“I’m Ava,” I say with a less than pleasant tone. “Trevor’sfiancé.”
“Oh right,” she smirks. “I heard something about that.”
I can feel myself getting dangerously close to slapping this woman and telling her to get the hell out of my house. Trevor stands there silently as if he had swallowed his tongue. When he fails to make an introduction, the woman decides to do it herself.
“I’m Bridget,” she says. “Trevor’s—well, let me see how I want to put this—last lovermaybe? I’m not really sure what to call myself, to be honest. What would you call me, Trevor?”
She turns to look at him, but he still just stares at her with his mouth hanging open.
What the heck is wrong with him?I kind of want to slap some sense into him now too.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I’m the person Trevor slept with after you moved to the city. You know, after high school when you dumped him and broke his heart. We were together almost the entire time you were gone. Until Trevor heard that your mom had died and that you might be coming back into town. Then he dumped me.”
She laughs hysterically, and it really makes her sound like she is mentally unhinged.
“But that’s all water under the bridge now, I guess, right?”
I look at Trevor and this time I give him a gentle smack across the chest to snap him out of it. He clears his throat and looks mortified for more reasons than I can count.
“Nice to see you, Bridget,” he says as he reaches for my hand and turns to walk away. “I hope you enjoy the party.”
She calls after him saying something, but I can’t really make out what it is.
“I’m really sorry,” Trevor says as he gets me alone down the hallway a bit to talk privately. “I had heard that Bridget moved out of town a few weeks ago. If I had any idea that she was still here and might come tonight, I would have told you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her to begin with?” I ask.
“I guess I just never thought about it,” he answers. “I dated her after you left me, and I stopped dating her before you came back. It had nothing at all to do with us, and it wasn’t really a relationship that I wanted to remember.”
That made sense.
“I kind of just thought that it would go away,” he says as he looks back in the general direction of the party.
“Looks like it didn’t,” I say.
10
Trevor
Iam absolutely shocked to see Bridget here. And I can’t think of a more mortifying situation than to have your old girlfriend show up at your engagement party for your current girlfriend. As soon as Bridget came up to me and threw her mouth on top of mine for a kiss, I tried to brush her off and ignore her attempt to push her tongue into my mouth. But Bridget is a difficult woman to ignore. She makes it that way on purpose. I can see that Ava is upset and that talking to her in the hall has eased her nerves a little bit about the situation, but it is still very awkward and uncomfortable, and I wish that Bridget would just leave. It sure takes a lot of balls for her to even have shown up and to still be here tonight. When Ava and I return to the party, it doesn’t take long for Bridget to show right back up in our faces again and hand us both drinks.
“Cheers,” she says with an overly-exaggerated smile. “To the soon-to-be-married couple.”
“Thanks,” I say as I take the drink and chug the entire contents of the glass. I notice that Ava does the same. Maybe a drink will help to make this less awful and embarrassing. I pull Ava’s hand along with mine and try to leave Bridget behind again with the excuse of needing to go and mingle with some of the prospective clients. But as I start walking toward the other room, I start to feel strangely. The room seems to be darkening and swirling around my vision a bit. I look at Ava to see if she looks okay, and she does.
“Are you okay?” she asks as she looks at me with concern in her eyes.
“Yeah,” I say. “I think I just need some water and to sit down for a minute.”
I take a seat in one of the chairs while Ava goes to the kitchen to grab me a glass of water. It’s probably all the nerves along with chugging a glass of champagne withing a second flat and not having eaten anything yet. I’ll be fine in a minute once I eat and drink some water. Anddefinitelyonce Bridget leaves and the party is over. But instead of Ava coming back with water, Bridget comes and sits down beside me.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. “Some water will help.”
“No, it won’t,” she says.
I look up at her, thinking about what a strange thing that is for her to say. And I see a very guilty-looking smile on her face.
“Bridget, what did you do?” I ask her.
But I don’t get an answer to my question, because I suddenly feel as though I can’t hold my head up straight anymore and then everything goes black. The last thing I remember hearing is Bridget’s laughter and her voice saying, “See you in the morning, sweetheart, sleep well.”
When I wake up, I am no longer in my house, and I am no longer with my fiancé. Instead, I am somewhere completely different, and Bridget is lying beside me in the bed.
