Chapter Thirty-Three

‘OK, what the hell just happened?’

Four expectant pairs of eyes burn into mine. ‘I… I don’t know,’ I say. I look down at the floor of the bathroom; it’s easier than being stared at by Lauren and the bridesmaids. I’ve been in court countless times over the past five years or so… but I’ve never once felt as much like I’m being judged as I do now.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Lauren asks. ‘Carter just proposed to you! Again!’

‘After being a raging asshole for a week!’ Danielle chimes in.

‘And you said yes!’

‘He just showed up!’ I say. ‘I swear, I haven’t heard a single word from him since we broke up. Not a text, not an email, not a phone call.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And he just… appeared? Out of the blue?’

I nod. ‘I promise. I didn’t have any idea.’

‘Jesus,’ Lauren says. ‘What an –’ She stops herself, but I feel myself bristling. I know what she meant to say. What an asshole. When she looks across at me again, I’m glowering at her. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘But it’s true.’

The Greek Chorus behind her nods in agreement. How the hell do you guys know? I think. It’s not like you ever met him. He could be perfectly lovely, as far as you know. Then I remember that the only version of Carter that Paige and Jessica and Danielle have ever heard about is the version I’ve painted, and I feel a sudden pang of guilt. It’s no wonder they hate him, I think. It’s not his fault they only got half the picture.

‘It’s not true.’

‘What about Jack?’

‘Jack’s gone.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since I got proposed to in the middle of the hotel lobby while he was watching.’

Lauren’s jaw drops. ‘He was watching?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.’

I wrinkle my nose. ‘Sorry? Why sorry? It’s good news, right? Jack is… Jack was…’ I let my voice trail off, hoping that she won’t ask me to clarify. ‘This is Carter, Lauren. He’s the plan. Remember that? This is what I want. More than anything else in the world. I love Carter. It’s as simple as that.’

I haven’t said that out loud in a while – days, even. Maybe longer than that. Maybe it was a while before my trip that I said it, and that’s why it feels unfamiliar on my tongue. I’ll have to get better at that in the future, I think. When we get back to Chicago, I’ll tell him I love him every day.

Lauren is looking at me like I’ve gone insane. ‘Remember the speech you gave me?’ she asks. ‘Before the wedding?’

‘It was yesterday, Lauren. Of course I remember it.’

‘You told me that Drew and I were a team, and that we’d work because he always had my back.

‘I know what I said.’

‘Can you say the same thing about Carter?’

‘Yes!’ The word comes out like a bullet, startling me. ‘Yes, I can. Mostly.’

‘Mostly. Except when you can’t.’

‘This was a one-time thing,’ I say. ‘Every couple has a rough patch every now and then. Every couple fights. It’s natural.’

‘Natural to be broken up with through a phone call?’ she asks.

‘Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it was a dick move,’ I say. ‘But he came here all on his own! I didn’t make him. He decided that I was what he wanted. He realised he made a mistake. He changed his mind. I mean, what, am I supposed to not forgive him? Just turn him away?’

‘You say that like he wasn’t the one who did the turning in the first place.’

‘I know. He did. And he’s sorry for that.’ I think, anyway.

‘He sure seems it.’

‘Lauren…’ I can see her gritting her teeth, choking down what she really wants to say – what she thinks I really need to hear. ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ I ask her. ‘Jack was… I don’t know. A fling, I guess. A rebound. He wasn’t anything real.’

‘Jack was nice,’ she says. ‘I know it. You know it.’

‘Carter’s nice.’

‘Nice doesn’t run off from a five-year relationship with no good reason. Nice doesn’t abandon you the day before you’re supposed to go to your best friend’s wedding.’

‘He had his reasons.’

‘His reason was that he’s an asshole.’

‘Stop saying that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s not an asshole. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. Don’t you get that? It was my fault.’

In all the years I’ve known Lauren, in all the moments we’ve shared together, I’d never seen her look quite as sad as she does in that instant. She places her hand gently on Jessica’s arm. ‘Could you guys give us a minute?’ she says. ‘I need to say something to Ella in private. Maybe see if you can keep Carter contained for a little bit?’

The girls traipse out one by one, leaving the two of us alone. It’s hard to look at her, but the wide mirror of the bathroom makes it almost possible to look away. No matter where I turn, she’s there.

Lauren Harris. My Lauren. My constant.

Well, Lauren Delaney, now. Things have already started to change.

‘What?’ I say. ‘What’s so important that you couldn’t say it in front of the others?’ What shitty things are you going to say about my fiancé now, behind closed doors?

If this is what the married version of Lauren looks like, I’ve got to say I don’t much care for it. I don’t like the feeling of judgement.

‘Is this what you want, El?’ she asks quietly. She’s using her soothing voice, the one she breaks out with the kids at work or when she feels like someone is being hysterical. Except I’m not being hysterical – I’m not, I’m not – and I certainly don’t appreciate being treated like a child. ‘Really, I mean. Is this what you want?’

‘Of course it is. No contest. If it’s Jack or Carter…’

‘It’s not Jack or Carter,’ she says. ‘It’s Carter or not-Carter. There’ll always be another Jack, if it comes down to it. But you deserve someone who’s going to treat you the way you deserve. Someone who won’t upset you the way Carter did. Someone who…’ She pauses, as though she’s trying to figure out the right way to break some bad news to me.

‘Someone who what?’

‘I don’t know. Just someone who’s… better for you, I guess. I’ve known you since we were kids, and I’ve never known you let loose the way you have the last couple of days. Once you forgot about Carter –’

‘I never forgot about Carter.’

‘Once you forgot about your break up, then… it was like you were walking on air. I don’t know if that was Jack, or New Orleans, or just because you’d cut Carter loose, but you seemed free. I want that for you. I want you to wake up every morning with that feeling, for the rest of your life. Because you deserve it, El. You deserve so, so much. And last night, with Jack… it looked magical. Really, truly magical. The kind of moment that you haven’t had with Carter in five years. The kind of moment you might not have with Carter for a thousand years. And you had it with a guy you’d only just met. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

Yes… yes, it does.

Oh God. I cheated on him.

I hadn’t thought of it like that before – not really, anyway. Not in the concrete sense, as a thing I did. But isn’t that how cheaters always feel? Isn’t that how they always rationalise it to themselves? Oh, it doesn’t count. Oh, it wasn’t really cheating. Oh, we were on a break.

You have to tell him, I think. You might not like it, but you have to. You’re going to have to have that discussion sooner or later, and it’s not going to be a fun one. You know he’s not going to take it well, but what option do you have? He deserves to know.

No matter that Jack is gone. No matter that I have no idea what he was doing for the past week. No matter that I’d never ask. I trust him.

Mostly.

I’m sure he wouldn’t have just gone out and found himself someone to keep him company. He wouldn’t…

I mean, what kind of person would do that, right?

Someone who was moving on with her life. Someone who decided that she wanted more, needed more…

A terrible person. An awful person. The kind of person who doesn’t deserve a second chance.

So sure, I’ll have to tell him… eventually. When things are settled. When we’re back in Chicago, back in our comfortable lives. When I can plan out the best way to do it.

‘Why can’t you just be happy for me?’ I ask. ‘I was happy for you, with Drew.’

‘Oh, honey,’ she says. ‘I love you. More than pretty much anyone in the world – and I am happy for you. I just want you to be happy for you too. If you can tell me with a straight face that you’re happy with how things are, I’ll be the first person to congratulate you. You know that, right?’

Even now, even with her words about Carter still hanging in the air, I can’t deny that. But what else can I say? This is how things are supposed to be. I’m sure of it. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my–

Everything wrong is right. Everything down is up. Everything works out in the end.

Where the hell is that from? I remember it, in some distant part of my mind – like a mental itch I can’t quite scratch, or a loose tooth daring me to poke at it with my tongue. Some movie quote? A line from a book?

‘El?’ she says. ‘Can you tell me that? Can you tell me you’re happy?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Yeah, I’m happy.’

My smile doesn’t come easily, but I’ve got pretty good at faking it in the last hour or so. Maybe she’s even convinced. Who knows?

‘Good,’ she says, but I can tell she doesn’t really mean it. ‘That’s good. If you’re happy.’ And only if you’re happy.

‘We should probably get going. They’ll be waiting for us.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And I should go and… you know. Probably speak to Carter. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.’

‘Yeah, you do.’

The lies we tell ourselves. The lies we tell each other, just to make things run that little bit more smoothly. You don’t even notice the cracks until they’re already too big to fix.

~~~

By the time we leave the bathroom, the wedding party – plus Carter – has mostly been corralled into the dining room, where a delicious-looking post-wedding brunch has been laid out for us. Waiters are running between the twenty or so people who are still remaining from the Harris-Delaney wedding, pouring drinks and making sure that everyone – even those who still seem to be suffering from the excesses of the night before – has a glass of champagne or a mimosa in their hand.

Carter has saved a seat for me. See? I think as I part from Lauren and watch her take her seat at the head of the table, next to her husband. He is thoughtful. That’s a nice thing to do, right?

Sure… I mean, it’s the bare minimum, really. And he did manage to get us seats just about as far from everyone I know as is humanly possible. But it’s something, surely? It’s the thought that counts?

He waits for everyone to take their seat, before he rises and begins banging his spoon against his champagne flute, hard enough that I’m convinced he’s going to go right through and shower the wedding party with slivers of glass. All around him, people look up from their conversations with expressions of bemusement and annoyance. Whoever this stranger is, he’s making a hell of an impact. Perhaps less of an impact might be something to work towards, I think, but for some reason he doesn’t seem to be picking up on the telepathic daggers I’m shooting at him.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make it yesterday,’ Carter says. His wrinkled suit jacket and bleary-eyed look puts him at odds with the rest of the table, who are immaculately turned-out; he looks like he wandered in off the street, but somehow he’s not remotely put off by that. Perhaps he’s not even aware of it. All he seems to notice is that all eyes are on him. ‘But I just want to be the first to congratulate you both.’

I find myself gritting my teeth. You’re not the first, I want to say. You’re literally the last person to congratulate them, because you were literally the last person to turn up to their wedding. Everyone else has been congratulating them for the last three days.

‘I wish you both many years of happiness. But not too much, right? Leave some to go around?’ He jostles me with his elbow, hard enough that he would have spilled a good chunk of his drink had there been much left in his glass. ‘No? Anyway…’ He raises his arm high. ‘To Lauren and David!’

Oh, Jesus Christ…

‘What?’ he says. ‘Why’s no one toasting, guys?’

My neck snaps back instinctively. ‘Drew,’ I say.

‘What?’ His tone is clipped, his face stony; he’s always hated to be interrupted, let alone corrected. Let alone in public.

‘Lauren’s husband’s name is Drew, Carter. Not David. Drew.’

As suddenly as it started, the cloud breaks; he laughs and waves his hand like it’s no big thing. ‘Yeah, babe,’ he says. ‘That’s what I said, wasn’t it?’

‘No.’

‘Sure it was. Drew.’ He looks around the crowd. ‘Come on, guys… back me up on this one, right?’

There’s a neutral mumble from around the table: everyone knows it, but no one wants to get involved. Everyone’s treating Carter like a bruise on an apple, convincing themselves that they can just work around him, that he’s not so bad, that he’s not ruining anything, that it’s all part of his charm. After all, he’s here with me.

How bad can he be, really?