Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
ONCE WE HAD the medical all clear, the doctor let us go. Cooper’s shirt was too bloody to put back on, so the doctor offered a T-shirt from a stash in the cupboard, one that said NO CRUISE CONTROL. It was a little tight on him, to be honest—but in a good way.
He slid his suit jacket back on to dress up the T-shirt, Don Johnson style, and then stuffed the bloody tie into his pants pocket on the way out.
“Pretty sure that tie is trashed,” I said.
Cooper shrugged. “Keepsake,” he said.
We headed back toward the wedding reception to check on everybody, but I wasn’t sure that was a great idea for him medically.
“I’m fine,” Cooper said.
“Your twenty stitches say otherwise.”
The ship was still dark. Cooper and I walked along an outside deck so we’d have the moonlight to see by.
“Do you have any other secrets you’re withholding?” I asked.
“Lots,” Cooper said.
“Like?”
He thought about it. “Like I’m actually really good at mini golf.”
I gave him a look. “Of course you are.”
Cooper thought he remembered a set of side doors from the deck to the ballroom, and sure enough, as we reached them, we found they were not just unlocked but propped open.
We could see straight into the ballroom—all the guests sitting at their candlelit tables, decidedly not panicking, just chatting and waiting good-naturedly for the lights to come back on. Very different vibes from the stairwell.
Ashley would be worried about where I’d gotten off to, though. My mom and dad, too.
We should go in.
But just short of the threshold, as we were about to leave the deck and the moonlight behind, Cooper asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Did you ever wonder why I moved to London?”
I stopped walking.
Hey—that was my question!
“Is that a real question?”
Cooper shrugged. “Yeah.”
I couldn’t believe he was asking me this. The question I’d been chickening out from asking him since the day he showed up to ruin my wedding—and now Cooper was just casually asking it like we were making chitchat?
I tilted my head. “You’re asking me if I ever wondered why you disappeared to London without a word and never contacted me again?”
Cooper nodded, like this might be a trap.
“You’re asking if,” I continued, “when my best friend for over ten years—the person I’d spent the most time with in my life, the only person who really got me and the only person I could truly say anything to—abruptly moved to another continent without telling me and then completely ghosted me in every possible way … if I ever wondered why that happened?”
“Okay. I see your point there.”
I wasn’t sure how to continue. Should I shrug it off? Act jokey and cool? Or should I just … be honest?
In a minute, we’d step back into the ballroom and back into the current of life. But right now, here, just outside the doors, on the quiet deck in the moonlight, it felt like we were just outside of our lives somehow. Like this was a little pause we shouldn’t take for granted.
And so I took a breath, looked up at Cooper, and said, with no pretense, “I’ve been wanting to ask you what happened every day for the past four years.” Then I said, “Hence, all the texts asking you what happened.”
Cooper nodded, like Of course, and looked down.
Then I added, just to be clear: “You disappearing was the worst heartbreak of my life.”
Cooper met my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
I shrugged.
“I know I owe you an explanation,” Cooper said.
I waited.
“But I keep chickening out.”
Of note: Chickening out was also my thing.
“Are you going to chicken out now?” I asked.
Cooper shook his head. “This is what I’ve been trying to talk to you about.”
“Okay, so tell me. Why did you leave like that?”
“It was because I had to end things.”
“You had to end things?”
Cooper nodded. “With you.”
With me? “But—why?”
“Because,” Cooper said, “you got engaged to Pearce.”
“So?”
“And I just … couldn’t take it. I had to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being in love with you.”
Oh.
Wait—what? “Were you in love with me?” I asked.
Cooper nodded. “I just told you that. In the stairwell.”
“I thought you were joking.”
Cooper gave me a look. “No you didn’t.”
“But—” It still wasn’t computing. “When?”
“Always.”
Always?
Cooper took a breath and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“After you told me you and Pearce got engaged, I made the decision. I couldn’t stay.
I couldn’t be part of your life anymore.
You were like a drug that I had to give up.
I thought, Just let her be happy. Right?
You’d made your choice. I didn’t have to fight with you about it. ”
“Fight with me about it?” I said. “I didn’t even know there was a choice.”
Cooper nodded. “Looking back, maybe I should’ve said something.”
I gave him a look, like Ya think? “I didn’t pick Pearce over you. I didn’t know you were an option.”
“I thought I shouldn’t tell you what to do.
That’s what my dad always did to my mom.
Told her what to wear, and who to be friends with.
I didn’t want to be like him. I wanted to be the opposite of him.
I trained myself not to ask for things. I had a lot of regret after I thought I’d let you marry Pearce without ever telling you how I felt.
I reevaluated how I’d been living my whole life—but too late. ”
“You didn’t just not tell me how you felt,” I said. “You didn’t even tell me you were leaving.”
“I was afraid even one objection from you would stop me. And so I just—left. It was the only solution I could come up with. I didn’t even have a plan.
I just figured I’d figure it out … but it didn’t work.
I left, moved far away, started over, made new friends, and dated people, too—thinking if I waited long enough, I’d forget all about you.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just … missed you.
Even when I wasn’t missing you, I was missing you.
It was like grief—but it didn’t get easier the way grief is supposed to.
It was like there was a hole blown open in my chest that I could never close back up.
“But as bad as it was, I figured it had to be better than the alternative—which was watching you marry Pearce and build a life with him. Watching him get everything I wanted and take it all for granted. I told my mom not to tell me anything about your life, and for a while that worked. But I guess she didn’t fully get the importance of that rule, because she forwarded me your wedding invitation—and that’s how I found out you weren’t already married. ”
“Cooper—seriously?”
“I was so enraged to see it—the real thing in my hands—that I went to a pub and drank and stared at it … and then stumbled to a postbox and drunk RSVPed.”
“Hence, the boycott.”
“Hence, the boycott. Humiliating—but I told myself that settled that, at least. But then … when I woke up the next day hungover, I had this terrible idea in my head. Maybe this was my chance for a do-over. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it—until suddenly I was on a plane. Crossing the ocean. Heading home to stop you. It was foolish and hopeless and way too late—but I did it anyway.”
“I thought you were kidding about that, too.”
“I have never been more dead serious in my life.”
I took a slow breath.
Cooper went on. “When I saw you again in that church—it was all I could do not to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off like a Viking.”
“You did wind up doing that,” I pointed out.
“But after you’d made your choice.”
“How gentlemanly.”
Cooper continued, “My plan was actually to stand up and object. And then to make a speech about how I couldn’t let you marry the wrong man—when I knew that I was the right one. I had a whole argument written out on an airsickness bag.”
“That’s romantic,” I deadpanned.
“Isn’t it?” Cooper deadpanned back.
“I can’t believe you wrote a speech,” I said.
“I can’t believe you faked a faint,” Cooper said.
“It was good to see you that day,” I said.
“It was agony,” Cooper said, “to see you.”
“So you stopped my wedding—and then you went back to London.”
“Sure, I mean—I’d called in sick to work and left the country.”
“And then you came to Ashley’s wedding, too.”
“Yeah. I went back, regrouped, got a job offer in Austin, got a haircut, bought a few extra vests, and came here planning to do the exact same thing to you that you’ve been trying to do to Finn.”
“Hold on. Have you been a double agent this whole time?”
Cooper shrugged. “Why do you think I asked your mom to make you room with Harmony?”
“My mom was in on this?”
Cooper nodded. “So was Ashley.”
“No, no,” I said. “Ashley was the architect of the whole thing with Finn.”
“She was playing both sides of the field,” Cooper said.
I shook my head. “Ashley was trying to set you up with Bridesmaid Two!”
But Cooper just raised his eyebrows, like Why do you think she was doing that?
I gasped. “Was everybody in on it?”
“Just the important folks.”
“This is appalling!” I said then, feeling like I should be outraged. “How dare you!”
“It’s no worse than what you were doing.”
Fine. He had a point there.
I frowned. “Were you actively working against me? Was there sabotage involved?”
Cooper shook his head. “I just wanted to change your mind.”
“About Finn?”
“About me.”
“Cooper…” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you right now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I guess,” Cooper said, “it just took me a couple of decades to work up the courage.”
But then I wasn’t sure. “What is it that you’re telling me right now, exactly?”
Cooper squared his shoulders and went on. “I’m telling you you’re my favorite person on this overcrowded earth. I’m telling you that I’ve loved you my whole life long. I’m telling you I’ve had my own Operation Conquest going this whole time. And the person I was trying to conquer … was you.”
WHAT ELSE COULD I possibly have done?