Page 67 of Christmas with my Three Best Friends

“What in God’s green earth are you doing here?” I blurt out.

“Hey, Shay… I’m sorry to show up like this,” he says.

The Canadian winters aren’t easy, but I’ve actually gotten used to the cold, crisp air currently rolling into the cabin through the open door. Vincent, on the other hand, is almost blue faced despite having wrapped himself in thick ski pants and a matching gray ski jacket, woolen hat on his heat and what I presume is a backpack loaded with equally thick clothes for this trip.

“I don’t understand,” I reply. “How’d you find me?”

“Oh, I know you’re not very active on social media, but Cassandra posted some photos of you two from some of your hikes,” he says. “The girls at West Key said you’d gone away for a while, so it didn’t take much detective work to figure out where you were staying.”

“This is a tad creepy.”

“I’m sorry.” He immediately takes a step back, cautious about my reaction. “I didn’t mean to make you feel uneasy, Shay. I just… I really wanted to see you.”

“Well, I’ll be back at the gym next week,” I grumble.

Vincent smiles, his piercing gaze searching my face. He’s studying me, reading every single micro-expression, gauging my tolerance of him. It’s a familiar pattern for me, and it makes me feel as though I’m on a small glass plate under the lens of a high-resolution microscope.

“The truth is, Shay, I’ve missed you. The whole time I was away and even lately, even while coming to the gym for my own stuff… I’ve missed you,” he says. “I miss us, I miss the way we were.”

“I don’t.”

He looks briefly startled by my statement but recovers quickly. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t the best boyfriend, let alone the best fiancé… I know.”

“You hurt me, Vincent. There’s no going back from that. You hurt me with purpose and intention.”

He nods slowly. “And I’m ready to spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” he says, then takes out a small velvety box. The mere sight of it has my stomach churning.

“What are you doing?” I manage, my voice barely audible.

I’ve seen this movement before. I recognize the gesture. I know what’s in the box, and while it brought me great joy a long time ago, it makes me anxious and nauseated now. Instinctively, I take a couple of steps back, wanting to put as much distance between him and me as possible. This shouldn’t be happening. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s downright insulting.

“I know I’ve done this before, but I mean it, Shay. I do love you, I do want to be a part of your life, I do want you to be a part of mine,” Vincent says. “Marry me. Give me another chance, and I swear you won’t regret it. I’m a changed man, I’m ready to prove it, over and over and over again until I draw my last breath. There’s no other woman in my life, there never will be another woman, not as long as I am with you.”

“Vincent…”

“It’s weird, I’m aware. But I couldn’t sit at home or at work or anywhere else, for that matter. Not while you’re away from me and out of my reach,” he says. “I love you, Shay. I will always love you. I never stopped loving you.”

There was a time when I would’ve given anything to hear these words coming out of his mouth. There was a time when I would’ve gladly sacrificed my body and my soul just to have this man back, holding me close and giving me a spoonful of so-called love for every week’s worth of misery and gaslighting. I didn’t know better. I didn’t think I deserved better. I worried that if Vincent wouldn’t have me, nobody would.

There was a time, but that time is long gone.

Moments pass in heavy silence. I stare at him as he stands on the porch, ring in its opened box as he awaits my answer. How did he imagine this would go? Did he actually think I’d just… what, burst into tears and jump in his arms and say yes, a thousand times yes? Is he insane? Delusional? Stupid? Or all three neatly rolled under that layer of neoprene and synthetic down?

“So, you’re serious,” I mutter.

The rage I felt over half a year ago has returned with a vengeance—this time, however, I know precisely what I’m dealing with. I’m not blinded by the lies or the gaslighting anymore. I know who he is and what he is capable of. Truth be told, I never imagined I’d have the opportunity to confront him about things I couldn’t prove back then. Today, however… I have enough ammunition to blow him away. There’s a saying about being the better person and turning the other cheek and whatnot. I’ll save those for later and for another day. This bastard deserves everything he’s about to receive.

He stands there smiling his charming smile, thinking he’s actually got me hooked. “Yes, Shay. I’m serious about us, and I want to give you the life you deserve. I think we’ll make each other happy. Remember how good it was for us?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug softly, acting doubtful. “I do remember the lies. The girls you hooked up with while we were together. I remember the gaslighting, the emotional abuse, the many ways in which you worked so hard to make me doubt myself.”

“Shay…” His good humor fades. His pleasant smile withers. That’s the trouble with narcissists, in general. Once you see the cracks in their mask, once you take the mask off, there’s nothing underneath. Nothing but festering misery and the kind of poison not a single sane person would ever want to drink from. “I never cheated on you.”

“That’s not what Cherry said. Or Sarah. Or Laura. There were a few others who reached out after you disappeared. They saw my social media posts, they put two and two together, because apparently you did the same with them. You love-bombed them like crazy, you got them hooked and emotionally addicted to you. Sarah said you proposed to her, too. And then you dumped them. You ghosted them like you ghosted me,” I tell him, my face straight and my shoulders tight as I slap him across the face with a truth he didn’t even know I possessed. “Did you really think I wouldn’t look into you after you left? That I wouldn’t do some in-depth research to figure out why you did what you did?”

“They’re all liars, Shay. I only ever loved you.”

“Me? You couldn’t even bring yourself to take me out on a real date. You told Cherry once that you’d never allow yourself to be seen in public with a, and I quote, ‘fatty’ since it would bring down your own market value. I was a ‘fatty’, wasn’t I?”

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