Page 1 of My Ex-Best Friends

1

***Brooke***

There were a lot of things I would’ve said ‘I do’ to on the day of my wedding. Losing the ten pounds I swore I’d lose before shoving myself into the white pile of lace and tulle that my almost mother-in-law had insisted made me look like the perfect bride. Hiring my own hair stylist so I didn’t end up looking like someone’s mom from the eighties. Having my almost father-in-law write on the back of someone else’s POS car that I’d just gotten married. Being anywhere in the world except standing at the back of a church, staring down the aisle at the man I’d caught screwing my boss that morning.

After a night of heavy drinking with his buddies, I’d assumed my fiancé would be sleeping off his hangover. I’d snuck into our apartment with more grace than I’d ever had in my entire life so I didn’t wake him up on our big day. I’d forgotten my period cup and the period gods had blessed me a week early. Only Finn Love, his real name, was already awake and deep inside Meredith Voles, my boss. Okay, maybe he wasn’tdeepinsideher, but he was inside her, nonetheless. He had her knees pinned to her chest and his ass was doing this thing that I’d never noticed before. Each thrust made his loose buttcheeks shiver. I stood there, in shock and horror, wondering how I’d never noticed his buttcheeks doing that before, for a full thirty seconds before I came to my senses and got the hell out of there.

Instead of snapping to my senses right away, I went to the church. I sat perfectly still while my hair and makeup were done. I’d inhaled enough hair spray to get a gorilla high while staring at myself in the mirror, ignoring the stylist’s directions to close my eyes and mouth. I allowed myself to be squeezed into the dress that made my boobs look like a flesh shelf. I’d even sat there and listened to the wedding planner go over what was going to happen. I was going to line up behind the bridesmaids that Finn’s mother picked. I was going to wait until the wedding march came on and then I was going to walk down to my future.

What the hell are you doing, Brooke?I was going to vomit, that’s what I was going to do.

When the wedding march began, I looked down the aisle and took a deep breath. And then I very quickly realized the one thing I definitely couldn’t say ‘I do’ to that day was to marrying Finn Love, becoming Brooke Love. The only shame I felt as I turned, gathered my dress as high as I could, and took off at a sprint was that I’d allowed myself to nearly get to the altar before snapping to my senses.

My worn boots that laced halfway up to my knees had been the only part of my wedding day attire that I’d insisted on wearing. They were the only shoes I wore and I pretended they were lucky. That day, while I ran away from the packed church, they were the luckiest thing about me. Finn’s mother never would’ve been able to give chase in her heels. I jumped the last two steps in front of the church, thankful I didn’t wipe out, and ran around the front of my car. Finn and his parents had considered myold vintage Mustang an eye sore until it could be a cute photo prop on our big day. A retro photo with the aforementioned ‘just married’ and a tangle of empty cans tied to the back was somehow a style choice for them. For me, it was my escape.

I tried to get inside Lola like I always did and panicked when I got stuck halfway in. My dress was too big, too heavy, and too freaking much. That only stopped me for a few seconds, though. I was motivated, especially when I looked up at the church and saw that Finn and his parents, along with half the church, were coming towards me. I braced my feet against the door and shoved myself into the car, closed half of the dress in the door when I slammed it shut, and yanked the visor down to get the keys.

“C’mon, Lola,” I muttered, jamming the key into the ignition. She roared to life, her engine growling like the rebel she was. Tires screeched as I floored it, my heart pounding in sync with her rumble. I burned rubber, leaving Finn behind on the sidewalk, his arms flailing like a man chasing the bus he just missed.

I knew I’d made the right decision when a wild sounding laugh bubbled out of my chest as soon as I was away from him. Of course, I was making the right decision. He’d been screwing my boss on the morning of our wedding. That was an image I’d never get out of my head.

“Hell yeah!” I screamed into the city traffic. “I’m a free woman!”

Without thinking, I pulled onto the highway, heading south. Sharing an apartment with Finn meant I had nowhere else to go. He’d become my entire world in Atlanta and all of my friends were his friends first. I had nothing in Atlanta, especially considering my boss’ extracurricular activities. Jobless, homeless, fiancé-less, I had no other choice. It was time to go home. That thought was about the time the tears started.

“I’m a free woman…” I sniffed. “Whoo.”

I hadn’t been back to Beaumont, Alabama since I’d turned eighteen and left like a thief in the night. The small fishing town on the coast was still home to my mother and my Aunt Karlene and likely always would be. Beaumont accepted their level of crazy without blinking an eye. I hoped it would be willing to accept mine, too.

The sound of the cans banging along the road behind me finally stopped somewhere along I85. I didn’t look back and figured the planet would forgive me for littering after the day I was having. Surely. When I stopped to get gas about four hours away from Beaumont, I tried to smear the ‘just married’ off the back window but it was no use. Between those words and my dress, I got a lot of looks while pumping gas but I didn’t care. If they’d seen what I’d seen, they would’ve understood why I was pulling a runaway bride moment. After wedging myself back into my car and getting back on the road, I turned on the radio and found an old country station. Men crooned about cheating women and their tired dogs while I stared at the road ahead and wondered what I was going to do.

I wanted to call Mom and tell her everything but I knew what she’d say. There’d been a reason she was missing at the wedding. She and Aunt Karlene both hated Finn. They’d incessantly told me that he wasn’t the guy for me. I was going to hear ‘I told you so’ so much from them and I wasn’t looking forward to it. They were insufferable when they were right.

As I got closer to Beaumont my stomach bubbled with nerves. I’d run from Beaumont and hadn’t planned on ever returning. It’d been nearly a decade and I wasn’t sure I’d changed nearly enough to show my face again. All of my big plans and dreams of living in the big city and making it on my art were still just that, big dreams. Only, I wasn’t sure they were evenmybig dreamsanymore. It almost felt like I was running back home even less than I was when I’d run away.

Lola’s gas gauge neared E again and I wiped sweat from my upper lip. I’d cried off and on during the drive but for some reason seeing the gauge on E as I passed the Beaumont city limit sign was too much for me. I pulled over on the side of the road and sobbed into the peeling leather steering wheel. The AC had gone out in the car long before I became the owner of it so as I sat there in my too tight dress I boiled alive. I had a real pity party for myself.

I was hot, I was broke, I had been cheated on by my fiancé on the day of our wedding, and I was returning home to a town where gossip traveled faster than one of those new trains in Asia. I’d put everything into my relationship with Finn and I’d chased him from Savannah to Atlanta, hoping he was the answer to the ever present question in my brain. Only, I didn’t know the question and I’d been wrong again. Finn was just another bad choice in a long line of bad choices. I’d given up finishing my art degree to chase after him.

Wiping my face, I groaned as the mascara burned where I’d rubbed it into my eyes. Blinking quickly, I pulled a layer of tulle up and wiped my eyes with it. It left long black streaks on the dress but I wasn’t exactly planning on saving the dress so I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned the dress could rot in hell with Finn and my boss.

“She wasn’t even his type. Or maybe I wasn’t his type. Or maybe he’s just a slut.”

I gave myself another few minutes to feel sorry for myself before pulling back onto the highway. The first gas station I came to was on the outskirts of town still, a tiny little rundown place that had once been a diner, as well. The diner had been gone long before I was born but old men still sat in the empty dining room to drink shitty coffee and gossip. That was an earlymorning thing, though, and the sun was close to setting when I pulled up to one of the two pumps.

Getting out of Lola proved to be an exercise in patience that I didn’t have. Some piece of lace got stuck on the gear shift and I went to my knees outside of the car as the dress choked me and yanked me back. It was all too much. I ripped the dress the rest of the way out of the car and angrily swore as I reached both arms behind me in an attempt to reach the corset ribbons. I was on my feet, twisting around in my struggle, doing everything in my power to grab at the ribbons. My boobs were nearly suffocating me and I couldn’t take a full breath but mostly I was just hot and sweaty and the itchy tulle was making me want to yank my hair out.

I didn’t notice the truck on the other side of the pump or the man standing next to it. I didn’t notice anything until I heard a throat clear and a painfully familiar voice from the past say my name. I froze with my back to him, praying it was my mind playing tricks on me.

“Surely you didn’t run off to the city and get shy, little bunny.” His smooth, deep voice sent a shiver down my spine and it left me no room to continue pretending.

Turning around, I came face to face with one of my ex-best friends, one of the three men who’d been the catalyst to me running away from Beaumont as fast as I had. Not that they knew that.

Logan Brooks.

2

***Brooke***

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