Save the Date | Romantic Reads and Such

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Save the Date

by Allison Raskin

Blurb:

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Emma Moskowitz and…someone…

When couples therapist Emma Moskowitz is unceremoniously dumped by her fiancé six months before their wedding, her world comes crashing down: her thriving private practice, her status as a popular online creator, even her book deal all hinge on the fact that Emma is an expert when it comes to romantic relationships. Not to mention her heart is ripped in half.

It isn’t fair. She worked so hard to be ready for marriage. If only Emma could find a different groom by her planned wedding day, nothing would have to change….

So commences Operation: Save My Date.

As Emma publicly shares her untraditional journey to the altar online, things get complicated quickly. She finds herself caught between Will, a charismatic podcast producer who is not interested in being a replacement groom; and Matt, a sweet, recent divorcee eagerly looking to settle down.

As the wedding day approaches, Emma must decide what future she truly wants for herself. After all, her family, her book editor, and a large portion of the internet are watching…

*****

Excerpt:

one

“I just don’t understand what happened.”

Emma Moskowitz lay face down in her parents’ office as they talked above her inert body. The carpet irritated her sensitive cheek, but getting a rash was the least of her worries at the moment. She was used to rashes. What she wasn’t used to—at least not yet—was the staggering pain of betrayal.

“He didn’t explain why he was doing this?” her father, Alan, asked for what had to have been the fifth time in as many minutes.

Instead of verbally responding, Emma let out a long groan to signal that she wasn’t yet in the mood to psychoanalyze why her carefully planned life was falling apart. She was still very much in the maybe I could just lie here for a few years and then die stage of grieving. That stage wasn’t talked about nearly enough. It was important.

“What did she say?” Alan looked to Emma’s mother, Debbie, for an interpretation of what could best be described as an animalistic, guttural moan.

“I don’t think she wants to talk about it just yet,” Debbie offered, despite knowing this explanation likely wasn’t going to appease her type-A husband.

“Can I have some water?” Emma interjected, finally moving into a seated position from a full-body sprawl. She wasn’t entirely confident that she was capable of drinking anything yet, but she thought she owed it to her family to try. She knew her mom hated seeing her in pain and her dad hated not having a clear solution to offer. Now that he was retired, Alan wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Emma didn’t want her recent upheaval to become his newest pet project (along with pickleball, online poker and brewing his own root beer). Despite her mother’s endless complaints of being smothered by her loving husband, Alan was the busiest retired person Emma knew. And as a couples therapist, she knew quite a few. Having a recently retired spouse was the new seven-year-itch—except this version of an itch appeared to be an overwhelming desire to be left alone. Emma wished with all her might that she was someone who wanted to be left alone instead of being herself: a person who as a child found a way to play “wedding” at every single playdate.

“Do you want bottled or from the tap with ice?” Debbie asked as though the right form of H2O could fix a broken heart.

“Doesn’t matter.” Emma sighed for effect. “Nothing matters anymore.”

Through a brief exchange of eye contact, Alan and Debbie mutually agreed it wasn’t safe to leave their youngest daughter by herself. So Alan went to retrieve the requested water, while Debbie did her best to sit on the floor, ignoring her numerous knee issues and bad back. Her hand hovered over Emma’s leg; she was unsure if physical touch would cause comfort or alarm.

“I am so sorry this is happening to you,” Debbie whispered.

Emma thought about all the other times in her life that her mother had said this. There was the time Emma fell off a chair when she was six and broke her collarbone. The time in her early twenties when her “best friends” planned a weekend trip without informing or inviting her. And there were the far too many times Emma had been unceremoniously dumped by a variety of men.

Although her present situation technically fell into the latter category, Emma felt that having her fiancé walk out on her for no apparent reason warranted its own classification of suffering.

This time was different than when her college boyfriend left her to date a high-schooler. Or when her adult boyfriend left her for a college student. This felt like the sort of pain you couldn’t get over with a laugh and a puff of medical-grade marijuana. This felt like the sort of pain that changed you forever.

Alan returned with both a cold glass of ice and a plastic water bottle. When Emma didn’t move to take either one, he set them on the side table and declared, “I think I should call him.”

“Call who?” Debbie asked with the cautious optimism of someone who hoped her husband wasn’t a total moron.

“Ryan! Maybe I can talk some sense into him. Or at least get some answers.”

Fear overtook Emma’s nervous system at the mere thought of that conversation occurring. She reached out and grasped her father’s ankle to let him know she meant business. “Please do not contact him. He won’t tell you anything useful,” Emma pleaded. “All he told me is something is missing and there is no point in working on it because it can’t be fixed. I just need to move on.”

Debbie and Alan looked at Emma with a mixture of compassion and concern. Emma couldn’t blame them—not after showing up the previous evening crying and shouting “It’s over! He left me!” before abruptly passing out on the couch to avoid her feelings. Emma felt a pang of guilt that she’d left her parents with such confounding uncertainty for almost ten hours. She knew more than most that not knowing was a special form of torture. It was time to fill them in.

“It only lasted twenty minutes.” Emma moaned as the painful memory hit her again. They had been eating dinner in front of the TV when she noticed something was off. As soon as she asked about it—expecting to hear that Ryan’s stomach hurt or his boss was annoying him again—the floodgates opened. Apparently, he’d been having doubts for months but didn’t know how to tell her. Emma tried her best to fight for them, but a switch had been flipped in Ryan’s brain and it was like trying to reason with a concrete wall. Every suggestion she flung out to try to work on their relationship was met with steely resistance. It was obvious that once the words were finally out of Ryan’s mouth, he had no intention of taking them back. He had been set free while Emma was left crushed and disoriented. Their engagement was unceremoniously over in less time than it took to watch a network sitcom.

“What were the doubts? Do you know?” Alan asked in a rather accusatory tone. Despite being retired, he would forever be a lawyer combing through details in search of a win. He didn’t seem to understand that social contracts could be broken far more easily and with fewer repercussions than legal ones.

Emma shook her head. “Unless something is missing is a clarifying answer for you. Because it’s not for me!” She could feel that she was losing control of her emotions. Within a minute or two, any attempt at coherent speech would be usurped by streaming tears and a horrifying amount of snot. She tried to get a handle on herself as her brain went into overdrive, poking and pinching the most vulnerable parts of her psyche, her insecurities finding every possible way to punish her for someone else’s decision.

The entire breakup had felt surreal from start to finish. Emma hadn’t even fully realized she was experiencing a breakup until about halfway through. She’d known things had been off between them for a few months, but it seemed to be more of a Ryan issue than a Ryan-and-Emma issue. He was unhappy with his job. He was struggling with anxiety. He had less interest in his hobbies than normal. To Emma, a licensed marriage and family therapist, it was pretty obvious he was in the midst of a depressive episode. She tried her best to be supportive while her partner was going through a tough time—and she used every ounce of self-esteem that came from her newly earned secure attachment style to not take it personally.
Turns out, she should have taken it personally. Because, according to Ryan, the issues in his life were not related to anxiety or depression after all. He was miserable because he was in the wrong relationship. She was the source of the problem, not him. And once he realized that, he had to end things right away. Or, you know, once Emma dragged it out of him on a random Monday night.

As Emma recounted this to her parents, somehow managing to make it through without dissolving into incoherent sobs, she felt slightly vindicated by the looks of confusion on their faces. This was objectively confusing, right? To ask your live-in partner to marry you and then walk out six months later completely certain that there was nothing to be done to salvage the relationship? Emma was a couples therapist, for Christ’s sake! She made a living salvaging relationships and Ryan wasn’t even willing to try? It was both a personal and a professional slap in the face.

Emma had a bunch of clients in far worse situations than hers who’d been tirelessly working on fixing things for years. One notable client had slept with his wife’s second cousin for three years and they were still together. Yet Ryan—who only a few months ago had cried with happiness as he put an engagement ring on Emma’s finger—insisted there was no point in even attempting to repair whatever he thought was broken. He had too many “concerns,” so it was best to just move on. What those concerns were exactly remained a mystery that would likely haunt Emma until she died in what she anxiously feared would be an untimely and possibly gruesome fashion.

While on the topic of unfortunate demises, Emma briefly considered murdering Ryan before news of her abandonment became public. That way she would be perceived as a grieving fiancée instead of a rejected loser, which felt much more palatable. While murder would never be her first choice when dealing with a crisis, her reputation was on the line. It is one thing to get blindsided by your partner when you’re a civilian. It’s quite another when you have a master’s in clinical psychology and make a living giving relationship advice. It was the professional equivalent of a cardiologist not realizing she was having a heart attack: mortifying. For the first time, Emma regretted her inability to hide in obscurity due to her hard-earned success.

Oh, fuck.

“My book deal!”

*****

Author Info:

Allison Raskin is a New York Times bestselling author. She is the cohost of the popular podcast Just Between Us and cocreator of a YouTube channel by the same name. Allison has written and developed multiple TV shows and created the original scripted podcast Gossip. A vocal mental health advocate, Allison has a master’s degree in Psychology from Pepperdine University. She also runs the mental health–focused Instagram account @emotionalsupportlady.

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