He lowered his eyebrows in confusion. “You think I’m embarrassed by you?”
Instead of answering and leading myself down the road of the damned, I stood up and he followed. “We better go back to dinner, Best Man. I want to hear your toast.”
“Oh, fuck. I forgot,” he said with a groan as we walked with a space between us to the tent.
Oliver
I stood up with a champagne flute in one hand and looked at Mia and Brad sitting together, Mia leaning her head on my brother’s shoulder as they both waited for me to toast to their happy marriage. I hesitated and swallowed past the lump in my throat and squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then opened them and remembered that Mia was with the right person.
“To the happy couple,” I said, raising my glass. “May I one day have what you have.” I took a big swig of my drink and sat down as everyone in the tent murmured, “To the happy couple,” and clinked glasses. I didn’t watch Brad and Mia kiss. Instead, I looked over to Delaney, giving me a weak smile.
“At least you were honest. It’s a good thing no one else knows how honest,” she whispered. She ran her fingers nervously across her thin gold necklace, and I caught the pendant, grazing her collarbone.
She bit her lip as I asked, “Is this new?” She shook her head, but didn’t elaborate. “Is it from Cliff?” She nodded.
“Hey, you two,” Mia said with a tentative smile as she stood next to my chair, and I immediately dropped Laney’s necklace to give Mia a hug.
“Congratulations, again,” I said into her ear, and she gave me a watery smile, her face covered in red splotches, like she was about to burst into tears.
She held me tight and then whispered in my ear, “I can’t do it. I can’t marry him,” before letting me go and striding out of the tent.
“Be right back,” I said to Delaney, but I didn’t take my eyes off of Mia as I ran to catch up with her.
Nineteen
Delaney
“Are you here yet?” I asked Ursula, pulling the soft gray duvet over my body.
“Michael’s driving. We’re checking in to the B and B, and then we can come over. Is the rehearsal dinner over? I’m sorry I had to miss it. No one could change reference shifts with me.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. But, uh, some things happened.”
“What happened?”
“Well, no one’s seen Mia in hours. She ran off, and Brad and Oliver are both out looking for her.”
“What?”
“You miss all the fun, Ursula.”
“Any luck?”
“I don’t know. I texted and called Oliver, but he never picked up his phone. So now I’m in his parents’ house without him.”
“Awkward,” she said. “What did Aunt Rita say? About the Mia situation, I mean?”
“She didn’t say anything. She just poured herself a very large glass of wine and disappeared into a room.”
“Probably the library.”
“They have their own library? Wait, why am I asking this? They have their own lake.”
“It’s more of a pond.”
“It’s a pond with a dock. And a flotilla.”
“It’s an Ivy League pond. Ambitious,” she said.
“So of course this house has its own library. But it’s spooky and big here and so I’m sitting in a guest bedroom with a book, waiting for Oliver to get back. Or Mia. Or Brad. Or anyone, really. I’d even take a conversation with Rita at this point.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“No I wouldn’t. I couldn’t even find her. If it wasn’t for the maid, who I am pretty sure makes more money than I do, I would be totally lost in this house.”
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to come right there?” she asked.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.” I fingered the pendant around my neck and a wave of anxiety overcame me as I thought of Oliver doing the same thing earlier tonight.
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
After we hung up, I leaned back on the pillows and tried to focus on the words in my book, but I kept reading the same phrase over and over again. I picked up my phone and texted Oliver again. Where are you?
It buzzed with a notification. Staying with Mia tonight. All my internal organs agitated as I typed back a quick reply, and then I threw off the duvet and got out of bed and went to get dressed and get myself out of this ludicrous mess.
Oliver
Mia asked me to run away with her.
Those were her words to me when I chased her down the lawn, to the edge of my mother’s driveway. She looked up at me with glassy eyes and said, “I can’t do it, Oliver.” Then she said, “Run away with me?” It was like a fairy tale. A Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale. Then she grabbed my hand. So I went.
I looked down at it now, her hand clasped in mine, half the size of mine, blue veins running under her pale skin, and little half-moons on her nails. Her hand was frail and precious, like the rest of Mia, who was passed out on the pillow next to me, soundly asleep after hours of crying into my shirtsleeves.
I’d driven her to the nearest hotel and checked us both in, in separate rooms, but she’d clung to my side, tears streaming down her face, refusing to talk, but also refusing to let go. Her pale pink dress was bunched up around her hips as she slept, revealing more skin on her than I ever thought I’d see.
This was what I’d dreamed of, over and over. Mia was choosing me. Me. Not Brad. I was going to fix everything for her. Her isolation, her loneliness, her fears—I could fix that.
I could be there instead of going out of the country like Brad or staying late at work and not paying attention like he had done. He’d taken her for granted. Everything was going to be perfect, once I summoned the courage to kiss her, and hold her, and be with her.
I reached into my pocket with my free hand, scrolling through my texts again. I didn’t read the ones from Brad, or Mother. I clicked on the ones from Delaney.
Where’d you go?
Brad is really worried. You should tell him about Mia.
Staying at your parents. Call if you have news you want to share?
Delaney knew. She knew Mia was with me. Maybe everyone knew. Maybe my feelings weren’t as opaque as I thought they were. I was see-through jealous.
Since she wouldn’t judge me, not to my face anyway, since she liked to keep up appearances, I wrote her a quick text. Staying with Mia tonight.
One last text buzzed through from Delaney as I was debating whether or not to send Brad a message.
I’m going to get a bus back tomorrow morning. Hope you’re okay.
Guilt pounded at me. Not only was I stealing my brother’s fiancée, running off with her the night before her wedding, but I had abandoned Delaney after begging her to come with me to this disaster.
I looked over at Mia, asleep, her blonde hair falling over her, her chest rising and falling in even rhythms with each breath, and then I looked back at my phone.
Coming back, I wrote to her. Stay put.
I pulled Mia’s fingers off of my hand, slipped out of the bed, and left her a note and all of the cash in my wallet for her to get a cab back to the house. And then I went to find Delaney.
Delaney
I walked down the long drive to wait for my cab at the end of the road, but I saw Oliver’s silver Prius come up to the curb instead. He rolled down the window and said, “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing? Really?” I said, exasperated. “I don’t think you’re the one who gets to ask questions.” I let go of the handle of my bag to pull my arms into my chest.
“You’re mad at me?” he said, but he didn’t sound shocked or hurt or angry. He sounded amused.
“You ran off with the bride the night before the wedding. I’m not really the one whose feelings matter right now.”
“Yeah, about that. How many people know I was with Mia?” he asked as he leaned further out the open window.
“I don’t know. I told your mom that y
ou texted me that you were looking for her, so now I’m going to hell,” I said.
“You did? Thanks. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“And Brad?”
“Brad keeps going out to look for her and then coming back. He’s still out, actually. You need to tell him where Mia is. He needs to get some rest.” It was past midnight already. Just then, my taxi arrived and pulled up behind Oliver’s car. “That’s me.” I knocked on the side of the Prius and said, “Tell me what happens.”
His face fell. “You’re leaving?”
“You’ve got family drama going on. I don’t want to be in the way. And…”
“And?”
“And I don’t belong in a place like this, with all this stuff with Mia, or with your family. Tell them it was lovely to meet them,” I said, and walked to the cab.
As I was buckling my seatbelt, the door was wrenched open, Oliver’s tie hanging down as he bent over. “Delaney.”
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay?”
I pulled in my eyebrows. “Why?”
He gazed at me, his face a mixture of sadness and guilt. “Because I almost did something, but I didn’t, and I need a friend.”
“Almost?”
“Almost. But not quite. I know what you think. But I swear, I didn’t do anything. I just held her.”
I scooted down the seat and let Oliver help me out of the car, his fingers wrapping around mine, giving them a quick squeeze before letting go. “I’m glad you stopped at almost.”
“Almost already feels like too much,” he said.
“It’s not. You can fix almost. Almost is the only place you could stop before it was too much. Almost is just right, actually.”
He nodded and hugged me, putting his face in my hair, and just held me, wordless, until long after the cab had driven off, and my stomach fluttered violently at how much I felt for him, and how I couldn’t control it. “Thank you. For staying. And for trusting me.”
“Of course. You always tell me the truth,” I said. “And I believe you didn’t do anything with Mia.”
“You do?”
“You like to fix things. You fixed Mia by indulging her fantasy, and now you’re letting her go. It all makes sense.”
He grimaced and let me go, grabbing my roller bag as we made our way back into the house, and I tried to figure out how I was going to be Oliver’s friend without getting my heart broken.
Oliver
I sat in front of my eggs Benedict and watched Delaney demolish her breakfast across from me. “This is sho good,” she said through a mouthful of English muffin. She chewed and swallowed and said, “I can’t believe you grew up in a house with a chef. A professional chef! This food is phenomenal!” Then she shoveled another mouthful just as Mother came into the kitchen and spotted us sitting on stools at the prep station.
“Why are you eating in here?” she asked in a strained voice. “You’re not the help, Oliver,” she said. Then she turned to Delaney, who had just taken a big bite of bacon and wiped her hands off on her jeans. Mother scowled.
“Good morning, Mrs. Webber,” Delaney said. “Thank you again for letting me spend the night.”
“Dr. Webber,” Mother said coldly. Delaney paled, then nodded. “Of course. Thank you, Dr. Webber.”
Last night, after assuring Delaney that my mother wasn’t going to think she was an awful human being, I’d convinced Delaney to come down to the basement media room and watch movies and eat popcorn with me. I needed a distraction from thinking of my brother’s heart being broken, of what I’d almost done, of Mia waking up alone in that hotel. Delaney had tried to get me to talk, but what I really wanted was to drink myself into oblivion.
Since that wasn’t an option, not without being an even bigger asshole with a hangover the next day, I’d decided on Delaney, and movies. We’d compromised on neither a documentary nor a boilerplate crime drama, and went with The Empire Strikes Back, but she’d fallen asleep well before Luke lost his hand. She was wrapped up in a blanket, wedged firmly in my ribs for most of the movie. It would have been uncomfortable if it hadn’t felt so good. I’d nudged her at the end of the movie, but when she hadn’t budged, I decided to stay with her on the sofa. She didn’t stir until morning, when we’d finally climbed the stairs to our bedrooms as the sun was rising.
“Yes, well, of course you could stay here. Under the circumstances, what else could we do?” Mother said to Delaney, and made her way to the coffeemaker.
“How’s Brad?” I asked.
“He’s with that ridiculous girl.”
My fork clattered onto my plate as Delaney started coughing. “He found her?”
“Apparently,” Mother said without further explanation.
“And?”
“And he called us this morning to say he would see us at the church this afternoon,” Mother said, stopping to take a sip of her coffee, resting on the counter at the far end of the kitchen, getting as far away from us as she politely could.
Delaney said, “So, the wedding’s still on?”
“You’re very bright,” Mother said.
Delaney turned to me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
Delaney whispered, “Maybe you shouldn’t go to the wedding.”
“What? Why not?”
She lowered her voice even more and leaned across the prep station. Her eyes were big and Bambi-like, and the closer she got, the dizzier I felt. “Oliver. You’re in love with the bride. She almost ran off with you yesterday. Don’t you think it would be more respectful if you just bowed out?”
I pushed my plate away and stood so quickly the stool behind me toppled backwards, and then I went outside to get away from Delaney. Except that when I walked to the pond, Mia and Brad were already standing there. I could tell from their gesticulations that they were in the middle of a heated discussion, so I backed up, only to bump into Laney. “What are you doing here?” I scowled, catching her arms as she stumbled.
“I was looking for you. Duh.”
“To apologize?”
“For what? I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then what do you want?”
She put her hand in mine and pulled until my arm was extended in front of me, my feet still planted firmly on the ground. She let go of my hand and dropped her head, shuffling her feet. “Oliver, did you know that Cliff and I were engaged?”
“Gee, I have no idea why that didn’t work out,” I said.
“Let me talk,” Delaney said, and when I didn’t say anything else, she continued. “I know you don’t think much of Cliff, but he was the man of my dreams. He wasn’t perfect, but he was so wonderful. When we first started dating, I felt like I’d won the lottery. Every girl in our dorm wanted Cliff, but he picked me. Me. Can you believe it?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Well, I couldn’t believe it. I’d never even been on a date, and then all of a sudden, the most gorgeous boy wanted to date me. He held my hand and walked me to all my classes, and on Valentine’s Day he had a rose sent to each of my classes, and attached a note onto each one with a reason why he loved me.” She smiled and a faraway expression crossed her face. “He was more than I had ever, ever expected out of life.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“He pursued his dreams. He got Next Door, and he was so happy. His life was exactly the way he wanted it to be.”
“Except that he was a douchebag.”
“I’m told that’s sexist.”
“Douchebag,” I reiterated.
“He wasn’t. He was just busy, and distracted, and working all the time, and happy. And I was sitting alone in an apartment in LA, with no friends, a college dropout with no career prospects. I was miserable, and he was happy, and so of course we started having problems.
“I finally found a college and then grad school and then a job, but you know, it was clear that we weren’t the same people. He proposed to me, and I said ye
s, even though we both knew it wasn’t going to happen. It was a last ditch effort to try.”
I wanted to mail a punch long-distance, directly to Cliff’s straight, bleached teeth. “I hate to break it to you, Lane, but Cliff hasn’t stopped trying.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. He wasn’t even happy with me. When he would get back from a long shoot, we would sit together on the sofa watching TV, not talking, not touching. We weren’t even like roommates. We pretended the other person didn’t exist.
“Cliff just hasn’t realized that what we had was comfortable, but it wasn’t worth saving. But no one could tell him that. Not me, and not Kelsey.”
“Kelsey?”
“His new girlfriend.”
“He has a girlfriend and he was out here chasing you?”
“Yup. And this is just like the mess you’re in, you and Brad and Mia.”
“So who am I in this situation?” I said.
“Hate to say it, but you’re Kelsey. Poor Kelsey.” She shook her head, but she was smiling.
“You feel pity for the girl who’s sleeping with your fiancé?”
“Of course I do. Kelsey really wanted Cliff, but Cliff just wanted an excuse. She didn’t deserve to be used like that.” Delaney leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry she used you like that, but remember, you deserve better.”
Twenty
Delaney
I wasn’t privy to the family discussions that went on before the wedding ceremony, but eventually Oliver climbed the stairs and poked his head into the guest bedroom. “The wedding’s off,” he said, not sounding even a little bit relieved.
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