Page 30 of A Novel Love Story

I stared at him, mouth agape. “I … I want …”

Whenever I thought back on that conversation, there were a hundred things I could’ve told him. I wanted a courthouse wedding. I wanted that red velvet cake. I wanted to dance with him to our favorite song, and I wanted to forget it all and squeeze into a taxi with him, bound for some far-distant beach to elope, because more than anything else I just wantedhim.

So, that’s what I said.

“I want you to be happy.”

And in a perfect story, that would be enough.

But the words made him shrink away. Shake his head. “I met someone else,” he said, unable to meet my gaze.

Oh.

Oh.

“But … what about the wedding? The people coming? The … the …” I felt like a broken record. “Theeverything?”

His voice cracked as he said, “You’ll figure it out.”

You’ll figure it out.Notwe. Nous.

There would never be an us again.

“Alone?” I asked.

He gave a nervous laugh. “I mean, what canIdo?”

Because I’d done everything, anyway. I’d planned the wedding, I’d invited the guests, I’d picked out the cake and the music and the—

The everything.

I didn’t remember a lot of the rest of that afternoon after he drove back to our apartment—the last time it would ever truly be ours—and he made good on his word. He was done. Moved out that night. I had to call everyone. I had to cancel the wedding. I had to get as much money back from vendors and catering as I could.

He went on a hiking trip up the Appalachian Trail with a work friend to clear his head, and that was the last time I heard from him.

Six months later, he was engaged to the “work friend” he took on the trail. A person he’d met while we were still dating. A person he’d flirted with, charmed, courted, all the while engaged tome. Pru had threatened to castrate him, to drag her keys down his pretty Tesla, to “Goodbye Earl” him somewhere in a remote area of North Georgia, but I didn’t have the energy to be angry.

Apparently, he had wanted to get married. He just hadn’t wanted to marryme.

I felt like a fool. Even as I read back through our text messages, listened to the voicemails he left, trying to find any crack in our relationship, any signs that I had missed. Sure, we didn’t take each other to the airport anymore when we had to travel for work or kiss each other goodbye every morning,but we’d been good. We had a routine, and we had a lovely story—a perfect kiss on New Year’s. The rest of it should’ve been perfect, too.

So who could blame me for sinking into books, where I knew the people weren’t real, but they also never disappointed me? I knew everything would work out in the end. I knew happy endings were destined, ever afters fated, and no matter what trials and tribulations and, well, surprise fuckups happened, things would end up okay.

I just needed a story—or maybe a few hundred stories of happily ever after—to escape mine.

Then Rachel Flowers died later that year, and the happy ending I was looking forward to fell through my fingers like sand.

What started as the best year of my life became the worst. The only bright spot was the book club, when we finally met in person, and I got to cry my heart out while sharing a box of Riesling with five of my closest friends, and it healed me a little.

For two whole years, it was bliss.

Then, this year, life got in the way.

First, Janelle couldn’t come because there was no one to cover her shifts at the hospital. Then Aditi failed an undergrad math course and had to retake it over the summer. Olivia broke her foot. Matt had to go to Wisconsin to take care of his mom. Benji pulled out of the retreat this year to plan his own wedding.

Then Prudence.

I had half a mind to not go, to make up some life excuse, but then while I was looking through Airbnbs I couldn’t afford in places I didn’t have the money to fly to, I checked social media, and I saw the photos.

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