Page 32 of Faking the Pass
Wearing his underwear.
Presley Lowe, who’d broken up with me with no explanation and basically never talked to me again until last night.
Presley Lowe, who’d shattered my teenage heart and was the first to show me I couldn’t trust it.
I’d haveswornback then that he’d felt the same kind of attraction and fascination with me as I had with him.
Obviously, I’d been wrong.
The same way I’d been wrong about Randy.
Well, my stupid heart wasn’t going to get another chance to steer me wrong because I was putting it in a permanent time out.
Noticing the TV remote on top of the dresser, I decided to check out the entertainment news channels to see what people were saying about the wedding that wasn’t.
What Randy was saying aboutme.
Without my phone, I’d been completely out of touch with the outside world. He may have already put out some fabricated sob story and ruined my name beyond repair.
I sat on the edge of the bed and flipped through several of the channels. There didn’t appear to have been any official statement from him yet. Therewerea few sound bites from wedding attendees who said the venue was gorgeous and the food had been great.
Nice to knowsomeonehad a good time at my wedding.
One of the guests they interviewed said how sorry she was that I’d been too sick to go through with the ceremony.
So that was Randy’s cover story.
I was sick all right—sick of his lies. Still, the pressure in my head lessened a bit. It wasn’t theworstthing he could have said about me.
But then the presenter intro’d some drone video footage. It took a second for me to recognize what I was looking at.
The screen showed an overhead view of me in the dinghy. My heart dropped, my elbows pressing into my sides as I gripped the comforter on either side of my legs.
The little boat moved slowly, and the camera stayed with it all the way to Presley’s cottage, like the aquatic version of that OJ Simpson slow-speed highway chase.
That washow they knew where I was.
Turning up the volume, I listened to the beautiful show hosts chatter, waiting for them to identify the cottage owner, to say that I’d left my poor groom at the altar and was shacking up with a star athlete.
They didn’t, but they did speculate, in gleeful tones, about how I’d been able to pilot a boat if I was so sick and why I wasn’t coming forward with any sort of public statement.
They wondered aloud why I wasn’t in the hospital or maybe recovering somewhere with my beloved Randy—and when the rescheduled wedding ceremony might take place.
A cold day in hell, that’s when.
Then the hosts speculated that my illness might have been more of the mental variety rather than something physical.
Information vacuums were dangerous. People came up with all kinds of crazy stories when they weren’t given one to fill the void.
It was probably time to borrow Presley’s phone to call my agent, craft some sort of statement to put out, and not wait around for the inevitable avalanche of misinformation.
But what to say?
I didn’t exactly relish the prospect of going along with Randy’s lie, but I waslegallynot permitted to tell the truth.
And honestly? I didn’t want people to know the truth. It was too embarrassing.
The truth made me look like a complete fool.
