Chapter 13
JULES
Sitting in the back of the taxi, I blinked long and hard, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. My face felt hot, my chest tight, and I could see the driver glancing at me in the rearview mirror. Great. The last thing I needed was a stranger judging my walk of shame.
I steadied my breathing as I got to my phone. Don’t do it, Jules. Let it go. My fingers had different plans because before I could stop myself, I typed:
‘Chris Jones and Anna DeMarcus’
The results popped up instantly. As I scrolled through the photos and articles, my stomach twisted. There were so many headlines: engagement this, fairytale romance that.
My first instinct was to punish myself for not knowing this sooner, but the truth was, ever since the separation, pop culture hadn’t even made it to the bottom of the list of things I could keep up with.
And even before that, my celebrity crush on Chris had always been more about the warm, unspoken complicity I felt with the version of him that lived in my head than about following his every move in tabloids.
There was one movie of his I kept rewatching on a loop, not because it was any sort of masterpiece, but because of the tone and the tiny, unintentional ticks he gave the character that felt so much like the dream-husband version of him.
It totally bombed at the box office, or so I’d heard, but it was still my favorite thing he’d ever done.
I tossed the phone back into my purse and turned to the window, staring at the people outside.
Maybe if I didn’t look at it, it wouldn’t be real.
Maybe I could rewrite the whole last twenty-four hours in my head and turn it into some random, meaningless hookup with a stranger instead of… whatever that was.
The driver, a man in his sixties with a gray mustache, caught my eye in the mirror. He didn’t say anything for a whole minute, glancing at me like he was thinking whether to speak.
“There’s a box of caramels over there,” he finally said, nodding toward a little container on the back of his seat. “Not much that a bit of caramel can’t fix, you know?”
“Thanks,” I murmured, reaching for one of the candies.
He was kind of right. The sweet, buttery taste took me right back to when I was eight, chasing my sister around Nana’s apartment with sticky fingers and messy hair. It made me almost smile.
My eyes wandered to a photo taped to the dashboard.
It showed the driver with an older woman and two younger men.
His family, I assumed. They looked so happy and peaceful, as if the world was that simple.
I wanted that. I wanted my brain to stop spinning, pulling me into chaos, and let me have that kind of peace.
Even if this wasn’t a messed-up situation, I’m sure my brain would’ve found a way to freak out about it. It was the way it worked.
I couldn’t resist grabbing back my phone. My thumb hovered over the screen until one photo stopped me cold—Anna’s engagement ring. It was obviously over-the-top and screamed, “Look at me! I’m expensive!” But its design looked so familiar.
A lump formed in my throat. On a much larger scale, it looked like my engagement ring. The one I had picked out myself because I was too much of a control freak to let George choose something I’d have to wear for so long.
I was pretty sure I did the same thing in my daydreams with Chris. Had he seen it too? Did he choose her ring based on what I chose… in our shared, made-up world? A hint of something twisted in my chest. Anger. Jealousy.
I felt a memory pulling me under.
It was ten years ago, and I stood in a bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror.
The ring reflected the sunlight coming from the small window.
I styled my long hair into a delicate braid with shimmering pins tucked into it, looking straight out of one of those fantasy movies.
The makeup artist had outdone herself. I looked radiant.
The perfect bride. But beneath it all was a tiny flicker of doubt that refused to be acknowledged.
The door cracked open, and Carol stood there, locking eyes with me through our reflection.
“Cold feet?” She asked, leaning against the doorframe.
I shook my head, with a not-so-genuine smile. “No… of course not.”
She tilted her head, studying me. I tried to keep my normal-person mask on, but Carol had been around me too long to buy it. She wasn’t fooled by it.
“I can have the car ready in two minutes. We could just… go.”
I laughed because I couldn’t tell if she was joking or being serious.
“I love him.”
I did. Love him. George was… everything I thought I needed. The first person, outside of my sister, who saw through my mask and still wanted to stick around. He made me laugh. He made me feel somewhat safe. Well, as safe as my overthinking, anxious, chaos-friendly brain would ever allow me.
He wasn’t just my fiancé. He was my best friend. My only friend, if I was being honest. Outside of family and a handful of people I’d known since the dawn of time, making friends as an adult felt impossible and borderline cruel.
But there I was, standing in that bathroom, in my bridal robe, with my heart heavier than it should've been.
“He’s the first person who’s ever loved me for who I am and not… despite who I am.”
Carol stepped closer, touching my shoulder.
“Not true. I always have and always will love you for who you are.” My little sister got me in ways no one else ever could.
Words weren’t even necessary half the time.
But she was raised with me. It didn’t count.
“We could still bail. Find an old house somewhere. Just us. And a bunch of cats.” She continued.
That got a smile out of me.
“I bet we even die on the same day.” It was from our favorite movie. A cheesy line we’d adopted as our own private motto over the years. We laughed, and I could feel the tension in my chest loosening a little.
She kissed my cheek and stepped back. “Don’t take too long, okay?”
“I’ll be right there.”
She left the bathroom quietly, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving me alone with that damn reflection. I took a deep breath. As I turned to leave, I froze.
“Why are you doing this?” The voice was faint but clear. My heart skipped a beat as my eyes glanced around the bathroom. But I was completely alone. It came again, quieter and sadder this time. “Please… don’t.”
I knew that voice.
Stepping out of the bathroom, my eyes landed on the wedding dress hanging by the bed. Simple, but breathtaking. My vision blurred, and the room felt… off.
Just nerves. Breathe.
It was no use. The harder I tried to ground myself, the more everything spun. And then, in a snap, I wasn’t there anymore. I was deep into a daydream. In another hotel room, fancy and expensive.
And there he was. Dream Chris. Standing across from me.