I found Madison. “Do you think it’s okay if I bail? I’ve had enough for one night.”
“Definitely. I can handle it from here.”
“Thanks.” I kissed her on the cheek. “Sis.”
She smiled broadly, and I thought about her invitation to come visit her and Jake. It might be nice to get to know her. And she was far less of a mess than Amy.
I grabbed my bag and headed to the door, where Alex was standing, watching me in awe.
“Is this what all bachelorette parties are like?”
“God no. This is what happens when little kids get married.” I checked the time on my cell phone. “Do you think the hotel bar is still open?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said, taking my bag from me.
The bar was open, and nearly empty, except for a couple of midfifties guys in suits at a table. Alex and I sat at the bar.
“A Stella and a martini,” he ordered. “Extra olives.”
“At least they can probably actually make one here,” I said. “The martinis at that bar tonight were the worst I’ve ever had.”
“Anything beyond a shot is probably out of their wheelhouse.”
“And when you’re Amy’s age, you don’t know better anyway.”
Our drinks arrived. “What should we toast to?” Alex asked.
I thought briefly. “To Amy. The only bride to actually allow me to bring a date to her wedding.”
Alex smiled and clinked my glass. “Technically, I can be your unofficial date to Tim and Megan’s too.”
“Well you kind of have to be now, since you told everyone we’re together.”
“I can tell them we broke up and let Justin know you’re available?”
“Why? Do you hate me?”
He smiled again. “No. I definitely don’t hate you.”
“Then don’t tell Justin anything of the sort. I still can’t believe that sleazebag was going around saying that.”
“I swear I almost hit him.”
“I still might do it myself in a couple weeks. What does Tim see in him?”
“He’s—he’s fun in that bro way. Until he’s telling everyone he’s going to sleep with your best friend.”
I leaned back, surprised. “I’m your best friend?”
He looked at me carefully with an expression I hadn’t seen before. “Well. Yeah. I think you kind of are now.”
I didn’t respond immediately. Megan had been my official best friend since second grade, of course. Caryn, as much as I didn’t like her at the moment, had the title of “work best friend.” But Megan had been pretty MIA lately. And her requirement that I stay away from Tim’s friends romantically rankled me. No, I wasn’t demoting her, or Caryn for that matter, but maybe—maybe Alex had grown into a different type of best friend. I hadn’t even sent Megan a picture of my ridiculous bridesmaid getup. Or texted her all evening. And she wouldn’t have dropped everything to come help me with Amy.
I realized I hadn’t replied and needed to say something. “I—I hadn’t put a label on it. But yeah, I think you’re one of my best friends too.”
His shoulders loosened in relief. “Are we supposed to get those matching heart necklaces now? My sister always got those.”
“Tattoos,” I said sagely. “That’s how millennials say ‘I love you.’”
He started to say something, but stopped himself and took another sip of his beer. “I think they’re getting ready to close up.” He put some money down on the bar. “I’ll take you home.”
“Your place is closer. We can just share an Uber there, and I’ll take it the rest of the way.” He gave me a look. “Fine, I won’t argue.”
“That’s a first,” he said.
I nudged him with my shoulder. “You’re one to talk.”
“I’m a lawyer. I get paid to argue.”
“Calm down there, Atticus Finch. You get paid to help people copyright stuff.”
“Oh good, you are feeling okay.”
“Smart-ass.” He cocked his head toward the exit and I nodded. He held the door for me, and we waited under the hotel’s awning for the Uber to arrive as a cool mist began to dampen the pavement.
“Thank you for coming tonight,” I said as the Uber driver pulled up to my apartment building. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Yes, you could have. You’re much less of a mess than you think.”
I huffed good-naturedly. “Who says I’m a mess?” He started to answer, but I cut him off. “Don’t. Even I can’t say that with a straight face.”
“I’ll walk you up.”
“You don’t need to, it’s right here. And I’m not drunk.”
“I know, but I want to.”
I shrugged, and he told the Uber driver he would be right back.
We walked the few feet to the door. “Safe and sound,” I said.
“I know. I just needed to work up my nerve.”
“Your nerve? To do what?”
“This,” he said, leaning in and kissing me.
Deep down, I think I had known how I felt ever since Megan’s housewarming party. Somewhere, buried beneath layers and layers of denial and scar tissue from the wound I had created with David and my own hardheaded sense of self-preservation, I knew that Alex was more than a friend. Because that feeling didn’t just magically appear when he kissed me. It was more like it had been there since the beginning and had finally broken free.
And because it had always been there, it didn’t take long for me to get over my surprise and kiss him back. Hungrily. Greedily. Like he was the oxygen I needed to survive, because right then, he was.
He pulled back slightly—it must have been him, because I know it wasn’t me—and smiled, touching a finger to my cheek so gently that it sent a shiver of anticipation down my spine.
I opened my mouth to tell him to come upstairs. To get rid of the Uber driver and be mine. But Megan’s words came back to me. And while I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which I would stop liking Alex, there were a million where he stopped liking me. Like when he inevitably found out about Justin—which would probably happen at the wedding. I can’t deal with that drama at my wedding, Megan had said. But it wasn’t just her comment—I had ruined this one before it even began. And while I wasn’t exactly in the running to be named bridesmaid of the year, I had one thing within my control: I could avoid sleeping with a second groomsman in my best friend’s wedding.
“I can’t,” I said, my face contorting from the pain of admitting that. “I—I want to, but I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” Alex said, taking my hands. “Lily, there’s nothing keeping us apart. I know Megan didn’t like it when she thought we were just sleeping together, but she’d get over it if we were serious.”
I shook my head and pulled my hands away, starting to cry. “I’m sorry. I want to, but I can’t do this.”
Alex was saying my name, but I had to get away. I dug in my purse until I found my key fob and waved it blindly at the locking mechanism to open the door. I ran past him into the building, half praying he would follow me, half praying he wouldn’t. I turned, just in time to get a glimpse of his bewildered and hurt face as the door closed behind me, then I sank down on the tattered sofa in the lobby and cried until I had no tears left.
At some point, I left the lobby and made my way upstairs to my apartment, which was devoid of Becca, as it had been ever since she started dating Will. I kicked off my shoes by the door and padded barefoot to my bedroom, planning to go right to bed. But my open laptop caught my eye and I stopped.
The blog was so therapeutic. I could hide behind the anonymity of the internet to say what I truly felt, without worrying that I was offending anyone or hurting anyone’s feelings. It was the one place where I could actually pour out all of the pain I was feeling and maybe—maybe feel a little less bereft.
I sat down, having no idea where to begin. But my fingers knew what to do.
I just did the hardest thing I’ve ever h
ad to do and made the biggest sacrifice I’ve ever made in the name of friendship. Bride C, my lifelong best friend, told me last weekend that I couldn’t date her fiancé’s friends. Which sounds both petty on her part and like a no-brainer on mine, but matters of the heart are never that simple.
It’s actually not petty of her. She’s not wrong. I have the world’s worst relationship track record. I could give you all the sob story about the one who got away from my youth, but the reality is that I did all of this to myself. I fell in love with an idea that didn’t exist and stayed fixated on that idea for a really long time, sabotaging anything that could have been a relationship along the way because it wasn’t that.
But this time, I met someone real. Someone funny, and charming, and sweet, and kind, and wonderful. Someone who, against all odds, sees me. Likes me. The real me. Not the internet persona, not the shined-up penny version I present to most of the world, but me, flaws and all, and still wants what he sees.
So what’s the problem?
I got ridiculously drunk and slept with the most repulsive, former-frat boy meathead I could find—who happens to be a groomsman in Bride C’s wedding.
Did I mention Perfect Guy is also a groomsman in Bride C’s wedding?
Bride C knows I slept with the horrible one, which is why she told me to stay out of her fiancé’s circle of friends for future dalliances. So you see, dear reader, she’s not wrong to make that demand of me. I’ve already been there, made that mistake, and she’s perfectly right to not want me to have slept with two of her husband’s best friends before her wedding.
Especially with my history of screwing everything (and apparently everyone) up.
So when Perfect Guy kissed me tonight after being his perfect self and helping me manage the girls at my sister’s bachelorette party (and even preventing my idiot sister from doing something with a random dude that would probably call off the whole wedding), I realized three undeniable truths.
I am head-over-heels crazy about this guy.
I already ruined it by sleeping with the repulsive guy.
And if I follow my heart, I’ll lose both of my best friends (Did I mention he told me I’m his best friend tonight? How is he so perfect?) when he finds out what I did and it falls apart.
I did the right thing tonight. Even though it hurt like hell and cost me the best guy who will ever be interested in me, both as a friend and as more.
But I kept my word to my other best friend, and I didn’t hook up with two groomsmen in her wedding.
Lowest bar ever? Met.
And the worst part is, unlike pretty much everything else from this crazy, messed-up year of weddings, this is all my fault.
Side note: I really hope tears don’t ruin eyelash extensions, because if they do, I just screwed up yet another wedding.
Not my best writing, but it was such a convoluted story to tell. And just putting it out there made me feel better because there was no one I could talk to about it all. Not Megan, not Alex, not Caryn, and not Becca, who would probably be moving out soon at this rate.
I hit “Publish,” and then closed my laptop.
I got up mechanically and washed my makeup off, then changed into pajamas. I was on such thin ice with Caryn, and God knew she would take any blemishes as an intentional sabotage of her pictures next weekend, so leaving the makeup on was not an option.
On my way to bed, I checked my phone to see if there was anything from Alex—there wasn’t—and did something I never did. I turned my phone all the way off. No alarms, no texts to wake me up. Nothing. I wanted to sleep for as long as my body would let me.
I climbed into bed and lay there staring at the ceiling for a long time as I thought about where I had gone wrong, and wishing, desperately, that I could turn back the clock and avoid Justin entirely.
Eventually, I fell asleep. And if I dreamed, I mercifully remembered none of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I woke up at some point and drank some water, then went back to bed. I woke up again to pee, drank more water, ate a protein bar, then went back to sleep.
When I woke up for real, my eyes felt puffy and swollen, and the whole situation with Alex came flooding back to me. I sighed, swinging my legs out of bed, and went to take a shower. I didn’t want to turn on my phone yet because I knew there would be nothing from him.
After my shower, I pulled on a pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, and an old University of Maryland T-shirt that had seen better days, and I ate a yogurt. The clock on the microwave said it was almost noon, which wasn’t so bad, all things considered, but because it was Memorial Day weekend, that meant I had a long day and a half in front of me to fill on my own.
I should check on Amy, I thought. Maybe she needed help with something for the wedding, and that would take my mind off everything. And I hadn’t been as kind as I should have been the previous night. Or at her shower. Or in the previous year, for that matter. I honestly didn’t know if Caryn and I would still be on speaking terms after her wedding, and Megan was fading fast as well. I may not have always liked Amy, but she would always be there, so the least I could do was treat her like a human being.
Of course, calling her also meant I would have to tell her Alex wasn’t coming to the wedding, but if I was lucky, she wouldn’t remember that she had invited him in the first place.
With a distinct feeling of dread, hoping there would be something from Alex saying I was still his best friend, but knowing that there wouldn’t, I picked up my phone and held the power button.
It buzzed relentlessly in my hand, notifications filling the screen.
Voicemails and missed calls from Megan, Caryn, Amy, Sharon, Megan again, Becca, Megan again, Jake, Sharon again, Becca again, my mother, a cousin I hadn’t talked to in ages, and a couple of numbers I didn’t recognize.
The emails were still loading: 250, no, 300, no, 487, no, 726 new emails.
What on earth? I looked at the calendar icon. It wasn’t Sunday. I had slept for close to thirty-two hours. Which thankfully didn’t matter because of the holiday. But still. What was going on?
The text messages came clanging in as well.
I clicked Megan’s thread first.
Are you kidding me?
Jesus Lily
You started a fucking blog?
What were you thinking?
I don’t even know what to say to you right now
Are you really not even going to answer me?
The blog. Oh God. The blog.
I dashed across the room to my laptop and flipped it open, my heart racing. My name wasn’t anywhere on it, so Megan must have stumbled on it randomly and figured out it was me. Of course she would be able to tell that I wrote it; she knew me so well.
I refreshed my blog dashboard page. When I saw the number of hits, I closed my eyes, assuming I would see the real number when I opened them. In the thirty-two hours since I had hit “Publish,” the blog had amassed over a million new views.
“What the hell?” I exhaled.
“Lily?” Becca called, the door opening. I didn’t move from my computer screen.
She came to my doorway. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you.”
I looked up at her, my eyes wide. “I—turned off my phone. After the party.”
“Jesus,” she said, sinking down onto my bed. “When did you get back online?”
“Just—now.”
“So you don’t know?”
“What happened?”
Becca typed something on her phone and handed it to me. “Buzzfeed,” she said. “You went viral.”
“I—what?” I took the phone from her. A Buzzfeed headline read, World’s Worst Bridesmaid Hilariously Blogs about Her Five Bridezillas. It was typical Buzzfeed-style writing, an author detailing her favorite parts of my snarkiness with screenshots highlighting specific passages.
I skimmed through it. The last paragraph had what I needed to know.
And while I can’t one hundred perce
nt confirm who the bridesmaid from hell is, a recurring IP address where posts and comments from the blog’s owner originated is registered to the Foundation for Scientific Technology. I did a little social media sleuth work (or stalking, call it what you will—it wasn’t hard; there are only three women under fifty who work there) and it looks like FST’s Public Relations Director, Lily Weiss, is, in fact, listed on five different wedding websites as a bridesmaid, including her brother’s, her sister’s, and three friends, one of whom is a coworker. If that’s not a smoking gun, I don’t know what is.
*Note: Messages to Ms. Weiss have gone unanswered so far. We’ll update this post when we hear back from her.
Fuck.
I looked up at Becca. “Is it too late to deny it?”
She grimaced. “If you’d seen it early enough, maybe you could have. But I think everyone and their mother has seen this post by now. It’s all over my Facebook and Twitter timelines.”
The room started spinning and I thought I might throw up, but I closed my eyes and waited for the spell to pass.
“I don’t think I’m in any weddings anymore, am I?”
“I don’t know.”
I put my head in my hands. “I don’t even know where to start dealing with this. Should I take the blog down?”
“Honestly? I don’t think that would do much. It’s already been screenshotted everywhere.” She paused. “I got worried when you weren’t answering your phone. I thought—I don’t know.”
I reassured her that I wasn’t about to do anything stupid and thanked her for being probably the only friend I had left.
“It’s not—I mean, it’s not that bad.”
“Thanks, Bec.”
“No, I mean, you didn’t actually say anything that bad about Megan. Or Madison. Or Sharon—well, I mean, you did about her mom, but not about her. And Caryn’s were mostly fine until the last few; it was more about her friends and they already hated you.”
I thought about what I had said about Caryn after the hair and eyelashes debacle. And about Sharon’s mother. And Amy. Oh God. I hadn’t held back about Amy. Did I say she had been flirting with someone else at her bachelorette party? I couldn’t remember now.
For the Love of Friends Page 24