Iwould have beengetting my hair done right now.
Iwould have beendrinking champagne before getting into my dress.
Warrenwould have beentrying to peek at me before the ceremony.
My grandma must somehow know the turmoil inside me, because she’s asked me to take her into town to eat lunch. Leaving Sweet Escape is something she does so rarely, the unusualness of the request jolted me from my despondency.
“Thank you,” Grandma says as the server sets down her food.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, taking a bite of my salad. “It’s not often you ask me out to lunch.”
“All good,” she says cheerfully. “Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about what today would’ve been.”
I push aside the mixed greens with my fork. “You really know how to get right to it.”
“No use in beating around the bush. You’ve been moping around all morning.”
“I know,” I sigh. “Do you think Brady noticed?”
“Well, yes. He’s not blind. Did he mention anything to you?”
“No.” My fork clatters to my plate and I catch my head in my hands and groan. “Why is this one day such a big deal? It’s no different from yesterday, or every other day before it.”
“Addy, this was supposed to be your wedding day. Of course it’s different from every other day.”
I lift my head. “But the circumstances are the same. I know today what I knew yesterday. My Warren is gone.”
And he took with him our entire future.
A little thought digs at me, poking, forcing me to acknowledge it. Would I have married someone I wasn’t one hundred percent certain about? The answer scares me. I’d like to think I would’ve either decided I was all in or been brave enough to back out. I guess now I’ll never know.
“None of this matters anymore, you know that, right?”
I flinch. Grandma’s tendency to cut through the bullshit can sting.
“Of course I know that. Warren’s not coming back, obviously.”
“So how long are you planning on letting it hurt you?”
“How does someoneletsomething hurt them?”
Grandma snorts. “Easily. You either allow the emotion to affect your thoughts and actions, or you don’t.”
“Maybe not everyone is as iron-willed as you.”
She shrugs and takes a bite. “Their loss.”
I can’t take much more, so I move the conversation to the mundane and Grandma doesn’t stop me. We finish eating and pay. I pause a few feet from the outside of the restaurant, turning my face up to the summer sun. The air conditioning had been turned on so high I’d had goosebumps for most of lunch. The sun’s rays permeate my skin, and I’m busy enjoying it, until a harsh, gravelly voice interrupts me.
“Are you Addison West?”
Even though I’ve only heard it once, the voice is unmistakable. Reluctantly, I turn to look at Beatrice. She looks just as intimidating today as she did in the bakery the first and only time I’ve seen her.
“Yes,” I confirm, waiting to hear what she has to say.
“Why didn’t you tell me that day at the bakery when you saw me adding my name to the list?”
I make a face. I don’t know what kind of face it is, I just know that I can feel my cheeks scrunch. This woman is a few bricks shy of a load. Either that or her frontal lobe never fully developed.
