Page 18 of Scoring with my Bestie's Ex

Despite the change in weather, the further along we walk, the calmer and happier I feel.

Honestly, a huge part of that is simply that Aaron is with me. I’ve never known anyone whose mere presence is this soothing.

I find myself breathing more easily. The knot in my stomach slowly disappears, and all the blame I want to fling at myself and Steven wafts away in the wind.

It is what it is. Regardless of who has done what, I’m ready to let it go. I want to let it go—not just my anger, but the relationship.

I can’t do that if I keep comparing everything other people do to what Steven would do.

I can’t do that if I keep justifying myself or blaming him.

The truth of the matter is, I shouldn’t have been in that church to begin with.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Aaron asks.

My shoulders slump as I sigh. “I’m not sure. Yes, I guess. If you’re okay with it.”

“I am.”

“Steven and I weren’t working out for a long time. The night he proposed, I told him I wanted to break up. As soon as I did, he whipped out the ring and threw it at me, asking why he wasted so much money on it if I was just going to break up with him.”

Aaron frowns. “Why did you agree to marry him?”

“I… I’m not sure. I guess I felt like I needed to,” I admit. “It’s hard to explain. Everything that I felt was wrong, I blamed myself for. I thought I needed to work a little harder. And there were good times, too. Times when he was so loving and attentive.”

“Ahh. I see,” he murmurs.

“Then everything with the wedding happened so fast. Before I knew it, we had deposits everywhere and even though the date wasn’t for two years, within two months, I’d sunk over ten thousand dollars into it.”

I wince as I admit the number.

I know many people who’ve dropped that much on a dress alone, but that was never what I wanted.

“Let me guess, you paid for everything?”

“Most of it,” I admit. “It kept me pushing onward, ignoring my doubts.”

“Until the day of the wedding?” Aaron supplies.

I nod, sighing. “Until the day of the wedding. I was getting ready with my bridesmaids and opened up the bag that held my dress. The one I’d spent countless hours designing and sewing.”

The look on Aaron’s face tells me he already knows where this is going.

“It wasn’t my dress. It was some godawful thing off a clearance rack. The tag was still on it,” I add, my hands clenching into fists again. I blink rapidly as the swell of emotions I’d felt in that moment comes back to me.

“What happened?” Aaron asks, his voice a low growl.

I swallow hard, forcing myself to continue. “Steven donated the dress I made to a thrift store and had his mother buy something he liked better without telling me. It was the sort of dress that I hate most on my body,” I say.

Aaron chews the inside of his cheek, looking furious.

“And I know he did it so that I wouldn’t kick up a fuss.” I shake my head. “I did try it on. It was a size too small. And I realized that the relationship didn’t fit anymore. I was trapping myself with a man I didn’t love. So I left.”

“He’s a real charmer, isn’t he?” Aaron growls.

He glances over his shoulder, as though he wants to go back to the café and cause a scene of his own.

I grab his hand. “Don’t say anything to him, please. I know it sounds awful, and yeah, it is. But I don’t want to entwine my life with his anymore.”

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