over-air-conditioned theater, wondering where my future husband was at that moment in time—what he looked and sounded like. Was he on a first date, holding someone’s hand with Jujubes and a large Sprite between them? Or was he much older, already in college and experienced in the ways of women and the world? Was he the star quarterback or the drummer in the marching band? Would I meet him on a flight to Paris? In a high-powered board-room? Or the produce aisle in the grocery store in my own hometown? I imagined us telling our story, over and over, our fingers laced together, just like those adoring couples on the big screen.