Page 28 of A Novel Love Story

In all the books I’d read, in all the romances I’d devoured, from Jane Austen to Nora Roberts, from fairy tales to dark erotica, not a single one of them prepared me for how hard I fell.

There were some love stories that seemed perfect.

This was mine, I thought.

After the first week, Prudence caught on that I’d fallen head over heels. She found me that Friday evening, coming in from dinner with Liam. We were supposed to have a girls’ night, and I’d forgotten, but she wasn’t angry at all as she dragged me to the couch, and demanded the story.

“Is that the guy from the party?” she asked, her eyes glittering.

I chewed on my bottom lip. “Yeah …”

“And was this a first date or … ?”

“Fourth,” I replied, and she squealed.

“Oh my god! Oh my god, it’s happening. It’shappening. Iknewyou would find someone at that party! Honestly, I thought it’d be one of Jasper’s coworkers, but the bartender’s good, too.”

I laughed, and told her that he was an architect between jobs, and that I liked him. “Like,reallylike him,” I added, quieter, like it was a secret. Maybe it was, and I was afraid that if I told the universe that I was falling for a guy so far out of my league, it would course correct, and Liam would realize that he could do better.

She scooted a little closer. “Tell meeverything.”

Everything—like how I loved the way he gushed about the climbs he’d taken, and the ones he wanted to take. Half Dome in California. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. A dozen others. Or how he put his wallet into his back left pocket, or how his brown hair lay so perfectly over his ears, or how he kissed me like I was meant to be savored, or how he was just the right height for me to lean my head against his shoulder in a movie theater.

It would’ve taken all night to tell her everything.

So I just told her the easy things—how we loved some of the same nineties movies (TremorsandTwister), and how he took his burgers (so rare they bled), and how he’d been raised by his uncle in Montana, until he decided to come down to Georgia for college. I told her about the year he volunteered for AmeriCorps, building houses,and how he’d skydived over thirty times, and wanted nothing more than to climb Everest and Kilimanjaro and Fuji, and every impossible rock face from here to California.

He was so different from me. He rarely read, but he listened to me recount every book with patience, and our music collections would’ve waged war against each other—but none of that mattered.

“He makes me feel like I’m not Elsy Merriweather. He makes me feel like I can be someone new—shouldbe someone new. I want him,” I told her. “I want him so badly.”

She hummed, closing her eyes, and wiggled her fingers in front of my face. “Then you’ll have him.”

And I wanted to believe her.

“Just … don’t lose yourself to it all, okay?” she added, a little quieter. “I like you the way you are.”

“Of course I won’t,” I replied, and if this had been a romance, it would have been foreshadowing.

For years, as we went on double dates with Jasper and Pru, and vacations, and bowling nights, and hikes along the Appalachian Trail, and indie rock concerts, I was so blissfully happy with Liam, I could explode. I drowned in whatever he loved, I soaked in the rays of his joy, and I followed him. We shared plates, and shared memories, and shared beds. We shared a life that was comfortable, and good, and I was someone he loved.

And when he proposed to me at the top of a rather difficult hike, about half a mile from a waterfall I’d wanted to see, I hadn’t paused to consider the question. It was known. OfcourseI would say yes. I knew this was my forever—as corny as that sounded. When I closed my eyes at night, I could still see him on his knees at the peak of the trail, the sign to Looking Glass Falls behind him on that brisk autumn day,his dark hair short and his eyes matching the color of the sky. Everything was orange and red through rose-tinted glasses.

There was no doubt in my mind that I loved him, so of course I said yes.

He swept me up, and we kissed, and everyone loved the photos Pru took when she posted them to Facebook.

I thought it was the beginning of the best year of my life. It was supposed to be. He’d proposed, and we began to plan our wedding. It was going to be a small affair—his idea—just our closest friends and family. I didn’t really care about weddings at all; I would’ve been happy with a courthouse sort of deal. Maybe it was because my mom’s wedding was big and boisterous, and it ended in a divorce when I was four. My dad had found a new family, and left my mom and me to pick up the pieces of the life he wrecked.

But Liam asked, so I did what would make him happy (because wasn’t that love?), and I had to admit that I was looking forward to it—at least alittlebit.

The venue would be a converted barn, with twinkle lights in the rafters and an antler chandelier, and we’d eat a three-tiered red velvet cake and toast with flutes of bubbly prosecco and dance to “Modern Love” by David Bowie. A week before the wedding, we visited the venue to make sure everything was in order. The wedding planner stepped out to take a phone call—or at least I thought, maybe Liam had told her to go—and we were alone in the red barn. I felt on pins and needles. My entire body felt electrified, because in a week I’d marry the one person I loved more than anyone else.

“Eileen,” Liam had said, coming up beside me. He was gorgeous in the way that outdoorsy men were, his skin tanned and his brown hair streaked with blond from the sun,and I felt so, so lucky to be with him.

“Liam,” I replied in the same stoic voice, because I thought it was funny, and moved over to him, planting a kiss on his strong jaw. “You were right.”

He hesitated, threading his fingers through mine. “About?”

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