Page 4 of The Exception

“Sonya,” Emma sighed. “Are you okay?”

That question made the hurt and resentment Sonya had tried so hard to lock away sneak back into the forefront of her mind, and her heart squeezed a little.

Which was completely unacceptable.

Wallowing was not her style, so with a sharp inhale she shoved those feelings away and pasted a resigned smile on her face. “I’m fine,” she replied. “Of course, hearing him say it hurt initially but I’ve had time to think about it, and he was right. We loved each other and had fun together but we were never in love like you and Adam are. Or Cat and Josh. Hell, I think even Dani and Dylan might have had us beat.”

That was hard to admit since their two friends had only been a couple for six months. But there was something about the way they looked at each other that surprised Sonya. She was starting to understand why. “We’d gotten comfortable and we were settling.”

She sounded like she was giving an unfavorable diagnosis to a patient and if she heard it, she was pretty sure Emma heard it too. But her friend just twisted her lips in that way she always did when she was thinking, and squeezed her hand again.

“I don’t believe that. You two loved each other. It was obvious to everyone.”

Sonya thought back to all the gatherings of friends where Marcus had been her plus one, and Emma was right. Everyone always told them what a perfect couple they were; friends, family, even people on the street said it, and on paper, they were. Maybe they’d both let everyone’s adoration of them rose-tint the way they viewed their own relationship, and that was why neither of them was able to see that they hadn’t been completely right for one another until it was too late.

“Was it, though?” Sonya asked. “I mean, seriously, he was always gone. Whenever you all spent time with him it was after he’d returned from a long trip. Of course we seemed in love. Our whole relationship was a series of honeymoon periods.”

Emma chuckled to herself and shook her head. “You’ve obviously been analyzing this in the way that only you can.”

“All I’m saying is that maybe Marcus wasn’t wrong.”

Sonya lifted her glass to her lips as Emma finally turned her attention back to her waffles.

“Well… if you’re fine with it, good riddance to him. You deserve a man who loves you like mad. Maybe it was a sign that you two were never able to set a date.”

Sonya’s glass froze in midair. She hadn’t exactly told anyone that she and Marcus had decided to elope. As far as everyone knew, her trip had been just another benefit of being engaged to a pilot. Now, she was going to have to come clean with Emma about all of it, and she didn’t know how she was going to take it.

So far, Sonya hadn’t been able to come up with a viable recovery plan for conversations like the one she was currently having. Why hadn’t she told anyone she was running off to Hawaii to elope?

Who was she kidding, she knew why. If she’d told anyone that she and Marcus were planning to elope, they would’ve thought she was joking which would’ve made her second-guess her decision so much that she would’ve called it off.

Looking back on it, maybe that wouldn’t have been the worst thing that could’ve happened. Damn. Hindsight really was a bitch.

“Sonya? You disappeared into your head for a minute there. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded and polished off what was left of her mimosa, signaling the waiter for the refill she desperately needed for what was about to go down.

“So… I need to tell you something,” she began, pausing until the waiter moved away to another table after leaving her another mimosa. “The Hawaii trip wasn’t just a vacation.”

There was a brief moment of silence where Sonya thought she was going to have to spell it out, but when Emma went completely still, she knew she’d put two and two together.

“No way,” she whispered.

“Emma…”

“You did not go to Hawaii to elope without telling me!”

“That… that was the plan.”

Sonya watched Emma’s face as she processed that revelation. She could handle her friend’s scrunched up forehead, her slack jaw, and even the flash of anger in her eyes, but when those eyes turned glassy with tears, it made her chest hurt. She and Emma had shared some of the highest and the lowest moments of their lives with one another, but she hadn’t seen fit to tell her best friend that she was running off to get married. To be completely honest, if the tables were turned, she’d be pissed and hurt too.

She reached across the table and covered Emma’s hand with her own. “Em, I’m sorry. You should’ve been the first person I told.”

Emma sniffed and nodded her head. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” she asked.

That question made Sonya’s heart break a little. She never wanted Emma to think that she was anything but the best friend she’d ever had.

“Of course I know that. You’re like a sister to me. I just…” she paused, trying to collect her thoughts into something she could actually express. “…got too caught up in my own head about it, I guess.”

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