Myman.
“I’m so sorry.” He was looking at me now, his blond hair disheveled. To his credit, regret showed on every part of him. His eyes shone with unshed tears. Concern. Worry. All the appropriate emotions for a man jilting his bride on their wedding day. But I didn’t care, because the relief that was now dripping from his body trumped all his concern. The pity in his eyes fueled a sudden anger inside of me.
“She’s in the audience, you know.”
“I know,” he said.
“She was always really nice to me. Was it fake?”
“No. She liked you, too. She feels awful.”
I nodded numbly. “Yeah. I’m sure she does.”
He eyed me warily but said nothing.
“How long?”
Swallowing, he glanced away. “A few months.”
My knees nearly buckled beneath me. Tyler and I had only dated for eight months. We had been engaged for three of those. Which meant…
“The whole time we were engaged, you were seeing her?”
“Not the whole time.”
“Explain to me your thought process when we were picking out invitations and rings and tuxedos. What were you planning to do? Was waiting until the last possible second your master plan?”
“No!” He stood up from the couch. “We tried to stop seeing each other. We knew it was wrong, but things just happened.”
“Stop saying that! Things do not JUST HAPPEN. You LET them happen. You chose her and were playing me.”
“I’m sorry, Tess! I’m so sorry.”
It was done. Over. In the space of three minutes, my wedding dress had been reduced to a costume. A hundred guests waited for us out front. Perhaps they were more clued in on what was going on than I had been. They all probably knew by now. A groom taking off during the ceremony was a definite red flag.
“I’m going to go change. You’re going to go tell everybody the wedding is off. I’m sure my dad and brother will want to chat.” I shouldn’t have felt the twinge of glee at the panicked look in his eyes at the mention of my dad and Nate, who were both well over six feet. He deserved all of it. If he slinked out of here without a black eye, it would be a true miracle. And I didn’t care.
“Tell Camille I said hi.”
I flew past him, went up the stairs to my room, and flung myself down onto my bed, covering my face with my pillow and doing my very best to block out the past eight months.
* * *
Logan wasquiet after I finished my story. I had nothing else to say, so I waited in the silence. The sound of the river floating lazily next to us left me feeling deceptively calm. Or maybe it was retelling the whole story from my perspective to new ears. Ears belonging to someone whowasn’tbeing paid to help me dissect all the associated emotions.
His voice was a husky rumble when he spoke. “When I figured out who he was at the store, I had very vivid thoughts on where I could shove one of your tampons, but I played nice because you were playing nice. Now, I’m wishing I could do it all over again. I know just the spot…”
A soft laugh escaped me. “Telling Camille that she should put some ice on that was good enough for me.”
He made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “That all really sucks, Tess.”
“I’m over it. I’ve dealt with this for over a year. I promise, I’m okay. Seeing Tyler tonight was actually good for me, I think.” Trying to lighten the mood, I looked over at him and added, “That tackle really brought things full circle.”
Sometime during my story, we had both turned toward each other, our arms bent beneath our heads for pillows, curled on our sides. He didn’t laugh at my joke, but he watched me, instead, with hooded eyes. When he spoke again, his words were soft and seemed controlled, like he was afraid to give too much but was determined to say something.
“You had a good family life growing up. Good parents. Which is ideal, you know, but it can make it easy to be naive going into relationships sometimes.” He jerked his hand between us. “Not that being naive is a bad thing necessarily, it can just…make it hard to see the warning signs.”
“Yes.” I leaned forward, my thoughts animated with validation all of a sudden. “Looking back, there were so many times with Tyler where I should have questioned his actions. Anybody else probably would have, but I never did.”
