“Don’t do what?” I asked, softly, my heart starting to pick up speed in my chest as I leaned back. I knew he was just startled. He hadn’t expected me to kiss him.
“Touch me. Kiss me. All of it. Please. I need you to just leave me alone.”
“But you punched Ryan,” I said, confused that the abruptness in his voice didn’t match his earlier actions.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. I punched the guy you picked over me, who up until an hour ago, you were still engaged to. Hell, his ring is still on your finger. I’m a fucking idiot, but I’m sorry, regardless of your choices, I won’t let someone I cared about be talked to that way.
“Cared?” I asked, only picking up on that one word.
“Cared,” he repeated. “And for the record, that’s the last stupid thing I do for you. Next time we’re around each other, I think it’s probably best if we just don’t talk. I’d rather just forget that you exist. It was much easier when I did that before.” His voice was as cold as ice.
“Okay,” I said, stunned by his words.
He started to get up. My heart squeezed in my chest as he turned his back to me. He turned around once before he left the room.
“It’s really too bad we can’t just erase the past two months,” he said, before walking out of the room, limping slightly as he went.
Thirty-One
I tried to call Ryan later that day, and several times the next day and the day after that, but he never answered his phone. I left him message after message blubbering on about how sorry I was and asking him to call me so I could explain, but he never did. I couldn’t blame him. At first I wasn’t sure what I’d actually say to him, if he did call me back, but when I finally figured that out, I put it in an email. It was three weeks after the bloody incident on my mother’s front lawn, so I hoped he would be more receptive with the time that had passed.
I wanted to let him know how sorry I was, and how I never meant to hurt him. I explained everything I’d been feeling, and how I hoped we could someday be friends. I knew that was an empty request, but it just seemed like what I should want. It took him a week to respond, and seeing his name in my inbox made my stomach flip nervously. I steeled myself for what he might say and the names he would call me, but when I opened up the email, all he’d written was an address in San Francisco.
My first thought was that Ryan was still in San Francisco when he should have been back in Boston, and I wondered if he’d taken a permanent position out there after we’d broken up or if he was living out there and taking time off like he said he’d wanted to do. Was this his new address? Did he want me to come out to see him so we could try to save our relationship? I couldn’t figure out what else it could mean, so I called Kate into my office to get her opinion.
She perched on my desk and looked at the email. “It’s where he wants you to send the ring,” she said, and I suddenly felt so stupid.
I’d been planning weddings long enough to know the etiquette behind a broken engagement. If the guy called it off, the girl could keep the ring. If the girl was the cause of the break up, she should give the ring back.
I stopped then and made a note on a sticky note on my desk. Kate leaned over to see it.
“Broken Engagement Etiquette,” she read.
“I’m going to blog about it. It’s a good topic,” I said listlessly, wondering how many other women might benefit from my mistakes.
I knew it was reprehensible to be thinking of new writing topics in what should have been a painful moment, but at the end of the day I’d ended things with Ryan in my mind long before we’d actually broken up. Even though he found out about it in the worst way possible, and there was no way I could take it back, I was relieved that he finally knew. When I’d finally come to terms with what I’d done with Beckett and why, I’d known that I’d held onto my relationship with Ryan much longer than I should have, and it all stemmed from a fear of being alone. It was incredibly shitty, but at the time I hadn’t realized what I’d been doing.
Hindsight really was twenty-twenty. I never should have faked my engagement. I should have been honest with Ryan and myself from the beginning, but when you haven’t been alone since you were seventeen, the idea of it seems incredibly overwhelming. I was scared, and I didn’t allow myself to face the fact that Ryan and I weren’t right for each other.
“So the first communication you get from Ryan after ending things with him is an address for you to send the ring back, and you’re so not affected by it that you can think about your next blog entry?” Kate asked, sounding flabbergasted. She was looking at me like I took a swig of the expired milk we’d found in the refrigerator that morning.
“What else do you want me to do?” I asked. “I’m a little offended that he didn’t blast me. God knows I deserve whatever he has to say. I know I completely screwed up and now deserve nothing but his hatred. It wasn’t like I was expecting anything else.”
Kate stood up and took a step back. “You’re handling this really well. I’d be in tears by now if I were you.”
I didn’t think I was handling anything well, but maybe things were different from the outside looking in. Inside, I was torturing myself for hurting Ryan the way I did and not having the guts to tell him right away. The fact that his awful sister had announced it to him was just a product of me being a selfish chicken-shit. Yes, she was a bitch for doing it, but I was a bigger bitch for not telling him. That information should have come from me.
“Because it’s my fault, and I guess a part of me knew that this would happen the first time I kissed Beckett. I think I might have been aware of that all along which is maybe why I kissed him in the first place. I’m just pissed that I didn’t tell Ryan after Fourth of July. I chickened out and that was shitty of me.”
I picked up a pen and started to click the ink in and out, in and out methodically.
Kate raised an eyebrow at me and crossed her arms in front of her. “Are you seriously saying that you subconsciously sabotaged your own relationship?”
I clicked the pen faster a few times, enjoying the repetitiveness of the in and out, in and out motion. Kate’s hand closed over mine then, and I was forced to stop clicking the ink. She took the pen from me and set it on the corner of my desk.
I leaned back in my chair and looked up at her. “You’re the one who suggested that theory,” I said.
I’d been giving why I cheated a lot of thought, and I figured Kate’s supposition had been pretty spot on. Unfortunately, Beckett had been an innocent victim in the subconscious game I’d played in an effort to run away from something I was afraid to face.
“I was only half-serious!” Kate admonished.
“Think about it,” I said, knowing she had been right.
“Did you love Ryan?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I did – just not enough to marry him.”
Kate walked over one of my guest chairs and sat down, facing me. “What about Beckett?”
She’d also been the first one to ask about him when she found out I was engaged in the first place, so I found it interesting that she was asking about him again. I thought about how I wanted to respond. If I was being honest with myself, I completely missed Beckett. I missed seeing his smile and hearing him laugh and feeling his arms around me. I’d missed him since the moment he’d walked out of my mother’s kitchen a month earlier, but I knew by the words he’d spoken to me that day that it didn’t matter if I missed him.
“I’m trying not to think about him,” I said, going for a neutral response.
“Why not?”
“Because I need to let him move on, so he can be happy. Things got so screwed up between us this summer. I need to let him put that behind him, so he can find someone who will make him happy.”
I’d told Kate about what had happened in my mom’s kitchen and how pissed Beckett had been. No, he hadn’t been pissed. He’d been detached and cold. He hadn’t fought Ryan in some valiant attempt to show me how much he cared about
me. His actions had been irrational and thoughtless. Regardless of how it had affected me, I knew he meant what he said.
“What if he’s the one for you?” Kate asked then, bringing to light the same question I’d wrestled with for the past three months and had finally thought I’d answered when I’d had lunch with my mom. “What if you’re the one who’ll make him happy?”
I shook my head. “I’m not. We were great for a few years. He was the best thing that happened to me, but I think now too much has come between us. It’s too late.”
She looked at me skeptically. “I think you’re wrong.”
I just shrugged, dismissing her optimism. I was done with that. Besides, regardless of what I thought, Beckett disagreed. That much I knew.
I worked late that night, ordering in sushi and listening to music while I did anything I could to take my mind off what Kate had said. I typed a series of etiquette related entries for future blog postings, had organized my office and had even cleaned our small office kitchen. I even started to research venues in Key West for a destination wedding we’d gotten earlier in the day. The wedding wasn’t for another year and a half, but I was feeling productive. It wasn’t until eight o’clock that I took a minute to stretch and realized how late it was. I yawned twice before I decided I should probably head home.
As I walked downstairs, I saw Summer inside her store. I knew she was getting ready to close up in an hour, so I figured I’d keep her company. Then we could go home together. I wondered how she’d feel about having a movie night. It had been a while since we’d hung out. She’d been so busy with Patrick and her designs that I’d barely seen her.
“Hey you,” I said, as I walked through the door, the chime dinging overhead.
Summer was at the register, totally up receipts from the day. “Oh, hey,” she said, and I heard something in her tone that made me think she wasn’t happy to see me. I wondered what I could have done.
I decided to ignore it. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” she said, and I knew something was up.
She was usually much chattier about her day, especially when she’d made some good sales. I could see she’d been busy that day from the number of receipts she was cataloguing. It seemed the cool weather we’d been having had brought about a need to stock up on sweaters, jeans and jackets. I’d even bought a few new things the week before when Summer had gotten in a new shipment of fall clothes, including a dress for her upcoming engagement party.
I watched as Summer glanced nervously to the back of the store and heard giggling from the dressing rooms. The curtain was pulled back, so I could see it from the front of the store. Kelsey, Summer’s employee who had sort of dated Beckett for two seconds, emerged from one of the rooms, and I didn’t think that was so wrong. She worked there. She was probably trying on some new item. Summer liked her employees to know how the clothes fit and felt so they could make accurate recommendations to her customers.
I wasn’t sure what Summer was so concerned about. Did she think I had animosity for Kelsey? I didn’t. She was cute and bubbly with gorgeous curly brown hair that I sort of coveted. She was always nice to me when I came into the store and even made an effort to make conversation even though we didn’t have much in common. Then I realized what Summer was so edgy about.
“Let me see,” a male voice I couldn’t hear, but recognized, said a few seconds later from behind the entrance to the dressing rooms.
I gasped audibly.
“Damn,” he said in a voice that oozed sexual tension. “That’s sexy.”
Kelsey smiled as she twirled, modeling the short, bodice-hugging black dress with a flared lace skirt. Paired with short black ankle boots, the dress looked fantastic.
“Shit,” I muttered. I turned to Summer, my eyes asking the question she knew I would as soon as I realized Beckett and Kelsey were in the store – together. He was helping her pick out clothes. I wanted to ask Summer if they were dating, but I already knew the answer. They were together.
He had moved on, just like he said he’d needed to do. I knew he would, I just didn’t think he’d be moving on in front of me. Of all the people he’d chosen to move on with, it had to be the fun, flirty co-ed who was just looking for a good time, whose ample chest more than filled out the top of the black dress she was wearing and who would no doubt be removing that dress for him in a couple of hours.
No, I chastised myself. I should be happy for him. I’d let him go. I’d turned down his request to be with me, so now I had no room to judge who he chose to be with. I needed to be happy for him, but I wasn’t. Knowing he was laughing and smiling with someone else, that he was flirting and teasing someone who wasn’t me ignited a feeling inside me that I’d fought so hard to bury. Suddenly, I was drawn to him like I hadn’t been in years, and I couldn’t ignore it.
It wasn’t a physical thing. No, this was my heart, telling my head that I needed to tell Beckett how I felt. I needed to tell him that I loved him. Tell him I wanted to be with him – for real, and that this time I wouldn’t let him go. I would never let him go. But I couldn’t – not then, not there.
Before I knew what was happening, Kelsey was grabbing her discarded clothes from the dressing room and calling to Summer that she wanted to buy the dress. She was going to wear it out that night. She said she had a hot date, and I heard Beckett laugh. It tugged at my heart. They started to come out of the dressing rooms, hand in hand, and I started to feel sick.
Fight or flight? I realized had two options. I could face Beckett and risk vomiting on his shoes, or I could flee. He hadn’t yet seen me, but he would. In that moment, he was busy, whispering in Kelsey’s ear as they walked up front. The bile crept up my throat as I watched his smile pull up at the corners, his arm around her waist, his lips grazing her earlobe. I swallowed hard, willing myself not to get sick in the middle of Elle, in front of my ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend.
I looked into the mirror behind the counter and realized that I looked like complete shit. My hair was scraped back into a messy knot, and not in a sexy sort of way. My make-up had disappeared hours earlier, and I dark circles under my eyes. To top it off, I also had a coffee stain on the front of my wrinkled white button-down. I looked just fabulous.
“Hi Courtney,” Kelsey said brightly, noticing me behind the counter. I caught her reflection in the mirror. “How are you?”
I turned around to face them, a smile on my face, fake glee pouring out of me. “Hi Kelsey. Hi Beckett. How are you?” I gushed.
I was a big, fucking, cheery phony, and I knew Beckett would see right through me. My question was posed to both of them, but it was really directed at him and him alone. His eyes flicked to me for a few seconds, and I waited for him to respond in the polite, cordial way I knew he would even if he knew I was trying too hard to be friendly. He wouldn’t pick a fight with me there.
And I waited for him to say something, anything. Then I waited some more.
By the time I realized he wasn’t going to acknowledge me, he and Kelsey were already at the register and she was paying for her new dress. She’d put her black leather motorcycle jacket over the dress, which pretty much made her look like walking sex. Beckett chatted with Summer, joking and laughing, his hands on Kelsey’s waist the whole time. It took everything in me not to lash out at him, but I couldn’t figure out just what I had a right to be pissed about. I was blazing angry, but nothing justifiable was coming to mind. I’d screwed him over too many times, and just like he’d said, he was done. He was tapped out for good.
My eyes were on him the entire five minutes it took for Summer to ring up Kelsey’s purchase, talk to her about her schedule for the next day and a new shipment they were scheduled receive, and hug both of them. I knew Beckett knew I was watching him, but his eyes never glanced in my direction. Just like I didn’t get a hello, I didn’t get a goodbye either.
The minute the happy couple left the store, hand in hand, I burst into tears. Summer’s arms folded around me
, pulling me into a hug that offered little sympathy.
Thirty-Two
“I guess he really likes her, huh?” I asked Summer as she unpacked boxes at the store a few weeks later. I handed her hangers for each shirt she pulled out and then hung them up in a line. Next I would help her steam them.
We’d been out the night before, a group of us, and Beckett had been there. He and Kelsey seemed quite into each other, hugging, kissing and whispering together all night. Not once did he acknowledge my presence or glance in my direction. They left before the rest of us, no doubt to go back to his place. The next day I’d gone down to the store to Summer to finalize the details for her engagement party at her parents’ beach house that weekend. She was supposed to meet me in my office, but Genevieve had called in sick that day, so she couldn’t leave the store. I’d met her with my folders, planning to talk about the party, but had been roped into helping her steam clothes.
“Yes,” she said, and I hadn’t even needed to say Beckett’s or Kelsey’s name for Summer to know I was asking about them.
“That sucks,” I said.
“That’s bitchy,” she said back, not making eye contact with me.
I could tell by her tone she wanted me to let it go, but I couldn’t. I’d held in my feelings for weeks. We hadn’t talked about why I’d started crying the night Beckett had been in the store. She’d just hugged me, let me cry, and bought me a hot chocolate on the way home. We’d walked in companionable silence. It was as if neither of us wanted to talk about it. She knew I was upset, but there was nothing that could be done. I’d made my bed, and I had to lie in it, regardless of how rough the sheets were.
“I miss him so much it hurts,” I said, quietly.
Summer thrust the next shirt at me harder than she needed to. “Jesus, Courtney. What is wrong with you? Leave him alone.”
I threw the shirt back at her and stood up, folding my arms across my chest. “I’m sorry, but did you miss the fact that you’ve been my best friend since middle school, and you should be on my side?”
Just Watch the Fireworks Page 29