Page 38 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

“Oh no. You can’t mean that.” My mother blinks back tears. My father looks as if he’s watching a train wreck he doesn’t know how to stop. “I know I was wrong not to tell you, but everything I did I did to protect you. And Jake.”

My mother wrings her hands. My father moves closer to her.

“You may have told yourself that, but you had no right to keep my father from me.” I sniff back what I tell myself are tears of anger. “And to think I’ve been worrying that you’ve got some horrible illness.”

Brianna steps up on my other side. “I know this is a terrible shock. But you two are a unit. She’s your mother. She’s...”

“No.” I turn my death stare on Brianna. “The fact that we managed to survive each other’s company today doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do. Or how to feel. At least your parents were honest. They didn’t act all selfless and noble when they were lying to your face.”

“But, Lauren...” Bree’s voice drops to a whisper that I tune out.

“Sweetheart...”

I cut my mother off with a look then glower at her and my ex–best friend. “You always wanted to pretend she was your mother. Well, be my guest. You can have her.”

I turn my back on both of them and sail into the bedroom on a wave of righteous indignation. Spencer follows in my wake.

Five minutes later we’re packed. I stalk back through the living room stopping only long enough to ask my father—my father!!—if there’s a number where I can reach him. Because I’d like to spend some time withhimand have a chance to know him. I watch my mother’s face crumple as he hands me his card and tells me that he’s staying at the Dogwood and in that moment I’mgladthat she’s suffering. I raise my chin, avert my eyes, and make my exit.

Kendra

I stand very still as the nuclear blast detonates in my heart and mushrooms outward annihilating everything. I may appear intact on the outside, but inside I am Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I make no effort to stop Lauren or Spencer. He flashes me a look I don’t know him well enough to understand and stops to say something to Jake before he carries the suitcases outside. All I know is that there’s nothing I can say or do that will put things back the way they were. My face feels like Jake’s looks—pummeled and bruised, stark with pain. The soundtrack in my mind is Bonnie Tyler’s gritty rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” I can practically feel the darkness obliterating the light.

I want to run outside and beg them to come back. Want to beg Lauren not to drive in the state she’s in. But I know I’m the last person she’ll listen to right now and so I do and say nothing even after the car peels out of the driveway.

The four of us who are left stand stupidly, not moving.

“Do you want us to stay?” Bree asks though even she looks at me differently. “Is there something I can do?”

I want to reassure her, tell her it will be okay, that we’ll talk later, that nothing’s really changed. But I just shake my head. There’s nothing to be done right now. At least nothing that will alter or erase what has taken place. I would give everything to rewind, so that I had already confessed to Lauren before she ever put on the dress. There might have been less drama, but would that have ended any differently? I doubt she would have even tried it on.

“Okay. I’ll check in with you later.” Bree gives Clay a look and the two of them depart. I hear their cars start up and drive away.

Jake and I stand in silence. I wish I could blame this all on him, but I’m too raw to even pretend the blame belongs anywhere but with me. I had close to forty years to at least attempt to find a way to tell Lauren and Jake about each other. Surely I could have figured out how to do that without damaging Jake’s marriage and his family further.

A stronger, smarter person could have done it. But I took the easy way out. I ran and hid and buried my head in the sand. I take a deep, shaky breath and exhale sharply.

I deserve what happened today. But Lauren doesn’t. And neither does the man standing in front of me.

Finally I look Jake in the eye. “Not exactly what you were hoping for, was it?”

“No.” He runs a hand through his hair in the way I still remember. His smile is small and wry. “Not even close.”

I expel another breath of pent-up air. “It was exactly what I was afraid of.” I feel the prickle of tears, but I’m too numb, too exhausted, to shed them. “All these years I told myself I was doing the right thing for both of you. But maybe I’m just a coward and the only person I was really trying to protect was myself.”

His sigh is sad and heavy with disappointment. “I don’t know, Kendra. Pretty much none of my life has gone as planned, starting with the day you ran from the church. But in my experience denial is no one’s friend. We’ll all just have to get through this the best we can. I’ve done without a lot of things. But I shouldn’t have had to do without my daughter.”

“I’m sorry.” They’re the only words that come to me. They’re way too small and far too vague, but at the moment, they’re all I’ve got.

As he walks out the door I sink into the nearest chair, too exhausted to stay on my feet a second longer. The sound of his car fades away and still I sit. If an artist were painting me now the finished piece would be titledWoman Postatomic Blast. OrWoman After Hiroshima. Or maybe evenWoman Viewing Total Eclipse with Eyes Wide Open.

Nineteen

Lauren

Without actually planning, or possibly thinking, I drive to the Dogwood Inn, which makes it my second trip to Manteo today. I take Budleigh past the front of the inn, where its namesake is in full bloom, then turn onto Essex, where I pull the rental car up to the curb. Spencer follows me through the side yard and up the back steps. Wooden rocking chairs face the outdoor fireplace. Trellises that separate the back porch from the kitchen are threaded with wisteria and confederate jasmine. The latest in a long line of stray cats that all answer to the name “Cocoa” raises his head from his seat on one of the rocking chairs. His ears flick in casual interest as he blinks sleepily at us. Other houses are visible across the bright-green side yard but they’re comfortably removed.

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