Page 10 of Ashes of Us
Myweddingday.
The phone slipped from my hands onto the bed. I stared at the ceiling, my heart starting to pound.
The wedding. Oh God, the wedding.
Two hundred people expecting a celebration. Invitations sent. RSVPs trickling in. Deposits paid. Vendors booked. Hotel rooms reserved. My dress hanging in a garment bag in the closet of an apartment I'd walked out of last night.
Everyone still thought I was getting married.
Everyone except me and Maya. And Jenna, obviously. Liam... I didn't know what Liam thought. Maybe he still believed he could fix this. Maybe he thought I'd cool off and come back and we'd go to couples therapy and pretend none of this had happened.
Maybe he was that much of an idiot.
I sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. The room spun, and my mouth tasted like bad wine and regret.
There was a soft knock on the door. "You alive in there?" Maya's voice, cautiously cheerful.
"Unfortunately."
The door opened and she appeared with two mugs of coffee and a bottle of Advil tucked under her arm. She'd changed into fresh clothes. Ripped jeans and a t-shirt that said PESSIMIST: A REALIST WITH EXPERIENCE. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun.
"You look like death," she said, setting a mug on the nightstand and tossing me the Advil.
"Feel like it too." I dry-swallowed three pills and reached for the coffee. It was too hot and tasted like charcoal, but I didn't care.
Maya sat on the edge of the bed, studying my face. "What's wrong? I mean, besides the obvious."
I showed her the email.
She read it, then looked up at me. "Oh. Right. Shit."
"Yeah."
We sat there for a moment in silence.
"What else?" Maya asked gently.
I picked up my phone and opened my wedding planning app, the digital twin of the binder I’d abandoned at the apartment. The one I'd been obsessively updating for a year. Every detail color-coded, every deadline marked.
"Everything," I said. "The dress, the photographer, the florist, the honeymoon to Maui. Hotel rooms for out-of-town guests. The bridal shower in two weeks. Six bridesmaids who bought dresses and booked flights."
Maya was quiet, just listening.
"Everyone's going to know," I whispered. "Everyone's going to ask why. They're going to want details. They're going to have opinions about what I should do, whether I should give him another chance, whether I'm overreacting?—"
"You're not overreacting."
"Some people won't believe me. His family… God, his family loves me. His mom keeps texting me about how excited she is."
I was crying now. Quiet tears that wouldn't stop falling.
"And I wanted it," I said. "All of it. I wanted the wedding and the house we were going to buy and the kids we talked about having. I wanted Sunday mornings making pancakes and arguing about whose turn it was to take out the trash and growing old together. I wanted him."
Maya pulled me closer.
"I had this whole future planned," I said. "And now it's just... gone. All of it. Because he couldn't keep his hands off someone else."
"I know," Maya said softly. "I know, babe."
