Page 18 of Please Remember

It's barely seven in the morning, but I haven't slept at all. "In the kitchen!" I yell to her.

She appears, and I don't care how crazy I look sitting on the floor in my wedding dress. The dress that cost two thousand dollars.

"What the hell happened in here?" she asks, her eyes wide as she looks around. "It looks like the wedding fairy threw up. Or exploded."

Besides me sitting in a sea of tulle, everything I've accumulated for the wedding is scattered around me. Wedding favors. The guest book. Ribbon. Tablecloths in the perfect shade of gray. Centerpiece vases. Flameless candles in multiple sizes. Jars of candied almonds. The programs that arrived early. A stack of invitations stamped and ready to be mailed. The bouquets of fake flowers. It's my very own festive pity party.

"I'm looking at everything I have for the wedding that's not going to happen. The wedding I dreamed into existence only to have it ripped from my bloody and bruised fingers by a sledgehammer."

"Well, that's a graphic image."

"I don't know how much money I can get back. I won’t get the deposit back on the venue, but it wasn't all that much. Same with the caterer. It only cost me three months’ worth of salary," I say as the tears fall. "You know, nothing too much."

After navigating the items on the floor next to me, Natalie sits down and wraps an arm around my shoulders. "Laura—"

"I can probably sell the decorations online. I won’t make anywhere near what I paid for them, but at least it's something."

"Why are we doing this?"

"Don't you remember the lovely time at the hospital after my failed engagement party?" I ask, a fake smile on my face. "I'm not getting married anymore!"

"Laura—"

"Allie’s back, Nat. Allie's back, and Jax is gone."

She shakes her head and picks up a yellow fabric sample. "This was going to be the original color of the bridesmaid dress?"

"Shut up," I say, snatching it from her hands. "You convinced me to go with green, so what does it matter now?"

"Okay, we're going to back out of this pity party. Just because Allie's back doesn't mean you lost Jax. He's momentarily pulled back to her, but a lot can change in seven years."

Glaring at Natalie, I frown. "Get real, Nat."

"I'm just saying—"

"Hehasn't reached out to me since the hospital. Not even to check how I'm doing. He said having her back changes things. Everything is different now."

Her hand runs over my hair, and I know it's greasy. I haven't showered for three days, but I'm too depressed to care. "Just because it's different now doesn't mean it can't go back to how it was."

"He told me he doesn't love me. That he wanted to, and he thought he could convince himself to, but he never fell for me. That he only dated me because everyone pushed him to move on."

"There is still a chance that things won't work out the way Jax wants them to. He's spent the last two years with you. Maybe Allie won't measure up."

Sighing, I slap my hands on the puffy skirt of the dress in the perfect shade of burnished eggshell. "She's staying at the house with him. The house I was only allowed to take two steps inside of once we kissed. The house that meant more to him than I ever did."

"That's not true."

"He spent two days drunk when he listed it after we discussed how silly it was to have two houses once we were married. Two days. Drunk off his ass."

"Okay, I hear you. But maybe Allie won't ever remember him. I mean, it's been over seven years. If she was going to get her memory back, you'd think she'd have it by now, right?"

I look up at the ceiling as the tears fall from the corners of my eyes and pool into my ears. "I suppose."

"And maybe this new version of Allie won't love Jax. Or, maybe, Jax can't love this new version of Allie. It'll never be like it was if she doesn't remember, and he knows what it's like to be loved fully by someone. By you."

"Jax would settle for a second-best Allie over runner-up Laura any day of the week. I've lost him. He never loved me. And he was never going to love me like I loved him."

"But you're forgetting that Allie has a say in all of this, too. If she left him, there would be nothing he could do about it. She might not love him like she used to. Or at all."

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