Page 2 of Love Fast

I stamp my white pump into the gravel beneath my feet. “Fuck.”

“Need a lift somewhere?” a woman’s voice asks from my left. A figure in a white shirt and black pants pushes off from where she’s leaning against the wall.

Is she talking to me? A woman comes into view and I realize it’s Polly Gifford. We went to high school together, but ran in different circles. From what I heard, she got married at nineteen and had three kids before she turned twenty-three. “Polly?”

She twirls a bunch of keys around her finger and rounds the hood of the cab parked in front of the hotel. “I’ve got an airport pickup.” She shrugs. “I can drop you there.”

My chest lifts as I consider her suggestion. The airport? “Where would I go?”

She chuckles. “The fuck outta here? I don’t know. You just don’t look like you want to be here. You can stay and ask God for guidance, or you can get a free lift to Eugene Airport. Choice is yours.”

A thrill chases down my spine as I consider her offer. My phone is tucked into my bra—the only way to hang on to your phone with three sisters—so I wouldn’t need my wallet. But I don’t even have a jacket.

Or my freaking passport.

My heart sinks. No one’s letting me on an airplane without ID. I chew on the inside of my lip. It’s in the safe in the honeymoon suite—the room I just left. Frank made me apply for my passport when he told me we were going on an overseas trip. Why didn’t I bring it down with me?

Because I wasn’t planning on Polly Gifford offering me a ride out of my life.

Polly taps the roof of the cab. “Enjoy your wedding day, Rosey Williams.” She opens the cab door.

“Wait!” I say. I don’t have a plan. Or a place to go. I just know that I don’t want to get married. Not today. Not to Frank. “I need to grab my ID. It’s upstairs. Can you wait five minutes?”

She looks at her watch. “That’s all I can wait. If you’re not back in five, I’ve gotta go.”

“I’ll be back.” I turn and run across the lobby toward the elevators. “God, if you’re listening, you better have me back down here in five minutes,” I mutter.

The elevator’s waiting and I jump in, suddenly filled with energy and purpose. On the way up to the suite, I don’t second-guess myself. Not once. As much as I like Frank, the idea of me jilting him at the altar isn’t as horrifying as actually marrying him. I can’t go through with it. I just can’t. Maybe I should stay and face the music—look Frank in the eye, listen to my mother’s chastisement and blame. But I can’t face it.

I just need to get away. Escape.

In no time at all, the elevator doors open. Full of determination and a steel I don’t recognize in myself, I let myself back into the honeymoon suite, hoping no one notices.

“Oh, you’re back, finally,” Mom says, from the chair where Kitty did my hair. Armed with a can of hairspray and a teasing comb, Kitty stands over Mom. Anything could be about to happen.

“I gotta get Frank my passport,” I say, heading for the safe. “He needs it to check us in apparently.”

“Yousawhim?” she asks, horrified, only narrowly missing a squirt of hairspray to the eye.

I type in the code to the safe but it doesn’t open. Shit. This is all I need. I can’t have forgotten the code. That can’t be God’s plan for me. The idea of a trip to the airport fills me with such relief, getting stuck here can’t be my destiny.

“No, I ran into Pete in the lobby. He’s gonna get it to Frank.”

“Well, why didn’t he come up to get it? He can’t expect you to be wandering around in…”

I tune Mom out and type in the code again. This time the click of the lock feels like I’ve reached the summit of a roller coaster. My hands start to shake. I’m excited and terrified at the same time.

I pull out my passport and hold it up toward Mom, careful not to let my driver’s license slip out from the pages where I stuffed it last night. “It’s fine, Mom. It gives me something to do so I don’t get nervous.” I eye my purse next to the window, but I can’t risk taking it. Mom will know something’s up.

She rolls her eyes, and Lydia takes her attention by asking her to referee an argument she’s having with Kitty.

I take in the scene. My mom, snapping at Kitty and trying to cajole Marion into standing up so she doesn’t wrinkle her dress. Kitty and Lydia trade insults like they’re playing snap like we did when we were younger during endless rainy days stuck in the trailer. The suite is twice as big as the trailer I’ve called home for all twenty-eight years of my life, but it’s still too small for all of us. We’ve spent our lives on top of each other, arguing, competing, surviving.

I’m done.

I curl my hand around my passport, grab Lydia’s gray hoodie from where it’s slung on the back of a chair, and slip out.

I race toward the elevator, stuffing my passport into my bra. If I run into anyone, I don’t want to have to explain why I’m holding it.

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