“No, but you were about to tell her what happened today, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I wanted to make sure I didn’t overreact,” I said.
“You did,” he said. “That’s the answer. You did overreact.”
I felt my nostrils flare, my lips tighten with the scowl on my face. “Says who?” I asked defensively.
“Says everyone I've talked to. You yelled at my mother,” he said, more of a statement than a question.
“I did not yell at your mother,” I snapped. “If anything, she was the one I was the least upset with.”
“You ruined her afternoon with one of her oldest friends. Now, Diana thinks you’re a spoiled bitch, and she told my mother she should call all her wedding contacts and cancel everything.”
“Well, maybe she should.”
The words left my mouth before I realized I was saying them.
Tyler’s eyes widened, and I swallowed as I took a deep breath, thinking of any way to reconcile the blunt verbiage without an all-out fight on the lawn.
“What I mean,” I recovered slowly, “is that if she feels that way, she should. She doesn’t have to take on planning this out on her own. I never asked her to do this—I neverexpectedher to do this. She can cancel everything, and I’ll deal with it over time. It’ll just be a while before we get married.”
And I'll have time to figure this all out.
“I didn’t mean to lash at them,” I said. “I really didn’t. But they just kept pushing.”
“Chloe, it was one photo,” he argued. “What was one photo going to hurt?”
A fucking lotwas what I wanted to say.
“You know how I feel about social media,” I said instead.
“I thought you said you would try.”
“Tyler, I am trying,” I said. “I am. What do you want me to do? Give in to every request they have?”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
“That’s not trying. That’s rolling over,” I argued. “That’s getting walked on, and I’ve done that before. It only makes you resentful.”
Tyler sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “You weren't always like this,” he muttered, our eyes meeting. “Something’s changed within the last few months.”
My teeth gritted together, but I didn’t move from my place on the wall.
“Is it the wedding?" he asked. "Are you anxious about it, about getting married?”
“I just have a lot going on,” I said, and it wasn’t a complete lie. “We have the biggest client we’ve ever had at work. Everything with the wedding… I honestly think it might be harder not knowing what’s going on. And then, this whole six to eight months before moving to Florida threw me this week.”
He hung his head for a silent moment, and I wondered what he was thinking—if he thought I was lying, if he had any idea about my affair with Gavin, or that I was seriously pulling away from him more and more every day.
I was curious if he had even noticed.
“I’m leaving from here tomorrow,” he said then. “A car will take us to the airport around lunch, but the jet will take you home. I think you need to figure out what’s going on with you. Fuck, Chloe, I’ll book you the next three weeks at a spa or retreat if that would help with your anxiety—if it is that.”
I didn’t reply as he crossed the space between us and took my hands in his. “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “We always do. I just want my Chloe back.”
HisChloe was dying.
HisChloe was slowly fading away into nothingness.
