I didn’t stay off Instagram for that long. Obviously. Every time I reached for my phone I was reminded that Brady and Caroline were engaged so I stopped myself. If I wasn’t on Instagram then I didn’t have to see it and if I didn’t see then I didn’t have to think about it. And I did not want to think about it. For some reason the thought of Brady and Caroline made me feel anxious and uneasy and I wondered how quickly I could find a therapist. I didn’t like feeling that way about two people I didn’t think I cared about.

Less than an hour later though, I picked up my phone and started scrolling through Instagram again, trying to stumble upon Caroline’s post. I could easily just search for her page to see it, but I wanted to find it organically again because that would make me feel better.

Eventually the “Forever with you, are you kidding me?” post popped up — the first picture again. It was a far away picture of the actual proposal — two bundled up ants (Brady and Caroline) on some sand with cliffs and a bridge in the background. San Francisco maybe? So he’d bought an engagement ring, taken her on this trip and planned this big proposal, but hadn’t said a word to anyone? Don’t get me wrong — I know he doesn’t tell me anything, but if he planned on marrying Caroline, she would become Winnie’s stepmom and that’s a big deal.

I studied the photo and felt relieved that I didn’t feel envious (the proposal was not my style at all and the whole vibe felt gray and damp). I could not believe that Brady actually proposed to her though. I was wondering what about her made him think: “This is it. I want to marry her.” Maybe she’d met his mom and his mom approved — which I couldn’t imagine. Brady’s mom hates everyone including her own children. The entire thing reeked of haste and desperation.

As I inspected the picture closer, I saw that Caroline was holding her dog on a leash and it bothered me because the stupid dog was included in the proposal, but Brady’s own child wasn’t? Winnie was clearly not even aware of the proposal (as she would’ve told me), and he couldn’t even so much as call or FaceTime her to share his news?

The next photo was the closeup on the boat where you could actually see the ring. It appeared to be a solitaire elongated cushion or radiant diamond with a gold band and probably about two carats total — a good size for her small hand. I liked it, I guess. And in the picture, Brady is actually smiling with teeth showing — he’s usually giving an unenthusiastic half-smile in all of his other pictures. So maybe he was truly happy.

I felt weird and sad, but not because I was jealous or anything. I felt sad for Winnie because this was a lot of change for her in a short amount of time. And I know that she tolerates Caroline, but she doesn’t love her — couldn’t Brady have waited until they had a better relationship before making such a permanent decision? Is that unreasonable?

I made sure not to like the photo so I could feign ignorance when/if Brady ever decided to tell me. But I took a screenshot to send to everyone I knew including, but limited to: my mother, Kendra, Carly, Lola, Erika and Kristina.

Thursday morning, Winnie and I hopped in the car to go to Connecticut and Brady met us outside his (Caroline’s) house when we got there. That was his new thing — as if he didn’t want me to step foot into their home. He picked Winnie up and hugged her and asked her to tell him what she got for Christmas. I was waiting for him to tell her that he’d gotten her a new stepmom, but he didn’t.

Eventually Winnie demanded to be let down and then she headed inside. Brady waited until she was out of earshot to turn back to me. Before I could even ask him how Christmas and his birthday were, he said, “I wanted to let you know that Cara and I got engaged over the weekend.”

Brady looked everywhere, but at me and I stared at him silently, waiting for him to make eye contact. He looked at the ground and behind me and back at the house and my car.

Eventually, I was like, “I know, I saw on Instagram. Congratulations.”

“Oh. I did not know it was on Instagram,” he said.

Huh, so maybe he and his new fiancée also had communications issues and the issue had nothing to do with me.

“Are you happy? I didn’t even know you planned on proposing,” I said.

Brady said, “Well, I’m not getting any younger…”

“Oh, so it’s an age thing and not a me thing? Because I could’ve sworn you’ve told me in the past that you don’t want to ever get married, but maybe you just didn’t want to get married to me.” I couldn’t help myself. No one had been more anti-marriage than Brady and now he was engaged to this random girl barely a year after knowing her and I had to call him out on it.

“Well, I asked you, Reese,” Brady said in an accusatory way, finally looking at me. “Before I even got serious with Cara, I asked you if you wanted to work on us and our relationship and you said: ‘that ship has sailed.’”

Hello?! If I wasn’t so fucking shook, I would’ve been dying laughing about him using my exact words against me like that.

“It was too late at that point and you know it! We were both with other people!” I screamed at him.

I actually for once started to feel bad for Caroline. She seemed so happy and optimistic about the engagement and Brady basically just admitted that he settled because he’s getting old. Maybe that’s not what he meant, but that’s how I took it.

I ended the conversation by saying, “Anyway, I hope you’re happy and y’all have a good life together.”

“Thanks,” Brady said sarcastically before turning to go back inside.

Later on, I was thinking about it and I felt bad about how the conversation went. It’s supposed to be one of the happiest times in his life, you know, and I didn’t try to go there and pick a fight with him. He probably thought I was a jealous bitter bitch and I totally was not. I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that Brady and I were never compatible and it’s not that he didn’t want to get married — he just didn’t want to marry me. It’s tough, but I can admit it. And jokes on him because now he’s stuck with me for life!

So I ordered a bottle of champs to be delivered to their home and signed it from Brendan and me, even though I hadn’t even told Brendan the news yet.

It definitely wasn’t a competition, but after Friendsgiving and Reagan’s shady Instagram post, I felt like I needed a bit of a revamp. I made an appointment with my hard-to-reach hairstylist for a cut and color, I visited my neighborhood esthetician for some fine tuning, and actually went into my Pilates class instead of accepting the late cancellation fee and going on with my day. Nothing major, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t even a chance of Reagan being prettier than me.

After Thanksgiving it was basically a sprint until the next break — Christmas. My parents would be visiting. I wasn’t looking forward to it and I tried to talk them out of it, but then I felt bad because I spoke to my dad and he was really excited about it.

In the meantime I’d more or less settled into my new position and even found a new daytime hobby: bothering Brendan while he worked!

I had intense baby fever for approximately four weeks and I was obsessed with having a little bubbarooni of my own. I wanted a sweet little boy, who I’d enroll in therapy the moment he hatched, and had the names narrowed down to Sebastian (Seb for short) and Theodore (Teddy). Most of the time I can’t imagine myself having more kids as Winnie is a handful by herself. And then I’ll randomly see a cute baby on Instagram or at the store and think, “K, can I order one of these for one hour delivery on Prime? I need one now!”

I called Brendan at two o’clock one afternoon.

“I want a baby,” I said.

“I don’t,” he said back with a laugh, not missing a beat.

“Ugh, you don’t?” Why did I expect him to just automatically agree with me?

“Not right now. That’s like, a lot of work,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s not that much work.” Don’t tell me Brendan thought having a baby was too much work even though he wouldn’t have to carry or birth the thing.

“Hang on a sec,” he said and then I listened while he had an entire conversation with someone and the cacophony of sanding, beeping and banging went on in the background. Eventually Brendan came back to the line and said, “K, I’m back.”

“So you don’t want a baby?” I confirmed, devastated.

“No, I don’t want a baby right now,” he said.

“Ugh but I do!” It was just really upsetting to me that Brendan doesn’t want a baby with me, but was actually trying with his ex-wife who he barely liked, who was cheating on him and who is basically a real life Disney movie villain.

Brendan said, “Do you have something you want to tell me, Reese?”

“I’m not pregnant, oh my god!” I exclaimed. I have been diligent about my birth control and being responsible after having an accidental baby in the form of my little princess, Winnie. But while we’re on the topic, if he supposedly doesn’t want a baby now (even though he always talks about how excited he is to have kids), then why was it my sole responsibility to make sure we didn’t have one?

“Okay, good,” Brendan sighed.

And then after that, my baby fever was miraculously gone.

Another time, Brendan mentioned that he wanted to reorganize/restructure his office before Miguel got back and I was like, “K, I’ll help. I’m on my way.” I never visit Brendan’s office mainly because it’s in an area of the city I do not frequent and is not near anything else. Plus it’s a little…industrial for my taste. It’s not even an office really — it’s more like a dodgy warehouse with standing desks in it. The only person who even has a private office is Miguel, and when I got there I saw that Gigi had moved her desk into a corner of his private office. In the words of Sutton Stracke: it was sus.

Gigi and Izzy were running around like bumbling idiots when I arrived and then swarmed me to talk about my outfit, shoes, hair and lips (why yes, I did get one syringe injected in my lips during my fine tuning — a holiday treat).

“I love your boots, are they Gucci? Who makes your coat? What size are you, can I try it on?”

“Did you color your hair? Who is your stylist? What do you ask for? How much was it? Do you use purple shampoo?”

I appreciated all of the attention. Brendan was taking a phone call at his standing desk, but eventually came over to join us.

“K, I’m gonna order it,” Izzy said, prancing around in my jacket. “But can I borrow your credit card? I left my wallet at home.”

“Yeah, just use my p-card. It’s on my desk,” Gigi said.

Brendan was like, “…that’s not what that’s for.”

Gigi and Izzy stared at him like he’d grown another nose.

“Oh, it’s not?” Gigi said, clueless.

“Uh, no,” he said.

Hilarious! So you mean these dummies were using Gigi’s business credit card for personal shopping? Honestly, it’s kind of amazing. I would’ve never even thought to do that (probably because I have more than three brain cells), but if they were getting away with it then why not I suppose?

My parents arrived on the evening of Winnie’s birthday and decided to come straight to the apartment for a sleepover. They built a tragic little campground/fort in the living room which Winnie obviously loved because she’s always into a bit of chaos and confusion. She’d spent the day terrorizing her classmates on the last day of school before a very long break and after school, we went out for dessert with her various friends, Olivia, Nyla and Beatrice. Brendan even stopped by super briefly to bring a gift and say hi to my parents. We had dinner plans the next night so it really wasn’t necessary, but he’s nice so he came anyway. It was just going to be the five of us at dinner, but Brendan mentioned/suggested the possibility of his parents joining us.

He hadn’t previously discussed this with me and I was not prepared for my mom meeting Brendan’s parents. I was like, “Uh, no.” My mother hadn’t exactly welcomed Brendan with open arms and in my opinion, she didn’t deserve to meet his parents and get the opportunity to interrogate them too.

“Oh, we’d love that!” my mom shrieked. “We would love to meet your parents!”

“I do not want that to happen,” I said out loud.

“You don’t?” Brendan said and the look on his face told me he was taking it personally. You know how he is.

“Not really, no,” I said.

They all stared at me waiting for me to elaborate and I didn’t want to be a total bitch so I was like, “Just kidding!”

My mom knew I wasn’t kidding and later asked me why I didn’t want them all to meet. She insinuated that there was something wrong with Brendan’s family that I was ashamed/embarrassed of and that was the reason I didn’t want them to meet. I’m like, wow lady, you really have zero self awareness. I even gave her my usual stern list of prohibited conversation topics and she still didn’t think that maybe my issue was with her.

Or maybe she did because dinner went surprisingly really well. Do you remember when I first met Brendan’s dad and stepmom and got kind of nervous that I was meeting them and worried that they’d judge me or it would be all weird and awkward? They’re just not like that, I guess, at least not outwardly. My mom was on her best behavior for the most part and mostly just dredged up old stories about me that no one wanted to hear. And I guess I get it — I’m her only kid and she doesn’t work so wtf else was she supposed to talk about? 

My parents started bickering after we ate dinner (as they always, always do) and everyone else just continued on like it wasn’t weird while I was dying inside. I appreciated Brendan’s parents giving them space to fight and minding their business (you just know if it was Brady’s mom, she would’ve watched them in horror and judgement). We all had espressos, martinis or gelatos in front of us and finally I turned to them and said, “Oh my god, can y’all stop?!”

My dad said, “Yes, I’m sorry,” and of course my mom said, “Stop what, hun?”

We said goodbye to Brendan’s parents and then the rest of us went back to my apartment. And by then, my mom was suddenly interested in talking to Brendan. I was relieved that she was actually warming up to him, but annoyed that it had taken this long when she should’ve been interested in getting to know him in the first place. She was like, “Wow, Margot seems great — how long has she been in your life? Have you always been close? And what about your mom?” Things she could’ve asked when they first met over the summer instead of being a judgy bitch. I don’t know, it just annoyed me.

Do you know who we didn’t hear from over Christmas? Brady. He FaceTimed Winnie on her birthday, but didn’t call on Christmas or even Christmas Eve. Honestly, I didn’t even notice and Winnie didn’t either — usually if she wants to speak to her father, she will FaceTime him, but she didn’t bother. I thought literally nothing of it.

He texted me on Tuesday morning to coordinate drop off later in the week. And then I hopped on Instagram and started scrolling aimlessly like I always do. Is it just me or is Instagram not as fun anymore? I always scroll and scroll until I get the “You’re All Caught Up” message, then I close the app for five minutes until I get bored again and open it up and start scrolling again. It’s an illness at this point.

Do you know how when you’ve seen every post for the past few days, Instagram starts showing you posts you haven’t interacted with again, but shows you the second image in the carousel? Apparently Caroline had posted something that I scrolled right past because the post popped up again. And the second image was a picture of her with Brady and they’re bundled up on a boat. And in the picture, he’s standing behind her and she has her hand held up showing off what looks like a diamond engagement ring. The caption was like, “Forever with you, are you kidding me?!” The first picture in the group was so insignificant that I’d missed it during my mindless scroll, but there it was: Brady and Caroline seemingly engaged.

I quickly closed out of the app and threw my phone down and didn’t open Instagram again.