I scowl, blaming the wine for my sudden urge to trip her. Fine. Have at him, lady. I didn’t want him anyway.
The horn sounds, yes, a motherfucking horn, and everyone charges into the maze with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for bottomless brunch.
I stay where I am. Sip. Glare. Then, finally, clutching my goblet like it will light the path for me, I march in after them.
Three turns in, I’m already lost. Four turns in, I’m starting to sweat. Five turns in, I’ve started talking to a hedge shaped like a deer.
“Who even trims you, Derek?” I sneer at the hedge, who is definitely male and definitely judging me with his perfectly sculpted topiary snout.
He says nothing. Just stares me down. Like he knows I skipped Pilates and brought booze instead of a partner.
The maze is bigger than it looks from the outside. Twisting paths, archways of vines, and secret alcoves. By the sixth wrong turn, I’ve looped past the same creepy gargoyle twice and my shoes are mud soaked. My wine is nearly empty and I’m ninety percent sure I flashed an entire family of pigeons my arse. Suffice to say, they’ve now seen more action than I have all year.
Still no sign of Tyler. Unless he’s hiding behind Derek the Judgemental Hedge. Which, honestly, checks out.
“Of course this happens to me,” I mutter, smacking a branch out of my face. “Of course, I get abandoned in the leafy labyrinth of doom while all the hot people are frolicking like Shakespearean lovebirds.”
My dress snags.
Again.
I trip.
Again.
And that’s when I crack.
“I’m not built for delicate frolicking,” I yell at a nearby bird who flaps away in alarm.
Somewhere nearby, a couple bursts into what can only be described as highly suggestible giggling and that’s me done.
I officially give up.
I slump to the gravel, wincing at the large stone that’s decided to make a home in my backside, and glare up at the sun.
“This maze is why Anne Boleyn lost her head!” I scream.
Then, suddenly, silence.
No giggles. No footsteps. Just the rustle of leaves and a hollow ache in my chest.
The quiet presses in, thick and green and echoey, and or the first time all weekend, I feel… lonely.
Not ‘didn’t get invited to the afterparty’ lonely, but the deep, unsettling kind that sticks in your chest like last night’s takeaway, congealed, regretful, and slightly shameful. The kind that whispers, “Everyone else has someone, and you’re just theentertainment.”
It’s not even just the romance. It’s the crashing realisation that I’m the funny one. The bigger one. The single one. The one who doesn’t get the last dance, only the last laugh, and not always by choice.
I huff. “You’re being ridiculous,” I tell myself. “Pull it together. You’re not lost. You’re just… temporarily unsupervised.”
I stay there. Deflated, definitely dramatic. Praying for a miracle. Or at least a man with cheese.
But mostly, waiting for someone to notice I’m gone.
Chapter 10
The Ballad of Rock Bottom
(and Mild Dehydration)
