Page 40 of Take My Heart
‘Shouldn’t you be the one deciding that?’ Brody shakes his head. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t be getting involved. I’ll let you call your sister. I’ll be in my room.’
I wait until he’s in there with the door shut before calling Jill.
‘Hello?’ she answers, like she thinks it’s a wrong number.
‘Jill, it’s me.’
‘Kate?’
‘Yeah. My phone’s dead. I’m using Brody’s.’
‘Who’s Brody?’
‘The guy I’m staying with. Didn’t Mom and Dad already tell you this?’
‘They said your phone didn’t work and that you got stuck in a snowstorm, but they didn’t say anything about .?.?. what was his name?’
‘Brody.’ I lower my voice, not wanting Brody to hear metalking about him. ‘He found me on the road after Cam’s car went in the ditch and brought me to his house.’
‘Kate, what is going on?’
‘What do you mean?’ I go down the hall to my room and shut the door.
‘You disappear from your own wedding, then run off and get stuck in a blizzard and end up in some strange guy’s house? Seriously, what the hell’s going on?’
‘I’m just going through a lot right now. That’s why I called you. I needed to talk to someone.’
‘Yeah? So talk.’
‘I’ve been thinking and I realized I’m not happy, or maybe I’m just not happy with Cam. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure it all out. I just know I couldn’t marry him.’
‘And you decided this on your wedding day?’ she asks in a judgmental tone, like I’m stupid for not figuring this out sooner. Maybe I shouldn’t have called her, but I didn’t know who else to call.
‘I was hoping I’d feel differently the closer I got to the wedding, but I didn’t. And then I was standing at the altar and couldn’t do it. I couldn’t marry him.’
‘Why’d you take off? You could’ve gone home with Mom and Dad or stayed with me. You should be with your family right now.’
‘I needed to get away. I couldn’t stay there and listen to everyone telling me what I was doing was wrong and that I should get back with Cam. You know everyone would take his side. They’d tell me to marry him, but that isn’t the right decision for me.’
‘How could it not be the right decision? You love him.’
‘No, I don’t love him,’ I say, already frustrated with how this is going. ‘That’s why I couldn’t marry him.’
‘That doesn’t make sense. You guys have been together forever.’
‘It hasn’t been forever. It’s been a few years.’
‘That’s still a long time. Long enough for you to know if you loved him.’
‘But I didn’t. I just wouldn’t admit that to myself because everyone kept telling me that Cam was the perfect guy for me.’
‘He’s not perfect, but he’s still a great guy. And he makes a lot of money for someone his age. He makes almost as much as Henry.’
Henry is Jill’s husband. He’s a corporate attorney. He’s 31 and very serious. I can’t remember ever seeing him laugh. He’s so boring. All he talks about is work.
‘So because Cam makes a lot of money, I’m supposed to marry him?’
‘Well, no, but besides that, you guys have a lot in common. You like the same restaurants. You both have a good eye for design. You like going on trips together. And you have similar goals. You’ve talked about houses, where you’ll live, how many kids you’ll have. You’ve created a whole life together.’
