“Me too.” He pulled away from me, our eyes locking with each other once more, until, with a parting nod at me, he knelt to take Jackson into his arms. With Peter out of the way, I could see Phineas again. He remained standing against the tree, but that was the only thing that remained. Stoic, he stared out into the forest, all traces of contentment gone.
“Mena, wait,” Amanda called out to me when I was nearly halfway to Phineas.
What have I done wrong now?
“Please.”
Phineas nodded at me, which I returned with a smile before turning around to address Amanda, who caught me completely off guard by how close she was to me. She must have been walking after me as she was calling out to me.
“Christ, Amanda.” I took a step back, clutching my chest.
“Sorry. I just … I—” She finished her sentence by doing the one thing I never would have expected: she hugged me. Dazed, I stood rigid with my arms at my side. Over Amanda’s shoulder, I caught sight of Peter. His mouth was agape as he ushered Jackson away, looking over his shoulder no less than a dozen times. To make things a little less awkward, I placed my arms lightly around her shoulders. Moments later, she loosened her grip from around me. “Thank you.”
“It was nothing. I just remembered something Jackson told me a while ago about where he likes to go when he’s feeling overwhelmed, and I made a lucky guess. Anyone would have done the same thing.”
“No,” she shook her head, “it wasn’t nothing. It was everything. Not just anyone would have done what you did. You took the time to get to know my son. You listened to him. You didn’t have to do it, but you did anyway. That’s pretty exceptional.”
“Yeah, well, I’m no mom, but I try.”
“You’re wrong, Mena. You are a mom. You’ve acted every bit the mom to him. I heard you up there with him in the tree stand. You care about my son; you worry about his safety; you want the best for him. If that’s not a mom, I don’t know what is. Look, I know that your methods are … unconventional, but in the end, our goals are the same. I didn’t see that before, and that’s my fault. But I see it now. I just wanted you to know that.”
“Th-Thank you.” As hard as I tried to hide it, my words came out just as choked up as I felt.
She nodded as she began to turn around, stopping herself to say one last thing. “He still loves you, you know.”
“I know.”
There was more she wanted to say, whether it was concerning Peter or Jackson, I wasn’t certain. It really didn’t matter. Because what she had said meant everything to me, and no matter what happened from here on out, I would carry her words with me to remind me that I am worth more than the voice in my head would lead me to believe.
Composing myself, I turned back around to meet Phineas, but when I did, he was gone.
*****
If there was one thing I could count on with Phineas, it was lively conversation, which made our silent ride back from the rehearsal all the louder. Granted, the top was still down on the convertible, rendering conversation futile at times. Still, it was unlike Phineas to at least attempt to talk to me. It was one of the many differences between him and Peter. With Peter, there didn’t need to be conversation. We just knew what the other was thinking. I thought it would be the same with Phineas, and in some ways it was. But not now. I had no idea what was going through his mind, only that there was something different about him.
I searched my brain for material I could use to start a conversation without it being obvious that I was finding it a struggle to talk to him. Arriving at nothing outside of the weather or work, I opted to stay silent, deciphering his body language and the occasional glance he threw in my direction. Between this morning and now, he’d lost his spark. The boy who’d been giddy to get behind the wheel of a convertible had grown up into a man, jaded by the world and everyone in it, including me.
Without warning, Phineas veered off the road, pulling into the parking lot of a park I used to pass by all the time when I lived in Roanoke. The car’s tires squealed as he took the turn, the back end fishtailing on the gravel. A cloud of dust was left in our wake like waves on a sea. Underneath an elm tree, he found one of the few open parking spots still available, and with a sigh, he shut the engine off.
I loosened up my death grip on the door handle, exhaling the breath I’d been holding in. “Perhaps a little warning the next time you decide to go all Roanoke drift on me?”
“I would have had I known I was going to do that, myself.” He ran his fingers through his hair, which made me even more tense.
“What is it, Phineas?”
He moved to speak, starting and stopping a couple of times before the words came out. “I was just thinking that maybe we could take a walk and … talk.” Those were the words he settled on, but I suspected they weren’t the ones he grappled with inside of his head, and they certainly weren’t the ones that had dimmed the light in his eyes.
“Have we reached the point in our relationship where you decide to reveal your serial killer alter ego to me? Where you murder me under the guise of taking a leisurely stroll in the park, rendering me nothing more than the incredibly doable maid of honor, who was tragically taken out just past the prime of her life?”
He laughed, momentarily forgetting whatever it was on his mind. “I think we can both agree that if I were going to kill you, I would have done it way before now.”
“True.” I nodded, pursing my lips. “Hurtful, but true.”
We walked through the small park, which was just beginning to empty in the waning light of evening. If not for the nagging feeling that the other shoe was about to drop, our stroll would have been an enjoyable one. Instead, my anxiety took over, and as we walked along, I searched Phineas’s face for any clues that would lead me to what was going on inside of his head. His expression was painfully unreadable, even though I knew his mind was working a mile a minute. It always was.
We came upon a footbridge over a small stream in the middle of the park. He stopped in the middle of it, leaning against the railing. I joined him, admiring the sharp contrast between the emerald green grass and the cloudy blue stream. Next to me, Phineas’s eyes were closed, his body relaxed and at peace. I echoed his stance, hoping to find some peace of my own. But that wasn’t meant to be.
“Are you still in love with him?” By the slight hesitation in his voice, I could tell it both pained and relieved him to get this question out into the open. Keeping it suppressed even a moment longer would have caused it to fester inside his body, becoming all-consuming.
I knew this moment would come. It had to. This emotional limbo that had been bending me in half couldn’t go on forever, and I, too, was relieved to finally say out loud the thoughts that had been consuming me. With tears in my eyes, I found his face. The sadness was apparent in his eyes, and his desolation only deepened when he discovered the answer to his question written all over my face.
“Yes, I’m still in love with Peter.”
He nodded, but his eyes were pleading with me to take it back, even though deep down he knew that wouldn’t happen. “I didn’t need to ask that question; I already knew the answer. I just didn’t want to admit to already knowing the truth.”
“I care about you, too, Phin.”
He smiled, reaching out to caress my face with the back of his hand. “I know you do. Which is why this is so hard.”
“I’m just so confused. I don’t know what to do, where to go. I’ve never been so lost.”
He shook his head. “That’s not true. You’ve never been lost.” He smiled softly, his eyes watering. “You belong here, Mena, and you know it. Your life is in New York, but your home is here. It always has been here.”
I placed my hand over his, closing my eyes tightly as though that would somehow stop my tears from falling.
“I would try to convince you otherwise, but the way I saw you looking at him today, Mena, I know you’ve already made up your mind. And I don’t believe there’s anythin
g I can say to you to make you change it and choose me over him. If there was, I would say it. Believe me, I would shout those words from the rooftop.”
“Phin, please.” The pain was too much to bear and the tears too heavy to hold back.
“If I’m wrong, by all means come back to New York. Come back to … me. But I know I’m not wrong as much as I wish I was with all my heart.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, grasping his hand that had since fallen from my face.
“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered back, resting his forehead against mine. “I’m grateful to you, Mena.”
“You’re grateful to me for breaking your heart?”
“No. I’m grateful to you for showing me my heart can beat for someone again. I was beginning to think it never would.”
“Phin.” I hugged him, burying my face in his chest as he ran his fingers through my hair, exhaling a trembling breath.
“Tell Peter I said he’s a lucky man. Tell him he’d better love you until the moment he draws his last breath. Tell him he’d better never make you cry a single tear again. Tell him he needs to make you smile and laugh every day. Tell him all of that … and that I hate him down to the very last cell inside of his body.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Phineas left within minutes after we arrived back at the inn. I sat on the bed and watched him pack his suitcase, completely numb. We hardly spoke, except for when I asked him to wait to try to catch a flight back to New York in the morning. He shook his head, stating that he needed to get back to deal with a few issues that had crept up at the office.
We both knew there were no issues back at the office.
After zipping up his suitcase, he made a cursory glance around the room and left with a final look at me, accompanied by a cordial, but pained smile. It took all I had in me not to chase after him when the door latched shut after he walked out of our room. But I knew doing so would just fan the flames of our pain. The truth was that Phineas was right. Virginia was my home. Peter was my home.
“Earth to Mena.” Elle snapped me out of my trance, waving her hand in front of my face.
“Huh? Oh … down. Your hair looks great down.”
“That was a half hour and ten questions ago. Are you okay?”
The last thing I wanted to do was upset Elle with my relationship drama on her wedding day. She was frazzled enough as it was. Just watching her flit around the dressing room stressed to the max in the barn we were being holed-up in was enough for me to decide that I was either going to elope or never get married at all.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Look at me.” I stood up and twirled around, my dress fanning out around me. “I’m a fucking ray of sunshine.”
“Hey, bride,” Violet called to Elle, having returned from her latest scouring of the grounds to ensure everything was going as planned. “You’re getting married in an hour. Shouldn’t you be getting dressed?”
“You’re absolutely right, Violet. Thank you for reminding me I should get dressed, because I would never have come to that conclusion myself,” Elle called back. She lowered her voice near my ear as she delivered her follow-up statement. “Damn, she’s annoying today.”
I snickered. “Today? Where have you been?” My eyes traveled down to her mid-section, where a small bump was just barely visible to anyone who looked carefully. “Never mind. I know exactly where you’ve been.”
Elle rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing we chose May instead of June. Because had I waited another month, I wouldn’t have been able to hide this.” She patted her belly, smiling. She’d begun to take to the idea of becoming a mom. I couldn’t tell whether it was due to the wedding or the pregnancy, but she really was glowing. Of course, that glow could also be from the atmosphere inside of our cramped room which rivaled a sauna.
“At the risk of sounding like Violet, you really should be getting dressed.”
“I know, I know. I’ve just been putting it off because the moment I put that dress on everything will be so … final.”
“Are you having second thoughts? Because if you want to run, we could totally jump in Kirsten’s car and Thelma and Louise our way out of here.”
“Thelma and Louise, huh? You do remember what happens at the end of that movie, right?”
“They all lived happily ever after?” I shrugged. “Isn’t that why that movie’s so popular?”
“Yeah, we’ll go with that.” Elle picked up her garment bag and threw it over her shoulder. “It’s show time.”
“Do you need help with that thing? There’s like a bajillion buttons on the back.”
“There’s fifty buttons, and probably, yes.” She motioned for Kirsten and me to follow her just as a knock appeared on the door.
“I’ll grab it. I suppose I should do something to earn this maid of honor title you’ve bestowed upon me, other than sit here, look pretty, and give embarrassing speeches at your reception, that is.”
“Wait, what?” Elle asked. I could almost hear the bile rising from her stomach.
“Nothing.” I ushered Elle and Kirsten behind a dressing screen and scurried over to the door. My guess was that it was Suzanne, the ball of joy officiant, paying us a visit to check on our progress and confirming that the wedding would be proceeding on schedule. Mentally, I had myself so psyched up that it was Suzanne that my surprise was amplified when I opened the door to reveal Peter standing on the other side.
He sucked in a sharp gasp of air as his eyes raked down the length of my body. Equally as impressed by his transformation, I, too, was rendered speechless, taking him in standing before me in his tuxedo, his disheveled hair tamed down. In front of me was someone who was the polar opposite of the Peter Monroe I’d come to know and love, yet it really suited him. And I think he felt it, too. His posture had improved, and he carried himself with more confidence than I’d seen in him in a long time.
“Is everything okay?” I asked after several seconds had gone by and he still hadn’t said a word.
“Wha— Oh, yeah. Yeah, everything is fine.”
That was when I noticed the envelope in his hand and my heart skipped a beat. Was it for me? I hoped it was, but that thought was quashed almost as soon as it entered my mind.
“It’s for Elle.” He handed the envelope to me.
“Of course … for Elle.”
“I need to get back. Luke is pacing around, sweating like a man three times his size. He’s pretty nervous.”
“Luke? Nervous?”
“I know. You would think the man was getting married or something.” A small smile lit up his face, making his blue eyes sparkle even more than usual. “I’ll see you at the end of the aisle?”
I nodded. “I’ll be there. Unless Elle decides to steal a convertible, pick up Brad Pitt, and haul ass across the country.”
He stared at me, confused. “I’m going to do us all a favor and not mention that to Luke.”
“Probably a good idea,” I agreed. “See you soon.”
I closed the door, resisting the urge to repeatedly bang my forehead against it as it latched shut. Why I hadn’t used this opportunity to jump into his arms, I didn’t know. All I knew for certain was that my flight back to New York left tomorrow morning, and I wanted to tell Peter everything in person—I just didn’t know what everything was yet.
“Who was that?” Elle asked when I walked behind the screen.
“It was only Pet … er … Oh my!”
“What?” Elle looked herself up and down in the mirror. “Do I have something in my teeth?”
“Absolutely not. You look gorgeous.”
“Doesn’t she, though?” Kirsten clasped her hands together, admiring her handiwork.
I gaped at the vision standing before me in the dress I helped her choose, with her hair hanging down in waves just past her shoulders and her veil secured with bobby pins. She was a vision, a true princess. And her love story with Luke had been nothing short of a modern-day fairy tale.
“Mena
, are you going to cry?” she asked.
“No … Maybe … Here.” I handed her the note from Luke.
Perplexed, Elle took the envelope and opened it, pulling out a letter I presumed was from Luke. She couldn’t have been more than a paragraph into it before her eyes began to well with tears.
“No crying!” Violet scolded Elle. “You’ll smear your makeup.”
“Yes, how dare you show any emotion on your wedding day.” I stood on my tiptoes to get a better view of the letter just as Elle finished it and promptly folded it up and stuck it back inside of the envelope. Heeding Violet’s advice, she grabbed a tissue and blotted her eyes. “If he’s already making you cry in a letter, just imagine what his vows are going to do to you. Hopefully, you brought your ‘A’ game for yours.”
All the color drained from Elle’s face and she looked like she was going to be sick.
“Or we could always drive a car off a cliff in the Grand Canyon.”
“Elle.” Alex came into the room, peeking behind the screen. “It’s time.”
*****
I didn’t know why I was so nervous; it’s not like I was the one getting married. Be that as it may, here I was, my stomach turning, my knees threatening to buckle at any given moment.
Because he’s waiting for you at the end of that aisle.
Yes, brain, I know, but he’s not waiting for me. Wait. Is he waiting for me? After the last couple of days, he probably believes our ship has sailed. How am I going to tell him? What am I going to do? There’s so much to say, so many decisions to make, and they all needed to be made soon.
Of course. That’s it.
It hit me then that this was just as much the beginning of my life as it was Luke and Elle’s. Except there was far more uncertainty when it came to Peter and me. Uncertainty was something I aimed to avoid at all costs. The unknown intimidated me, and now it was all that was laid out in front of me. Surely, this was the walk of anxiety.
Kirsten began her journey down the path leading to the aisle. After a ten second count, Violet commenced hers, which was a signal for me to take my position at the end of the cobblestone walkway. Drawing in a deep breath, I began my own count, clutching my bouquet of roses, lilies, and daisies in front of me.
When Stars Collide Page 33