Jilted

Chapter 5

ERIC

After we’d dropped off everything I’d need at the condo, Jesse drove me over to the truck rental.

From there, we went back to the house, loaded up the U-Haul, and put the rest of my belongings in a storage unit.

I’d found a decent-sized one in a climate-controlled facility with excellent security, and lucky us, it was on the ground floor.

Carting everything in from the truck was a lot easier when we didn’t have to go up and down in the elevators.

I put the last box into the storage unit, then stepped back and gazed at the stacks we’d carefully arranged.

That was it. We were done. I’d moved out of the house I’d shared with Selena.

Before today, it had all felt abstract and surreal.

As if I were talking about something that someone else was going through, or discussing it the way eighth grade me had discussed going to college—so far in the future it barely felt real.

But here we were. Just like the day my parents had left me in my college dorm, everything was suddenly real.

The wheels were turning, and my life going forward would look very different than it had before.

Except college had been exciting and cool.

Intimidating, sure, but I’d been looking forward to it.

Canceling my wedding, moving out of my house, and breaking up with my fiancée? Not exactly bucket list items.

It had to be done, though, and I’d checked off one of the major tasks. One down, two to go.

I wiped sweat from my forehead and gave all the boxes one more long, exhausted look. Then I turned to Jesse. “I guess that’s everything.”

He nodded. “I guess so, yeah. Do you need help with anything else?”

“Not today, no.” My to-do list for the rest of the day was daunting as hell, but it wasn’t anything he needed to be involved with. “We just need to drop off the truck, and then I’ve got a bunch of calls to make and emails to send.”

Jesse grimaced but didn’t comment.

We left the storage facility, and after I’d turned in the truck, he drove us back to the condo.

There, we ordered pizza and drank beers, but we didn’t talk much.

What was there to say? I was shell-shocked from everything and still trying to make sense of it being real.

I wondered if he was also in a state of “shit, this is real, isn’t it?

” He’d had more time to process this than I had, but now he’d helped the man his girlfriend was cheating with move in with him.

I could only imagine what that did to someone’s head.

I had no idea what to say, especially since I was a fucked-up wreck myself. After I’d taken my plate and empty beer bottle to the kitchen, I said, “I should, uh… I’ve got those emails to send. Then I’ll probably crash for the night.”

“Sounds good.” He chewed his lip. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”

I gulped. I was not looking forward to tomorrow. I kind of wanted to let him off the hook, but I also hoped he’d come with me. “I am. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

He drummed his nails on the counter. Then he nodded sharply. “I think it’s best for both of us to be there. You deserve the backup, and I want to face her too.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” I exhaled. “I asked her maid of honor to text me when they leave the airport. So we’ll know when she’s on her way.”

“Smart. Does the maid of honor suspect anything?”

I shook my head. “Not that I know of. I just told her I was planning a surprise for Selena when she gets home from the bachelorette weekend, and…” I trailed off into a shrug.

Jesse laughed dryly. “I mean, you didn’t lie.”

“No, I didn’t.” I huffed a halfhearted laugh. “She’ll definitely be surprised.”

“Yeah. She will. Anyway, good luck with everything else. Let me know when you want to leave tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

Then I headed for my new bedroom. Chili the cat followed me, so I left the door open for him to come and go.

I sat on the bed. He plopped himself beside the pillow. I took a moment to pet him, but I made myself get to work.

I opened my laptop. Took out my phone. Found our list of vendors.

And went through the motions of canceling my wedding.

Madeline

Leaving the airport. Your lovely and slightly hungover bride will be home in a few! (heart emoji)

I almost gagged.

Great! Thanks for letting me know!

Very, very few people knew what was about to go down.

Though I’d quietly canceled all of our vendors, I hadn’t yet announced to our guests that the wedding wasn’t happening.

I’d told my immediate family last night.

I’d been a little unsure about talking to Selena’s parents, but I didn’t want them to find out about this on social media. So, I’d called them, too.

I also hadn’t intended to give them the whole story. All they needed to know was that “things didn’t work out” and the wedding was off, followed by, “I, uh, haven’t told her yet” and hope they respected that I didn’t want them to tell her.

I’d imagined a lot of ways that conversation could go down. Not one of them came close to how my would’ve-been-in-laws actually responded.

“Did she cheat on you?” her mother had asked pointedly.

I’d blinked. “Uh…”

“It’s all right, Eric.” Her dad had sounded utterly exhausted and disappointed. “I thought she’d grown out of that, but since this is coming out of nowhere and you’re the one telling us…”

Well, fuck. So much for keeping that card up my sleeve.

And damn, couldn’t someone have maybe mentioned to me that she had that to “grow out of” in the first place?

I didn’t ask how many men she’d cheated on in the past or how long it had been since she’d last strayed.

It was a moot point now, and anyway, I kind of didn’t want to know.

“She’s on her way?” Jesse’s voice nudged me back into the present.

Swallowing hard, I nodded and pocketed my phone. “They’re leaving the airport now. So… maybe twenty minutes? Half an hour?”

He took and released a deep breath. I didn’t have to ask if he was nervous. The night he’d met us to talk about having a threesome, he’d been chill and confident as if nothing could rattle him. When we’d taken him into our bed, there hadn’t been a trace of nerves.

Today? Oh, he was nervous now.

I could definitely relate. It didn’t matter that I was firmly in the right and nothing she could say would change my mind.

I still wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable confrontation.

We’d had our fair share of fights, so I’d seen her angry before, and while that hadn’t been fun, I didn’t imagine I’d seen her at “you’re canceling our wedding because I cheated” level angry.

I was too restless to sit still, so I wandered the house, double-checking that I hadn’t left behind anything important.

Good thing, too—I found a framed print that I’d had since college and a couple of books that had sentimental value.

Those went into my car, and I continued checking for anything I’d missed.

Jesse stayed in the living room, scrolling his phone on the couch. I didn’t blame him. In fact I envied his calm right now. Or maybe he was internally screaming and almost catatonic with nerves. Everyone handled stress differently.

After what seemed like forever, and somehow too soon at the same time, the garage door opener started to rumble.

I immediately pulled my phone out of my pocket. Before the garage door had even started closing again, I’d gone to all of my social media accounts, opened my saved drafts, and posted.

Then I exchanged nods with Jesse. He rose, but he stayed in the living room while I went into the kitchen just in time to greet Selena as she came in from the garage.

In here, there weren’t any visible changes that were likely to tip her off, since most of what I’d taken had been in cabinets and drawers.

Oblivious to the bomb I was about to drop on her, she lugged her suitcase in through the door and met me with a big smile.

“Hey, baby!” she squealed and pushed herself up to kiss me.

I accepted the kiss despite the queasiness in my stomach; I didn’t want her to catch on that something was up quite yet.

It was a struggle to hide my feelings, though.

There’d been a time when seeing her had given me butterflies, even after as long as we’d been together.

Now the sight of her—never mind her touch or her kiss—made me want to throw up.

As she let me go, she gestured over her shoulder. “You cleaned out the garage. It looks amazing!”

I forced a smile. “It was long overdue.”

“Well, it definitely looks—” Her phone pinged with a text.

“Oh, hang on a sec!” Before she’d even pulled it out of her purse, it pinged again.

Then again. Several texts came in one after the other.

Then it started ringing. My phone was probably blowing up, too, but it was on silent in my back pocket.

She stared at her screen before turning to me, eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

“We need to talk.” I gestured at her phone. “That’ll keep.”

The ringtone continued blaring as uneasiness swept over her face. With a worried edge to her voice, she asked again, “What’s going on?”

That was when the floor creaked behind me. Selena looked past me, and in an instant, the uneasiness vanished in favor of horror. She paled, eyes widening. “What… What are you doing here?”

“He’s helping me pick up a few things,” I said evenly. “Because I’m moving out.”

“Moving—” She blinked. “What? But we’re getting married in—”

“No. We’re not.”

“What? But—”

“I already made the announcement on social media,” I said as calmly as I could. “That’s probably why everyone’s suddenly trying to reach you.”

Her lips parted. Tears started welling up in her eyes. “What the hell is going on? You’re just—can’t we talk about this? What are—”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” I nodded toward Jesse. “He already told me everything.”

“What?” She shook her head and showed her palms. “He’s lying, Eric! I have never cheated on you! He’s lying!”

I crossed my arms. “Who said anything about cheating?” I looked at Jesse. “Did you say anything about cheating?”

He shrugged innocently. “I didn’t say a word about cheating. And I didn’t hear you say anything about cheating.”

We both turned pointedly back to Selena. More color slipped out of her face as tears started to roll down her cheeks. She stared at us in stunned silence while her phone continued to alternately ping and play her ringtone.

Even as I watched her slam face first into the consequences of her own actions, there was a part of me that felt bad.

I even felt a little guilty for confronting her like this with Jesse.

Why? No idea. On some level, I did still love her.

Or at least the idea of her. The version of her I’d thought I was marrying.

“What about the wedding?” she wailed. “We can’t just cancel it after we spent all that money and invited so many people and—”

“We can. And I already did.” I gestured at her phone. “Like I said, word is already out.”

Her jaw went slack. “You—you didn’t even wait to tell me first? You just—”

“You cheated on me.” I gestured at Jesse. “You cheated on both of us. And you think I should be considerate of you?” I scoffed. “Fuck off, Selena.”

She swiped at her eyes with a shaky hand, the diamond I’d bought her glinting in the kitchen light. “Eric. Please. I’m sorry. I—”

“You’re only sorry you got caught,” I growled. “I kind of want to ask what your endgame was—how long you were going to string us both along—but quite frankly, I don’t want to know.” I looked at Jesse. “Ready to get out of here?”

“When you are.”

We both brushed past her toward the kitchen door, and she was apparently so stunned that she didn’t even bother to try to stop either of us.

As we crossed the garage, though, she found her voice.

“You asshole!” she screamed after us. Something metallic pinged against a shelf just inches from Jesse’s head before it clattered to the concrete floor.

I looked down to see her engagement ring rolling under her car. As it came to a stop and fell over beside the tire, she was still screaming at me, calling me every name in the book and trying to gaslight both of us—and probably herself—into thinking this was my or Jesse’s fault.

Whatever. I was done.

I picked up the ring off the floor, slipped it into my pocket, and continued toward my car.

Shutting the doors and starting the garage door opener cut off her voice. She kept screaming after us as I backed out, but fortunately, I couldn’t make out any of it. Not through the windows. Not over the engine. Not over the blood pounding in my ears.

A neighbor poked her head out her front door, peering over with a concerned expression. Others were starting to step out of their garages.

Fine. Let them listen. Let them talk. Selena could tell them all what an absolute asshole I was and how I’d crushed her by abandoning her just before our wedding. Whatever. I didn’t care.

As I drove us out of the neighborhood, Jesse and I were silent. He stared out the window. I fixed my gaze on the road.

I searched for relief or closure or something, but I came up empty. Everywhere my emotions should’ve been, I just found hollow voids of numbness. No grief. No shock. No relief.

Maybe that was a good thing.

Because I was pretty sure it would suck when the dam finally broke.