My heart bloomed in my chest at his admission that he came to the party to see me. I picked up the last olive and the tray. “Thanks for the save.”
He shrugged, a sly look in his eye. “Couldn’t let you take all the hits alone.”
The olive salad smudged on my sleeve caught my eye. “I’ll be back. Just need to drop off this tray and clean up before I start smelling like a deli counter.”
I made my way back to the kitchen, carefully balancing the tray as I wove through the crowd. Once there, I set it down with a sigh of relief and inspected the damage to my costume. The olive salad smear wasn’t nasty, but it was enough to send me toward the bathroom for a quick rinse.
On my way back from the bathroom, I had to cut through the ballroom. There, a deep voice froze me in place. It was a voice I hadn’t heard in years, but one I could never forget.
“Anna.”
There he was. Beau. The man who had shattered my heart without a second thought. He looked the same, all casual rich-boy charm with his surfer-dude hair and fitted tuxedo. The rest of the world dropped away.
For years, I had rehearsed this moment in my mind, envisioning what I would say if I ever ran into Beau again.
Never had I envisioned that I would be wearing a jester costume.
“Beau, h-hi,” I stammered, my voice barely above a whisper.
“You look... Different.” Beau’s eyes scanned me from head to toe. The way his gaze lingered on my ridiculous costume made my stomach churn.
Different?Different?Was that what we were going with? I swallowed hard, the sting of his casual condescension making my cheeks flush.
“I could say the same,” I shot back, surprising even myself. My eyes flicked to his tailored tuxedo and carefully tousled hair. But it was a lie. He looked every bit the polished rich guy he’d always been.
“I heard you’re working at that bar,” he said smoothly, as if he hadn’t just raked me over the coals with a glance. “Muses, right? Still writing, too?”
“Yes, actually,” I said, lifting my chin. “And you’re back at the family bank?”
He shrugged, his smirk unwavering. “You know how it is. Gotta take over the family legacy sooner or later. Looks like we’re both keeping busy.”
I wanted to say something clever, but my mind stalled. All those imaginary confrontations, all those rehearsed zingers, and yet I was completely blank.
“Hey, congrats on the engagement,” I said finally, my voice stiff.
Beau’s smirk faltered. “Yeah, about that… I’m sorry. For how everything ended. You know, my bad.”
I blanched.My bad.That was his apology? I stared at him, and a hot wave of anger stirred in my gut. My brain scrambled for a retort, but my tongue sat in my mouth like a lead weight.
I could have been a good Southern girl, graciously pretending he hadn’t ripped my heart out and stomped on it in front of an audience. But no. The anger won out, and suddenly, I found my voice.
“Yeah, that’s right, it is yourbad.”
Beau’s mouth fell open like he’d just been hit with a flying muffuletta.
“Yes, you hurt me,” I continued, the words tumbling out with years of pent-up frustration. “And yes, reading about it in thenewspaperwas a cruel way to find out you were cheating on me. And I know you feel pressure from your parents to marry the right person, join the right clubs, and be the perfect heir to the family business. But I remember the Beau who loved art, who dreamed of moving to Paris to paint every day while I wrote.”
I paused, my breath catching as his expression shifted to something almost like regret. But I wasn’t finished.
“And you know what I’ve learned? The more you twist yourself to fit other people’s expectations, the further you stray from who you are, the more you become a stranger to yourself.”
The words hung in the air like beads from a Mardi Gras float—bright, bold, and impossible to ignore. I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly lighter.
Life after Beau had been chaos. My once-promising writing career had stumbled, my dreams felt like they’d gone up in smoke, and for a while, I thought everything was slipping away. But now, standing here, I realized something important: that wasn’t the whole story.
So what if I wasn’t a published author?Yet.The exhilaration wasn’t in the recognition or the success; it was in staying true to myself and chasing what mattered to me. And because of that, I was more myself now than Beau, Reagan, or any of their crowd would ever be.
Beau’s face twisted into an expression of pure astonishment, and I thought that my words had gotten through to him. Then I noticed he wasn’t looking at me anymore.
