Chapter 41
If you asked me how many brides I’ve seen break down in the course of my career, the answer would be: as many dresses as I design.
I just never expected to be one of them.
I’m not sure how I got to Heidi’s office without getting into a wreck. The plush cream faux fur rugs greet me as I stumble in the door, my vision blurring in front of me. Tears rising in my eyes make the chandelier in the lobby look like it’s twinkling. It lends itself to the idea that this must all be a dream. A bad one, but a dream nonetheless.
Kit spent eight weeks trying to win my trust, to take care of me, to prove he could be what I needed. Then before I could tell him I wanted to keep trying, he opted out. Quit. Left me.
After I told him I loved him.
Again.
My whole body aches like my limbs are being stretched in different directions. It’s bone-deep and heavy. I worry I’ll sink right through this carpet.
Praying for numbness to arrive soon, I ignore the receptionist asking me how she can help. I stagger past her desk and down a hallway to Heidi’s door. It’s all I can do to lift my hand and knock. But when I do, my wedding ring glints in the pendant lighting overhead.
Tears threatening to break free, I try desperately to pull the ring off. Heidi swings open her office door only to see me grunting as I tug at my stuck wedding ring, tears ruining my mascara. I sniff and my voice breaks. “I can’t get it off.”
Her eyes soften. I’m not a hysterical bride. I’m her best friend, and she’s mine. She pulls me into the room and closes the door behind us. She wraps me into a hug with one arm, then uses her free hand to pick up the phone and let her receptionist know to hold her calls and cancel her afternoon appointments.
I feel like a child, my rib cage creaking with sobs too big for my body. I’m stronger than this. I’m more than this. I hate Kit for leaving me like this. Again.
Heidi guides me to one of the cushy armchairs in a small seating area she keeps in her office. Heavy sample books are on the modern coffee table, one open to tablecloth options, and another open to centerpieces. I can’t look at them; they remind me of too much.
Right now, I can’t fathom ever setting foot in a ballroom again. Not when this gaping wound in my chest wants to swallow me whole.
Heidi gives me a furry pillow to hold, pours me a glass of water, then wedges off my heels, tossing them aside. After scooting a box of tissues closer to me, she takes her seat in the other armchair, primly crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap.
I don’t want to guess how many times she’s had to do this—calm the hysterical woman who showed up at her door—but she’s probably the best at it, just like she is with everything else she does.
“So,” she says quietly, calmly. “Decision day.”
I nod, squeezing my furry pillow tightly to my chest.
“What happened?” Heidi asks, not a hint of judgment in her voice. She’d probably make a great therapist.
I swallow, then croak, “He didn’t even let me answer.”
Heidi studies me for a moment, then asks gently, “What was the question?”
“If I wanted to stay married to him.” I grab a wad of tissues with a clumsy fist. “I was going to say yes. I was going to tell him I wanted to try, because I—” I shake my head, a new wave of tears letting loose. “I love him. I wasn’t supposed to love him.”
“I take it his answer wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
I crumple in my chair, bending forward at the waist, wishing I could sink into the upholstery and never return. “He wants to divorce, and it’s not like last time but it hurts, and I don’t know what to do. I’m so stupid.”
Heidi tilts her head while I catch my breath through a round of sobs. When I pause to wipe the snot away from my nose, she says, “You’re not stupid.”
I sigh, slouching over the pillow still protectively clutched to my stomach. “I already loved and lost him once, and I thought somehow it would be easier this time. How is that not the dumbest thing you ever heard?”
Heidi doesn’t flinch. She simply watches me shred a tissue. When I think the silence will stretch on forever, she picks up her cell phone. Her voice falls into a comfortable murmur as my pulse pounds in my head. “Kimber? Yeah. Will you order from that place on Third, the one with that lemon butter chicken? Order enough for an army, and get something for yourself, too.”
I bow my head, smashing my wet tissues against my face, as a new wave of humiliation crashes over my head.
Before this stupid show and this sham of a marriage, I always prided myself on my ability to keep going. To push through when things were hard. And to do it on my own.
Then Kit showed up with that disarming smile and his pet names and his insistent need to help. Letting him in was so natural. His touch lit me up, and he sent me lunch every day because he always said I couldn’t create if I wasn’t fed. He coaxed me into bed at a decent hour more nights than I care to admit.
Here Heidi was, canceling her day for me, ordering us food, and settling in for the long haul. The pride I had in never needing anyone’s help was a house of cards. Staring at the wreckage, I’ve never felt so powerless.
“Am I really that much of a mess?” I ask as she sets her phone aside. “That everyone has to take care of me, or I’ll spiral into nothingness?”
“Honey, no,” Heidi says with a frown. Her brow wrinkles with concern as she begins pulling pins from her smooth French twist. “You just lived through eight weeks of being on all the goddamn time only for him to stomp on your heart and drag it through that perfectly manicured country club grass.”
“That’s a visual,” I mumble as I take a sip of water.
Heidi kicks off her shoes and shakes out of her sharp blazer. “Now.” She tucks her feet under her on the chair. “Tell me everything.”
I spend the next hour spilling my guts to my best friend. Heidi gasps in all the right places as I reveal how we faked it for the cameras. Until it wasn’t fake anymore. The food arrives just as I finish telling her about the fight I had with him a few days ago in the hospital hallway.
Heidi moves the sample books off the coffee table so we can use it to eat. We’re quiet while we break open the to-go boxes. Heidi wanders over to the fancy file cabinet she has in the corner. It’s got a hidden mini-fridge we’ve enjoyed a bubbly water from, from time to time. She comes back with a bottle of vodka, glass frosted over from the cold.
She shrugs as she sits on the floor next to the coffee table. “Desperate times.”
I give her a fraction of a smile. It’s all I can muster.
After we shove a few bites of food into our mouths, she asks, “You made him pocket squares?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not that big of a deal. I had the fabric lying around and he needed them, so I whipped some together.”
Heidi nods, making a noise I can only describe as sarcastic, if that’s possible.
“What?” I mumble around a piece of chicken.
Heidi stabs at a stack of lettuce drenched in chipotle ranch and shrugs. “I’ve been friends with you for years, and I’ve never so much as gotten a handmade handkerchief from you.”
She shoves a forkful of salad into her mouth while I stare blankly. She’s not wrong. I’ve never made her a scarf or a simple skirt or anything. She never asked. But neither had Kit, had he? My shoulders curl forward with defeat. “I’m a bad person, aren’t I?”
“Of course not,” Heidi scoffs as she repositions her legs on the plush carpet. “You know what you want, and you’re focused on the endgame.”
“I’m selfish,” I mutter to a piece of chicken on the tines of my fork. “I kept reminding Kit that I needed the divorce money. Like that was all that mattered to me.”
Heidi shrugs. “It’s why you did the show in the first place. I think it was brave of you to be so honest with him.”
“Really?”
She nods. “And it says a lot about him that he didn’t get petty about it.”
I swallow. Kit had never tried to undermine my mission. He offered an alternative, sure. But he never made me feel bad about my work or the time I spent on it. “Is it stupid that I kept waiting for him to just say the right thing, and I could get past all my reasons for saying no?”
“What was the right thing for him to say?” She tilts her head in question, fiddling with a piece of plastic wrap from a to-go container.
I stare at the bottle of vodka on the table, condensation slipping down the smooth glass sides and pooling at the base. Somehow, I still believe that if Kit said the right words in the right order, he’d loosen this knot still lodged in my chest. If he could just say them, I could let go of how afraid I was of loving him.
He apologized for leaving me the first time. He supported my ambition to the point of vetting assistants for me, of offering to be an investor himself. He sent me lunch because he knew I’d forget to eat if he didn’t. He noticed which of my dresses I made, always searching for the hidden pockets. And the night we decided to give in, he showed his hand—he knew every intricacy of my work.
I’m afraid of how deeply he knows me.
And perhaps the biggest fear of all: What if nothing he said would make it right? At least his brutal silence was something I was comfortable with, even if I drowned in it.
I whisper my reply. “I don’t know.”