Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
I just didn’t want to be that person, though. I didn’t want to ask my boyfriend—hopefully still my boyfriend, if the damage hadn’t already been done—to cut someone out of his life for my convenience. But there was no way I would face the rest of my life knowing I would be fighting with Valerie every step of the way.
I swiped at my lower eyelids with my thumb, hoping the fact that I’d been crying wouldn’t show. I wasn’t about to go back to the bathroom while Valerie was still in there. I lifted my chin, set my shoulders back, and went to fake happy for the rest of the night.
Walking into the dining room, I caught Emma in a moment when she thought no one was watching. Her eyes were downcast, and she pushed her salad around her plate with the enthusiasm people reserved for root canals and paying taxes.
I wasn’t the only one faking happy tonight.
* * * *
After the torture of dinner and speeches and watching as Emma painfully tried to maintain her smile despite whatever was eating at her—and hoping it wasn’t really, as Valerie had claimed, discomfort at my presence—I was glad when all the guests had left and the only thing remaining was to make our escape.
“Where’s Emma?” Michael asked, frowning as he scanned the banquet room. “She was just here a moment ago.”
“Probably off to the ladies’,” Pamela said airily. “Well, Valerie, shall we?”
“Are we going as well?” Neil asked, sliding his arm around my waist. I wish I could have felt as confident in his touch as I might have before our fight, but I leaned into him, because Valerie would no doubt be watching for any chink in my armor to exploit.
Michael’s phone rang, and he checked the screen. “It’s my mom and dad. They must have forgotten something. I’m going to take this. If you see Emma—”
“I’ll wander off and find her,” Neil offered.
Valerie and Pamela both gave him a warm goodnight and promises to see us all in the morning. When he left, they shot me cold looks and said nothing more before leaving. So, I guessed Valerie had found a moment to fill her fellow mean girl in on what had taken place in the bathroom.
I waited in the small foyer, casting the occasional look to the hostess who walked around checking on various things she had already checked on a dozen times and impatiently waiting for us to leave. It seemed unlikely that Emma had gotten so lost in the narrow hallway that Neil hadn’t found her yet. Antsy under the increasingly hostile glances from the hostess, I went off to find them.
In the hall that led to the bathroom was a small, empty coat room. From inside, I heard Neil’s voice and…Emma? Crying?
I stood with my back against the dark paneled wall and listened to Emma’s sobs, muffled in her father’s jacket.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she sniffled. “Daddy, I don’t know what to do.”
My heart broke for her. She had last-minute jitters. That was totally normal, wasn’t it? It seemed to be, in all the movies.
“Emma, you love—” Neil muted “horrible” from his sentence. “—Michael. From the first time you brought him home, I could see that.”
“Is love a good enough reason to marry somebody? You loved Mom. You loved Elizabeth. Look how those ended up,” she reminded herself, in the guise of arguing with him.
There was so much pain in Neil’s voice when he spoke again, I wanted to burst into the room and hug him. I didn’t, of course; this was Emma’s moment with her father. But it was difficult to hear Neil work through this moment with his daughter, as difficult as it was to know that Emma was unhappy on the eve of her wedding.
“You are not me, Emma. No matter how alike we are. I’ve made stupid mistakes in my past. You’re much smarter than I am.”
“You don’t like him,” she protested.
“But you do.” He made a noise of helpless frustration. “My sweet girl, do you really believe you could cancel this wedding right now and walk away from him forever?”
“I don’t want to walk away!” She protested through audible tears. “I just don’t want anything to change!”
Neil didn’t answer right away. I imagined the two of them standing, staring miserably at each other, until he said, “I understand that. Too well.”
“You don’t want to get married to Sophie?” she asked, and my heart lurched. I almost turned and ran. I didn’t want to hear his answer, unless it was going to be the one I wanted to hear. And if it weren’t… Well, I wouldn’t know, unless I heard it.
“I want to marry her. More than I wanted to marry Elizabeth, to be perfectly frank. I don’t feel like there’s an expiration date on our relationship. I don’t feel…pressured,” he said, and the knot in my chest, that had cinched up tight a moment before, untangled a little. “But that doesn’t mean I’m sure that everything is going to be all right once we are married. And I’m afraid, Emma. I’m as nervous as you are that something will change, that we won’t be the same people we were before we were married. But I’m not willing to lose her now because I’m afraid that I might lose her later.”