Chapter 14

Nathan

It was Sunday afternoon, and I was laying on the couch, staring out the window. I never went back to Amanda’s house after meeting up with John, and I hadn’t talked to her since then, either. My head was spinning from our conversation, and I didn’t know what to think or say about any of it.

I wanted so badly to believe in the fairytale that I had created, but it looked like it was a load of bullshit. When I had met up with John, I was irritated, not wanting to listen to what he had to say. I had been with Amanda, taking care of her, and didn’t have time for his bullshit. He had started out by letting me know that Amanda had recently, in the last couple of days, started really looking into starting her own practice.

At that moment, it didn’t seem strange to me at all, and it irritated me how John was acting so accusatory when he told me. He was acting like I didn’t know anything about her dreams for the future. He then continued by telling me all about her financial situation. Apparently, at that time, she didn’t have all of the funds that she would need to get the clinic up and running. I didn’t really find this strange, either, assuming that if she did have the funds, she would already have the clinic up and running.

I had rolled my eyes and sighed, waiting for him to either quit or tell me something worth hearing. I almost wish I hadn’t even thought that because the news just kept spewing out of his mouth. Apparently, Amanda had been living off of a trust fund that her father had passed down to her from when her grandparents had passed away. I had never asked her how she paid her bills, and honestly, the question never even crossed my mind. This trust fund wasn’t bottomless, though, and she either used it to open a clinic and then was broke, or she spread it out over the next few years until it ran dry. My interests became piqued at that moment, but only because she hadn’t shared that information with me yet. It was very likely that it wasn’t something that she even thought to share with me.

I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes, feeling my chest aching from the pain of an impending heartbreak. I wanted to sit in my house and never leave again, feeling like such an idiot for not listening to John in the first place. I had been pissed at him when I went to the bar to meet him, but by the end, he was buying me shots to ease the pain. I sat there replaying the whole conversation over in my head.

“There’s more than just that,” John said in a calm tone. “And I want to say ahead of time, I’m sorry for doing it this way, but I had to do something before you made a mistake.”

“Yeah, well you haven’t told me anything damning yet,” I said with irritation.

“I am pretty sure the fact that she can’t make her dream clinic come true and that she is running out of money are the reasons why some mystery girl out of nowhere decided to marry you so fast,” he said.

“Or it could be that she loves me like she told me that she did,” I said, sipping my beer.

“Okay, well how about the fact that she is married?” he asked.

I stopped and stared forward, the beer barely touching my lips. I shook my head, trying to decide if he really just told me that Amanda was married. There was no way that was true. It couldn’t be true, could it? I had seen her, stayed at her place, showed up unannounced, and everything seemed kosher. I never once saw any remnants of another man at her place. I turned my head slowly toward John.

“You have exactly five seconds to explain to me exactly how you came to that conclusion,” I said. “And it better not be a gut instinct.”

“Well, first of all, it makes sense if you really think about it,” he said. “She didn’t tell you about her financials, she is only available to see you on certain nights, making up excuses when it is spur of the moment, and she doesn’t really talk about any man other than the mystery ex that she had cheating problems with.”

“That does not point to her being secretly married,” I said. “Try again.”

“Fine,” he said, sliding an envelope over to me. “I found this. It’s a marriage certificate with her name on it. I looked it up online, and I found a site that said she got married on that date, and that her maiden name is Adams.”

I slapped my hand on the envelope and opened it up, pulling out the piece of paper. It was a marriage license, or at least, looked like one, and sure enough, it had her name on it. I stared at the paper for a minute before looking back up at John. It was all history from there, shot after shot, trying to drown my heartbreak.

My eyes opened, and I stared up at my ceiling, hearing my phone ringing on the table next to me. I looked over to see Amanda’s name flashing across the screen. I had been screening my calls ever since I left her house, but I felt like it might be the right time to finally talk to her. I knew she wouldn’t stop calling until she knew why I disappeared, and I wanted to get it all over with as soon as I could so that I could go on with my life.

“Hello?” I answered.

“God, finally,” she said. “I have been worried to death about you. Why haven’t you answered my calls or texted me back at all? I thought you were coming back over last night, and you never showed up. On top of being sick from whatever I have going on, I was nervous as hell thinking something had happened to you.”

“I found out some information, Amanda,” I said with irritation. “I needed a little bit of time to process it before I could talk to you. I’m sorry if you were worried about me. I will be fine when all of this is resolved.”

“All of what?”

“Look, we need to talk,” I said. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

I hung up the phone before she could respond, knowing that I needed to see her face to face. I headed over to her house and let myself in, finding her showered and sitting up on the couch. Her cheeks finally had some color in them, so I didn’t feel so bad attacking a sick person.

“Why have you been looking into starting your clinic?” I asked. “You just started looking over the last couple of days.”

“Hello to you, too,” she said. “Of course, I have been researching it. I told you that was what I wanted to do since I graduated. Right now, I live off of a trust fund from my grandparents, and if I open the clinic, it will leave me with no money. I figured while I was sick, laying around doing nothing, I would look up ways to finance it. I have a full business plan already, so I know what kind of money it will take. It’s just deciding whether to take the leap, or wait longer and figure out a better plan.”

“Okay, so say you take the rest of the trust you never told me you had,” I said.

“I didn’t think it was pertinent,” she said. “I don’t ask you where your money comes from exactly.”

“I own a company,” I said snidely. “You know where it comes from. Anyway, say you take the rest of the trust, and you put it into the clinic. Great. How were you planning on living? Were you planning on living off of my money until it got up and going? I think that is something you should have told me.”

“First of all, I was never, and let me repeat that so you hear it correctly, never going to ask you for a cent of your money,” she said, getting angry. “Secondly, I wasn’t aware that when I married you, we were still going to live separate lives. I figured my clinic would be yours, and whatever we had would become ours. I didn’t know you were so worried about me stealing your money, which I don’t want a single dime of, and I’ll sign a pre-nup in a heartbeat to prove that to you. I don’t understand where all of this is coming from.”

“It’s just so convenient that you jumped at the chance to marry me just days after you looked into a practice for the first time,” I said. “You hadn’t even cooled your internet search before deciding that I was the man of your dreams.”

“Um, if I remember correctly, you were just as excited to marry me as I was to marry you,” she said. “When did I become some manipulative woman in your eyes? I don’t know what John told you, but this is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t want your money. If marrying you meant I’d never get my clinic, then so be it. I would take it and throw my dreams out the window. The whole situation was a big coincidence. You have made me feel ready and comfortable to chase my dreams, and because of that, I started looking into it. I thought that maybe since you believed in me so much, it was worth putting my feelers out there and trying to get this thing off the ground. When I realized, it would take more money than I had, I stopped looking. Apparently, you didn’t, though.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said angrily. “There is no such thing as a coincidence when it comes to money like that. And how about your husband, Jack?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Here,” I said, tossing the envelope at her. “This is your marriage license. You should already have a copy,”

“I have never been married,” she said, pulling the paper out of the envelope. “I don’t know where this came from, but it’s fake. I have never been married in my entire life. You can call my father, call the courthouse, or just look at this and realize it is a fraudulent document.”

“What is your maiden name?” I asked.

“Johnston is my maiden name, and the name I have always had because I have never been married,” she said, yelling. “What in God’s name is going on here? Have you and your best friend lost your ever-loving minds?”

“Apparently, I have, because this paper says that your maiden name is Adams and that you married Jack Johnston six years ago,” I said. “So, what was that story about your ex? Was it all made up for my benefit, or did you marry that prick, too? You have been pulling the wool over my eyes this whole time. I bet you knew exactly who I was when you sat down at that bar.”

“You are so off-kilter right now,” she said, shaking her head with tears in her eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening. You know who I am.”

“Apparently, I don’t,” I said quietly. “It’s over.”

I turned and walked from the room and out the front door, slamming it behind me. I didn’t let my feet stop. I kept going until I was in the car and heading back to my place. It had been exactly what I feared, and I had been made a fool of all over again. My heart was broken, and the girl of my dreams never existed in the first place.