Chapter 2
chapter two
Audrey
Present day
Today's vocabulary word: cede
One thing that was true about me was that I had a near-perfect track record of making the wrong decision when it mattered the most. I was not a cool head in a crisis…
or even medium-stress situations. My critical thinking took a swan dive into shallow waters and my fight-or-flight instincts actively wanted evolution to come and pick me off.
When it came down to it, when my path diverged in the wood, I could be counted on to take the trail that would fuck up my life. Every time.
Chairing the planning committee for my high school's eighteen-year reunion wasn't close to the worst of my decisions but it was the worst right now.
I'd lived through a lot of low moments in my thirty-five years but there was something uniquely painful in putting on a party for a bunch of people who didn't remember my name and only wanted to know where my ex was tonight.
It pinched in all the wrong places to be reminded, half a lifetime later, that I was no one without him. Yet on the other side of that coin, I was here only because I knew he wouldn't be.
Jude would sooner fill his pockets with stones and walk into the sea than set foot on the campus of Aldyn Thorpe Academy again.
This world of old brick and creeping ivy was mine to keep, along with the self-important scaffolding built around it.
He wouldn't enter this Thunderdome of generational wealth tonight because he'd given up this place, this city, the same way I'd given him up.
Land won in a war that'd killed me to fight.
Except— No.
Except yes, he was here and watching me from the other side of the tent.
I had a thousand apologies, a thousand explanations that never would've mattered to him anyway—but in the span of time it took to register that he was here and staring at me after more than a decade of silence, those words abandoned me.
Just as quickly, the oppressive weight of the last words we'd shared, the ones that echoed in the dark of sleepless nights and the cold, lonely lows of being lost to everything, everyone, filled their place.
Why are you doing this?
I remembered gasping, the question landing with all the impact he'd intended. I thought about that gasp a lot. About how childish I must've looked to him. All dressed up—and for what?
He didn't know it but I threw myself on a grenade when I told him to leave that day. I still searched for some of the pieces of me lost in the blast, still felt my way around the tender, broken spots that never seemed to scab over. And he'd never understand why I did it.
I always knew our paths would cross again, one way or another, but I never thought it would be here.
Not with him dressed in a crisp dark suit that looked as natural as the beat-to-hell jeans and vintage t-shirts once had.
Not with me frozen in place while all the monologues I'd rehearsed emptied out of my mind.
Not in this lavish tent, chandeliers glittering overhead while our old audience looked on.
I'd prepared myself for many things tonight, but this was not one of them.
Painful conversations? Two separate people had pointed at my name tag, frowned, and told me they'd always thought my name was Emily or Sarah or maybe something stuffy like Constance.
Graceless moments? Someone spilled a glass of wine down my dress and I apologized to them for it.
Latching onto the familial connections? I'd already smile-shrugged my way through five requests for my father to "take care of" legal matters ranging from a Low-key DUI to We're hoping the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn't get involved.
I'd also steeled myself against the onslaught of questions I knew I'd get about Jude.
It was a damn good thing, because everyone wanted to know why he wasn't here, what he was doing now, why we weren't together—and how it ended.
An entire lifetime had passed since high school and they were dying to know what happened and how it all fell apart.
There was a hungry glee woven into those questions, like they'd been waiting to pick my broken little heart from my chest, and any other organs damaged in the breakup, and simmer them into a stew.
Because I'd never deserved him. Never good enough, not even close.
That was what they thought. What they said when they didn't know I was listening.
As if it wasn't enough to have everyone talking about him, he decided this wasn't a party without his full participation and had to show up looking like a storm cloud in a bespoke suit.
And since that still wasn't enough for him, he had to watch me with a gaze that stripped a layer from my skin with each passing minute.
I had no clue what would happen between us tonight.
Whether we'd talk for the first time in years or he'd leave me to squirm under his watchful gaze all night without saying a word to me.
He probably thought I deserved that type of torture.
Probably thought I'd earned myself an uncomfortable evening of him treading on my territory like a heavy-handed reminder that I was the one who'd made this mess. Part of me agreed with him.
The other side of me wanted answers. Wanted to know why he was here when I knew for a fact he hadn't even opened his invite, let alone clicked the RSVP link.
And as Jude stepped away from his group and started across the tent toward me, I had a good idea which side would win.