Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
A s with his wedding day, Aiden threw up before his scheduled meeting with Erica. He thought maybe he was even more nervous now than he had been then because then he knew what to expect. Now he had no idea what he was heading into, nor what his reaction to it might be. Would he be overcome with love for Erica? Was it cheating on June, if so? It was very confusing, that. How could he have such strong feelings for June, his wife, when he’d recently had such strong feelings for Erica, his intended fiancée?
He tried to be first to her chosen lunch spot, but didn’t succeed. As usual, Erica arrived first. She had been early for everything, so early that his brand of five-minute promptness had made her anxious, had seemed like lateness. It was a far contrast from June, who felt like she was early if she was five minutes late.
Aiden’s breakfast wadded in his stomach as he approached her table, and he wondered if he might need to dart to the bathroom again. What could she possibly say in this scenario, to make things better?
“Hi, Aiden.”
That was a good start. “Hi,” he said and sat down, minus a hug. She didn’t offer one, and neither did he. And neither did he want to, for that matter. There was no part of him that wanted to reach out and touch her, to hold her or kiss her, so at least that matter was settled. Whatever physical yearning he’d once felt for her was definitively dead.
“I ordered for you, if that’s okay.”
His hands clenched because he hated it when she did that, and she knew. It made him feel infantilized, as if he couldn’t make his own decisions on food. But Erica usually had reasons and rationalizations to explain it, when it happened. It will save time. They’re really busy. I’m starving. You always order the same thing anyway.
He opened his mouth to put her on blast for doing it now and closed it again. Really, what did it matter? After this day, he planned to never see her again. What did it matter if this woman did something he loathed? After this conversation, she was nothing to him. He gave her a curt nod.
She frowned a little and leaned back. Had she wanted a challenge? Had she done something that annoyed him on purpose, in order to pick a fight? If so, there were much bigger things to fight about than food.
“I don’t actually know where to begin,” she said, voice wobbly. “What you must think of me, what I left you with…”
“The fact that you left at all,” he inserted. His voice didn’t sound like it usually did. There was no warmth in it, no love or joy. It was steely and gravelly and tight, proof of how tightly he was trying to hold everything together.
“I just couldn’t anymore,” she said, and her own voice was shredded.
“Thanks for that,” he said, brittle and sarcastic.
She rolled her eyes, frustrated and impatient. “You know that’s not what I mean, Aiden.”
“Do I?” he choked. It hurt to hear her say his name, hurt almost as much as her blatant rejection.
“I told you in the note, it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I’m messed up.”
“But if you had told me that to begin with, I would have understood, I would have helped you work on it,” he said.
“Of course you would,” she said, so annoyed she tossed her hands in frustration, narrowly missing the waitress who arrived with their food.
“Sorry,” Erica apologized.
They both used the interruption to regroup, to try to calm and focus and take a few deep breaths. Aiden took a long drawl of his iced tea before he spoke, hoping the tea would cover the dryness in his throat.
“What do you mean of course I would? If you knew I’d be supportive, why did you go away?”
She rubbed her temples. “I mean this in the best possible way, Aiden, but you’re a fixer. It’s what you do, what you’re good at. It’s what makes you a good doctor, and an all around decent human. It’s what made you a good boyfriend, a good friend. But you can’t fix this.” She thumped her chest with her palm. “I knew, I always knew that I was too broken for your good intentions, but I didn’t know how to articulate that. So I kept letting you try, kept trying to fill the voids and cracks with your friendship, but it never worked. And I felt awful about that. The pressure built and built and grew and grew and when we got engaged, I thought the permanence of that would help, but it didn’t. And then I laid it all on the house, that maybe that would be the magic fix.”
“But it wasn’t,” Aiden said. How had he so vastly underestimated her pain and brokenness? Was she that good of an actress? Or had he been that bad of a partner? Had he seen what he wanted to see in her? Or had she only showed him what she wanted him to see?
She shook her head. “How…how is the house?” She licked her lips and twisted her fingers together.
Aiden could have been mean. He could have told her how amazing the house was, that June had taken the ball and run farther with it than Erica ever could, because June had an eye for design and detail that Erica lacked. “It’s a house,” he said evenly instead, because as nice as June made their living space, it was never what mattered. Aiden could be equally as happy in a two bedroom apartment.
She nodded. “Good, that’s good, and you’re, uh, handling the finances okay?” Her face pinched with guilt but, he noted, not regret. That hurt, but it also gave him a clearer picture of their situation. Whatever it was, Erica didn’t want back in, was possibly even ecstatic she got away.
He took a breath. This was hard, all of it, every breath in her presence, every beat of his heart. But was it because he still loved her or because he was so wounded and stung by her abandonment and betrayal? How could he possibly separate the two while sitting at the same table?
“June is helping,” he said. No one needed to know the particulars of their arrangement, least of all Erica.
Erica’s brow creased, but with what? Certainly not jealousy. “That’s the part I don’t understand. You married June? Swapped me out like we’re paper dolls? That doesn’t sound like you.” She tipped her head, studying him in confusion.
“Apparently there’s a lot about each other we don’t know,” he said evenly, which was true. With June, he felt like he was getting to know a part of himself he’d never shown Erica, a part he didn’t even know existed, one that could be brave, adventurous, and fiercely protective, the kind of man willing to fight for what he wanted, to fight for June.
I want June, he realized with startling clarity. He knew he was attracted to her and had been for some time, even when he was with Erica. But June was insanely beautiful; any man in his right mind would be attracted to her. But there was more to it, much more. He and June, they had something, something special and maybe even spectacular. He liked the person he was when he was with her, and he liked the way they were with each other, the banter, the unwavering support. There was both a lightness and depth that hadn’t been there with Erica. He had never thought of Erica as fragile, and yet he had tiptoed around her, never wanting to push her into one of her moods, never wanting her to become so stressed she became brittle and controlling. But he and June had been through the dregs of life together and never, not once, did he feel the need to tiptoe through the dark spots. June could take it. Hadn’t she proved that over and over, maintaining her composure and humor during every bizarre emergency she’d encountered?
His gut fluttered with…something, but Erica spoke and it was gone too quickly before he could latch onto it.
“So, what, you’re just with her now? You’re really married to June and going to stay that way?” When she swallowed, it wasn’t like she was trying to pull herself together. It was more like a dog being force fed a large pill.
“I don’t know that we’ll stay together, but I know that I want to,” Aiden said. “June has been there for me in a way no one else ever has. She’s…she’s everything.” His tone rang with sincerity and something else. Maybe love? Was he in love with June?
Erica started to cry, slow hot tears that ran silently down her face. “Despite what you might think of me, it wasn’t easy to walk away, Aiden. I was trying to save you, to save both of us. I knew in the long run it wouldn’t work and I did… do love you.”
He closed his eyes. Her tears hurt, even if she was the cause of them. “It’s not that I disagree that things were bad the last few months, and it’s not even that I disagree that we maybe needed to end things or, at the very least, have some hard conversations about our trajectory. It’s the timing. I would have talked to you at any time, would have listened, would have tried to see and understand from your point of view. If you’d given me warning, told me ahead of time that you wanted to postpone things, or even ended things, I would have been hurt, but I would have understood.” His eyes opened. It was important to see her clearly now, really see her, maybe for the first time ever. “But leaving me high and dry on our wedding day, to handle the fallout alone, to face that pain and humiliation. That’s low, Erica. I wouldn’t expect that sort of treatment from my worst enemy, let alone the woman I planned to marry. Part of my pain comes from the fact that I’m so incredibly disappointed in you.”
“Maybe a public place wasn’t the right setting for this meeting,” she said, using her napkin to try and sop her wet face, to no avail. “I’m sorry,” she said, tears veering into hiccups and hyperventilating now. “I’m really, really sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I panicked. But also, Aiden, if I hadn’t taken the big, dramatic exit, I wouldn’t have taken the exit at all. You were too compelling, the thought of marrying you was too enticing. It was what I wanted, what I still want, at least some part of me does. But the bigger part, the part that’s starting to get a clearer picture of me and gain some insight into my personality, knows it wasn’t the right thing.”
He stared at her, letting his heart crack open and bleed, letting all the pain, misery, rejection, vulnerability, and humiliation leak out. It was what he was there for, after all, for closure. And as he sat there and let his heart drain onto the table, a miraculous thing began to happen, because it was as if a tiny shaft of light began to filter into his chest. If he had to put a label on it, he’d call it hope. Hope for a future without Erica, hope for a future with June.
When he thought of June, the beam grew wider and brighter, warming him from the inside out.
If I had to choose between Erica and June, even minus Erica’s mistreatment, I would choose June, every single time. Hands down, no contest, no comparison.
Again he refrained from telling Erica what would undoubtedly be a resoundingly painful thing. She didn’t need to know, no one needed to know. Except June, and Aiden would tell her.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he croaked. It was the best he could offer, through the haze of his fading pain. She did a terrible thing to him, but he could forgive her, wanted to forgive her, would forgive her, if only to untether himself from the past.
She gave a small, tight smile and little nod. Perhaps there were things she didn’t say, also. Maybe she already had someone else. Maybe she’d had someone all along and he never realized. The thought brought less pain than it earlier might have, because the more he thought about it, the more he wanted her to find love and happiness. He might not be able to say it, at least not yet, but he could begin to feel it. Part of letting go and moving on included a magnanimity he hadn’t imagined he possessed, because he could take someone who’d left him at the altar with a half million of debt he hadn’t wanted and hope for her happiness and healing.
This time when he took a breath and let it out, he felt like he shed a large weight. He paid the bill for both of them, but he didn’t say goodbye. He couldn’t. He’d already said everything he wanted to say, heard everything he could stand to hear, and found the answer he didn’t realize he had been looking for. Erica was his past, and the past was over. June was his future, and his future had only just begun.