Bernie suddenly dropped her skinny ass into the chair across from hers. “Sorry I’m late.” She had cut her long, summer blond hair to shoulder length and it looked really good.
Holly didn't say anything, but slid the twenty-four page email in front of Bernie.
Grabbing the pages up from the table quickly, her piercing blue eyes scanned through them, as if earth’s existence depended on the information she held in her hands. “That fucking asshole,” she whispered, and continued to read. She gasped now and then and gave her ‘I don’t believe it’ snort here and there. “What did he say?” Bernie asked, halfway through.
“He didn’t say a thing. I just told him I’m leaving and that was that.”
“He didn't even put up fight?” She looked at Holly with raised eyebrows.
“I didn’t give him the chance. You know what he’s like, Bernie. He’ll manipulate me and tell me that it's not him, and you know how naїve I can be.”
Bernie looked at her, eyes huge and round. “Holly, after this, no way he’d be able to bullshit you again,” she huffed. Shaking her head gently, she closed her eyes for a beat. “And, you can't be that stupid.”
Holly inhaled deeply, knowing that Bernie was right. But her ex-fiancé would have found a way of talking her into making the biggest mistake of her life. Brandon was that good. “You know what he’s like, Bernie,” she repeated, fresh tears forming in her eyes.
Looking across the wide table at her friend, Bernie knew how tormented Holly was. She had a weakness when it came to Brandon Morgan. “Just think about these emails, Holly. No one in his or her right mind would take someone like that back. If you like, you can stay with Leonard and me. You’ll just have to purchase a pair of earplugs for the nights Sam keeps me up. He’s teething and it’s driving me insane.”
Holly hugged her friend awkwardly across the table. “Thank you, Bernie.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Holls. He doesn't deserve you. Be happy that this happened now, instead of two years down the line when there’d likely be little feet running around the house.”
Holly nodded. Bernie always thought about others, especially children.
They decided to have lunch while Bernie wandered off to place a call to Leonard, updating him on the change of plans involving Holly. Sam stayed with Leonard's mom in the mornings, so Bernie had a chance to catch up on all the chores around the house. Luckily for Holly, it was a Saturday and Brandon had to work, or so she presumed. For all she knew, he could be at Donna’s. Thinking about that made her blood boil, leaving her no choice but to agree with her BFF that Brandon didn’t deserve her.
When Bernie returned, they both ordered a hamburger and chips—traditional comfort food. In the end, Bernie paid the bill, which Holly hated but her friend had been adamant.
Out in the parking lot, they split up to collect their cars respectively. Bernie had parked on the opposite side of where Holly’s car was, so she waited patiently in her Beetle.
Removing her phone from her handbag, she noticed that it had somehow switched to silent while they had been talking and eating.
She had wondered why it hadn't rung, although she couldn’t remember making the switch. Twenty-four missed calls were brightly displayed on her phone. Three of the messages were from Brandon wanting to know where she was, why she wasn’t answering her phone, and begging her not to do this to him a week before their wedding.
She sighed, forgetting all the steps involved in canceling a wedding. All the people she had to phone. Aunt Suzie, as well as Lorinda, would give their condolences and say that they’d always known Brandon wasn’t the right one for her. She had gotten so sick and tired of that saying of theirs: Beautiful men, belong to multiple women. This task would require a bottle of vodka.
She read the last message again.
Don’t do this to me, please!
Blah, blah, blah.
Holly chucked the phone onto her back seat. Do this to him, indeed! She couldn’t help but giggle. She’d almost felt bad thinking that she was doing that to him a week before their wedding, but then he should have thought about what he was doing a month ago when he’d rolled into bed with that slut.
She had to find another job, since the five star restaurant where she currently worked as a full-time personal assistant didn't pay enough to support herself. Thinking of her job made her heart sink. She loved working in the food industry and needed the people who always looked out and cared for her.
Holly’s boss and her husband were darlings, and they’d offered to help her financially ever since she’d started working for them. However, Brandon had always had more than enough to support them both.
Just then, Bernie’s SUV pulled up and Holly quickly started her Beetle. But when she turned the key in the ignition, a loud whining noise emitted from under the hood. The car backfired and she couldn’t help thinking that if he had really loved her the way he’d always said he did, he would've bought her a safer car—one that didn’t die at every stop light.
Tears filled her eyes again. No matter how hard she tried to push him off the pedestal she had placed him on so many years ago, he was still on it, standing just as tall as he always had.
“Please, God, give me the strength to let him go,” she whispered. Her faith had always held strong, but lately it was beginning to wane, probably because she hadn’t gone to church in months. However, Holly still prayed at night, which didn’t detract from the fact that she still felt bad in knowing how she had chucked God away, like a discarded toy. He was the only constant in her life, and she was banking on that constant to pull her butt through the torturous week that awaited her.
THE PAST TWO MONTHS HADN’T BEEN EASY FOR Holly. But while everything else seemed to be crumbling around her, she was lucky to still have friends like Bernie and Leonard.
Brandon had called her ten times, if not more, begging and pleading for a chance to make it up to her, if only she would give him another chance. She couldn't. A part of her really wanted to forget everything he had done, then again, it was the blue print of manipulators and the one thing that made them such brilliant liars.
He’d even bought her flowers, the expensive kind, and Holly knew that Brandon wasn’t the flower buying type. He saw it as a waste of money, however, the gesture made it hard not to forgive him.
She had to keep reminding herself of that email and Donna’s naked body on a hotel room’s bed, right next to his. She ended up giving the flowers away, because Bernie would have just burned them if she had taken them home. And they’d been too beautiful to be burned.
When he realized that his begging wasn’t going to work like the last time, his mom, Cynthia, tried her luck. She even gave Holly the speech about how one should ‘forgive and forget’, which only made Holly's blood boil.
“I did forgive him and now I am busy forgetting him, too,” she yelled into the mouthpiece, before slamming it back down onto the table. She knew it was probably not what the good book meant, but when it came to Cynthia, she understood why Brandon was the way he was. His mom would always stand up for him, because she used to do it with his father, too.
His dad was another story. They knew Holly couldn't say no to him but they tried, anyway. When she began to cry, he stopped. After all, he knew exactly what she was going through and what an idiot his son was for having treated Holly that way.
Unbelievably, Brandon tried one last time before the big day. He was drunk, of course.
“Please, Holls, I love you so much,” he sobbed.
“Then why the fuck did you sleep with Donna? Go to her, Brandon. I’m giving you to her, because I can't do this anymore.” What she wanted to say was that she didn’t want him anymore, but she didn't believe that yet. She still loved him, but would never trust him again. Trust was more important than love, to her, anyway.
“Holls, I fucked up, please don't do this. Donna means nothing and is nothing compared to you. It is you I want. I'm not going to give up. I will wait for you a
t the altar. Please, forgive me just once?”
“Brandon, I forgave you more than just once. I can't do this anymore. I’m not going to be there tomorrow.”
“Damn it, Holly. We have paid a shit load of money for this wedding, you can't leave me now.”
She laughed, not the ‘ha-ha’ kind, but a ‘this guy is unbelievable’ kind. “I didn't leave you today. I left you a week ago, Brandon. You had more than enough time to call off the wedding, but you probably thought that you could screw me over one more time, lie to me, and make me come back. Well, not this time. I’m moving on with my life, I suggest you do the same, and please don't ever phone me again. Oh, and by the way, you didn't pay for the wedding, my mom did. Go spend our honeymoon with your slut.”
She didn't say goodbye. He wasn't even worth that. Sadly, she’d never felt so alone. Even when Bernie was comforting her, she felt that she could never trust another man, ever again.
Holly would probably end up like her mother, a drunk with fifty cats. Thinking of that wonderful furry future, she couldn’t help but wonder that a mini zoo would still be better than what her life would have been with Brandon, or so she hoped and prayed.
Why couldn't he just love me? Wasn't I enough?
It was that part that she struggled with the most, not being enough.
When the day of the wedding dawned, she drank an entire bottle of scotch she’d found after scouring the cabinet in the kitchen. It belonged to Leonard, but he was a big teddy bear and a sucker for Bernie, so there wouldn’t be much of a fight over the illicit bottle. All it took was one look and he would give her whatever she needed. And the scotch was needed.
Holly was fine on the Sunday, except for a huge hangover. And as far as Monday was concerned, she was okay too, until Bridgette, one of her so-called bridesmaids phoned her and sent her reeling. The wedding had still taken place. Apparently, his mother had made a few adjustments to the seating chart. One that removed Holly’s family and replaced it with Donna’s.
As she listened to the words crackling through the phone, she felt her knees give in and the room seemed to become a lot more active than it had been only moments before. She felt the smooth wood of her chair under her left hand become hard and painful, where it had once been soft and inviting, as her fingers clutched it tighter. Holly was bowled over by this news and could hardly believe what she was hearing. To think he’d still been pleading with her on Friday night. She couldn’t help but think about what would have happened if she'd shown up. It could only have resulted in further humiliation. Brandon had not one ounce of remorse in him, and she felt ten times worse than she had on the day she was supposed to get married.
With her life slipping through her fingers, Holly started to drink again. It lasted for about two weeks and she was glad that Jerry, her boss, had given her the two week honeymoon she was due.
As she stared into the bottom of yet another martini glass, she wished that she could be like Brandon and fuck every womanizer lurking in the bar she was currently at, but she couldn't. It wasn’t who she was.
When her vacation was finally over, Bernie was the one who was there to pull her out of the powerful and miserable web she had woven around herself.
“Get up!” Bernie yelled. “You smell and believe it or not, life goes on, Holly.” Bernie pushed her off the bed with all her strength.
Holly fell on the floor with a thud and just lay there, moaning. In the distance, she could hear bath water running.
Bernie returned and somehow managed to pick Holly up, carrying her—all the while cussing—to the bathroom. She chucked her into the cold bath, which made Holly gasp as the icy water hit her body sending a shockwave into her very core. “You’ve got to snap out of this, Holls. He’s not worth it.” Bernie swiped the hair out of her face.
Holly began to cry. “We could've been so happy, Bernie,” she bawled.
“He’s a dickhead, and ‘could have’ isn’t a guarantee. Stop second-guessing yourself!” she yelled back. “How is it possible that he’s still on his pedestal, Holls? You are in love with an idea, not the real thing. The Brandon in your head doesn't exist.” Bernie sighed. Her arms and shirt were wet from the splashes when she’d thrown Holly into the bath.
She stared at her best friend, lying hopeless in a bathtub, clothes clinging to her frail body. Reaching out, Bernie took a wisp of hair that clung over Holly’s face and moved it gently away from her eyes. “You might not see it now, but it's the best thing that has ever happened to you, sweets. And let's be honest here, do you really think Donna would have stayed away after you guys married? It would've been ten times worse. You did them a favor. He’s a smelly cheat, and you my friend do not deserve that. Donna is going to realize pretty soon what a dickhead he is, because believe it or not, he’s going to cheat on her, too.” She was out of breath after her grand speech, and her eyes pleaded with Holly for some understanding.
“Do you know what happened the night of my party?” Bernie asked.
Holly just looked at her through puffy eyes. She remembered the party vividly. It had been Bernie’s 24th birthday, and Leo had invited a bunch of friends over for a barbecue, as well as some work colleagues. “What?” she asked, still lying in the cold bath, fully dressed.
“He cheated on you. Everyone saw it, except you,” she said.
“What? Why didn't you tell me?” Holly shrieked.
Bernie gave her the look. “What… did you think our fight came out of nowhere? I saw the idiot checking out one of Leo’s colleagues. They disappeared fifteen minutes later and when asked about it, he said he wasn’t yet married. Men like that will never be married, Holls. You don't need him or any of your so-called ‘mutual friends’.” She finger quoted the last part.
Holly started to cry again. Knowing that the scum bag had cheated on her more than once made a small part of her glad that he had married Donna, instead. They truly deserved one another.
“You need to go on with your life. When you are ready to get out of this yucky, cold bath and really want to move on, let me know. I have some pretty great ideas.”
“Oh, please, give me strength,” Holly complained. She didn’t have the strength for Bernie’s ideas just yet.
Bernie giggled. “Strength is what you are definitely going to need, my friend.”
Holly didn’t like Bernie's answer. It usually involved other men she had absolutely no interest in whatsoever. She knew from experience just how wonderfully these ideas tended to work out. If it hadn’t been for Collin breaking up with her, she would have never been in that bar the night she met Brandon.
Thinking about what Bernie said, she drained some of the cold water and turned on the hot water tap. Bernie was right, she really did need a bath and a long one too.
When she was done, dry and fully dressed, Bernie eagerly told her about Steward. Holly rolled her eyes at the mere thought.
“I am not saying you should marry the guy, just go out and have fun, Holls.”
“Fine, whatever will get you off my back,” she mumbled.
Holly went back to work the following Monday; her colleagues’ faces said it all. Thank heaven they had stopped with the ‘sorry about Brandon and you deserve better’ speeches. She heard them often enough from Bernie.
By Wednesday, she realized that life really did go on and that time didn’t stop for anyone in order to get over a broken heart. A date or two wouldn’t kill her and if Leonard approved, she figured Steward couldn't be that bad.
Friday couldn't have come soon enough. Holly knew she wasn't ready for another relationship, but Bernie had told her that she needed to have fun, and try to find herself again. It was easy to lose oneself in a relationship where only one half of the couple gained from it, and Holly had had plenty of those relationships. She just figured she now knew how to pick them.
They decided to meet at the closest bar to Bernie’s house. Brandon had refused to set foot in this bar, because according to him it wasn’t classy enough. He would rather
go to the lounges where men paid big money for cognacs and cigars.
Steward had told her that he would be wearing a black T-shirt and jeans so she could easily recognize him. With Bernie’s help, she had settled on a beautiful emerald top that flowed around her curves, skinny jeans, and high boots that hurt the living bejeebers out of her toes. It was one of the things Brandon loved; Holly in skinnies with boots covering her calves. She had the ass and legs for it.
A couple of men turned in their bar stools as Holly took a seat on one of the high chairs. Every single guy that looked her way was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans.
Just great!
“Holly?” a blond guy queried.
Holly smiled. Why, for once, couldn’t they be dark-haired and look as if they’d just walked out of a Hugo Boss advert, she silently wished.
“You must be Steward,” she finally said, deciding to give him a chance, knowing she owed it to herself to be nice and see how this date would end. But she already knew what the outcome would be.
“Bernie wasn’t kidding when she said you were beautiful,” he complimented her, making Holly blush.
“Thanks.” She couldn't remember the last time Brandon had said those words; that she was beautiful.
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, already halfway onto the chair next to hers.
“Whiskey and water, please.” She smiled again, as he raised his hand to grab the bartender’s attention.
Quite a number of men were staring at her, which made her uncomfortable. She decided that they’d have one drink and then move on to another place. Holly didn’t like the bar; it was full of men with greasy hair and dirty clothes who did nothing but sway on their chairs.
She had to admit, Steward wasn't a bad looking guy. He didn't have Brandon's looks and if he worked with Leonard, he didn’t have the wealth either, but it didn't bother her that much. The only thing she couldn't understand was why on earth she always ended up with blond guys. Blonds weren’t even her type. She like the tall, dark-haired, handsome type, but everyone she knew who happened to fit that description was either married or taken, and she didn’t believe in taking another girl’s man. It had happened so many times, she didn’t have it in her to inflict that kind of pain on anyone, not even Donna.
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