Page 58 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

“Cut me out of her life like I cut you out?” I know as I say this that it’s entirely possible. I know our daughter in ways Jake never will,thanks to me, and I’ve watched how she’s handled what she sees as defection or betrayal. She and Bree were as close as sisters and even now she hasn’t really forgiven her or moved on.What I’ve done, or failed to do, is far worse. “It would be poetic justice, wouldn’t it? And no more than I deserve.” I huff out a breath. It’s that or cry and I will not do that here. “For what it’s worth, Iamsorry, Jake. And I’m glad you’ll have each other.” My voice cracks again. Unable to meet his eyes or watch him leave I walk as slowly as I can manage to the ladies’ room, barely feeling the eyes that follow me. I sit in the stall dazed and dry-eyed until I’m certain the coast must be clear.

Then I walk to my car and drive home. Life as I’ve known it is over and I have no interest at all in a new one.

Lauren

Despite the two Tylenol PM I downed before I crawled into bed last night, I didn’t sleep or avoid a hangover. I feel like roadkill. A glance in the bathroom mirror confirms that I look like it, too.

For the first time in decades I am not consumed with fear because I have to fly. In fact, I’m so emotionally drained that all I care about is going home even if I have to get on a plane to get there.

Apparently, finding out your mother is not at all the person you thought she was is all it takes to cure a fear of flying. I’d notify the airlines and my readers of this shocking discovery except the dull ache hiding beneath my righteous anger tells me that not many people—including me—wouldchoosethis remedy.

Spencer managed to look surprisingly alert this morning when he went out for a run despite my tossing and turning and my threeA.M.suggestion that we go ahead and get on the road.

I heard him and Bree talking when he first went downstairs. Even though I couldn’t make out what they were saying I have no doubt she now knows everything that was said after she and Clay left Blue Point.

By the time I go downstairs in search of coffee Clay and Lily are gone. Bree is dressed and ready to leave for the store. She pours me a cup then creams and sugars it the way I like. As she hands it to me, her face is scrunched up in the way that always signaled she was screwing up her nerve. “You are going to forgive her at some point, aren’t you?” She looks at me hopefully.

The coffee I’m sipping turns bitter. Much as I need the caffeine, I barely manage to swallow it. “Have you forgiven your parents?” I’m way too hungover and sleep deprived to wait for an answer. “At least they didn’t pretend to be abandoning you for your own good.”

“But you can’t mean to cut her out of your life. Not when you’ve been so close. Not when...”

“Maybe we were so close because we were all each other had. Do you really think she had the right to keep my father and me apart? To let me believe he was dead?”

“But she was protecting you. And Jake and his family. She devoted her whole life to you.”

I snort. “She lied to me my entire life. She’s created more fiction than I ever have.”

“Oh, Lauren. I know it’s all a huge shock. Anyone would be upset. But she tried to make the best choices she could in a really difficult situation. That’s what good parents do. That’s all anyone can do.”

The coffee churns in my stomach along with my anger. I’m so mad I can barely look at her. “So I just don’t understand because I’m not a parent? That’s bullshit. A total cop-out. That’s what weak people say when they make the wrong choices.”

Bree doesn’t back off. “You’re always in the right, aren’t you? Everyone else is at fault. We’re supposed to stand in line and beg your forgiveness.” She shakes her head. She’s angry, but I hear the sadness, too. “I have some experience with your inability to grant it.”

“Is that right?”

Brianna’s face is still scrunched up and forlorn. Once again she’s the victim. The one other people abandon and treat badly. “I didn’t go to New York with you. I chose another path. It’s not like I ruined your life.”

I blink. The anger that’s been simmering so close to the surface since Jake first appeared and the truth came out boils over. Bree is not the only one who’s ever been a victim. “You went back on a lifelong promise. A shared dream. And...” I stop.

“And what? You always act like it was some great, awful hardship,” she says. “It’s not like you didn’t come out the winner here. What could have possibly been so terrible?”

“I was alone in the most terrifying city on the planet. And because my roommate backed out at the last minute, I couldn’t afford the place I spent six months finding for us. I couldn’t afford to live in any safe, decent place.”

“I know. You had to beg strangers to let you camp on their couch.” She tosses out the words as if they’re nothing. “But isn’t that part of what twenty-one-year-olds do when they go there? Live on someone’s couch. Eat ramen noodles. Isn’t that the whole I-conquered-New-York, rite-of-passage thing?”

Normally I stop there. I don’t even like to think about what happened when I arrived in New York. But that tone of hers, its insistence that I’m overreacting, isn’t going to cut it. Not today. For the first time in twenty years I tell the complete truth about what happened.

“Yeah, well, unfortunately I didn’t even know any strangers that I could beg to let me rent a couch from when I got there, did I? I didn’t knowanyone, Bree. And it didn’t help that I got mugged less than twenty minutes after I got off the bus.”

Her face falls. And I know I should stop now. Stop and walk away with my pride intact and my “story” in place. But apparently at this moment I need someone else to feel as bad as I do.

“In fact, if I hadn’t tucked away three hundred-dollar bills inside a sock, a shoe, and my underwear like I’d read in anarticle, I wouldn’t have hadanymoney. I made it last for three whole weeks at this filthy, horrible hotel in Hell’s Kitchen—when it really was hell and not the trendy neighborhood it is today. And FYI—fleabagisn’t a euphemism. It was so filthy I never got between the sheets and I only slept with my clothes on. Well, I didn’t really sleep. I would just lay there until it was morning.”

She looks slightly green, which suits me just fine.

“Of course, if I had been tucked under the covers and actually asleep I might not have gotten away from the drunk who couldn’t afford one of the prostitutes down the hall and broke into my room and tried to rape me.”

“Oh, Lauren.” Her hand goes to her throat. “Oh God. That’s so awful. Why didn’t you call? Or at least come home for a while and regroup?”

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