Chapter 25 The Wedding #2
“I’m still in love with you. I’ve always been in love with you. It’s not going to change for me.” Abby gulped at Kate’s eyes glistening like shattered glass in the silence. “I’ll beg. I’ll wait. I’ll change. Whatever it takes.”
Kate unhooked her arms from her neck. “I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“Kate.”
“Thanks for the dance,” she whispered, before charging out of the reception.
“Hey, hold on.” Abby hustled after her through the sea of wedding guests, indifferent to Dani’s scowl across the way. She followed Kate out of the ballroom and into the mahogany hallway. “Hey!”
“Abby, it’s over!”
“Not for me!” She shook from her toes to her tongue, sweating pills and booze, gritting her teeth while she fought for them one last time.
“I get that you don’t want to be with me and I’m a mess, but what about you?
Still the same scared girl from college, hiding in religion and chasing perfection!
How could you go back to it after everything? ”
Kate reared back, red and breathless, but all a doped-up Abby could think was at least she turned around.
“Of course I went back! I was scared!” Her shout splintered.
“You left me nothing! Nothing in my heart—no you, no faith, no God. Why would I lose that too? How is it any different than you making a career out of running away?”
“Because I don’t think you lost your faith!” Abby shook her head. “I think you couldn’t understand it anymore, and that terrified you. You’re terrified when things aren’t black and white or good and bad.”
“And how would you know? You don’t even know yourself. You’re so far gone, I barely recognize you!” Kate sniffled, but didn’t cry. In fact, the way she reduced her volume and squared up to Abby was somehow worse. “And it kills me too. It kills me that you won’t save yourself.”
Abby didn’t know how she withstood such a direct hit, but she was desperate. The most desperate she’d ever been. She grabbed Kate’s hands. “Please, don’t do it. You don’t have to choose me, but don’t choose this. Please, Kate.”
“Everything okay out here?” Ryan asked behind them.
Kate tugged her hands out of Abby’s and nodded. “Yeah.”
His brow knitted together as he drew closer. Abby had met him at the rehearsal dinner, found him affable but boring, just as she expected. She considered whether she might pick a fight with him next, when Dani barreled into the hallway.
“Hey,” Abby said to her, but she didn’t stop.
“I’m leaving.”
“Fuck.”
Abby half-heartedly trailed behind her. By the time she reached the winery’s circular driveway, Dani was climbing into a car. Abby could have followed, had enough time to stop or chase her, but let her pull away.
She flopped onto a bench outside, hand wavering as she lit a cigarette.
It took her a dozen tries with the lighter.
Another dozen to get the cap off her flask.
She wasn’t about to go back into the reception with another fuckup under her belt.
Instead, she listened to the band’s muffled drums and saxophone from outside, eyes cast on the empty vineyard long enough for the sky to turn from orange to dark purple.
“Hey.”
Abby swiveled her head to Ryan. He stalked toward her, shoes crunching the gravel above the chirping crickets.
“Can I help you?” she asked as she stretched onto unsteady legs.
“Stay away from her,” he said. It was firm and simple. He loomed in his tux, veins in his neck straining. She longed to lure him into taking a swing. She wasn’t sure what it would solve, but knew choosing her own hurt would temporarily make her feel better.
“I’m out here, aren’t I?”
Before either of them could say more, the door squealed open and Kate peeled out, just as dashing as before, like their fight hardly touched her. When she reached Ryan, he put a protective arm around her, and Abby miraculously resisted snarling.
“We’re going to head out,” Kate said. Her gaze fell into Abby’s, but not too deeply, as if restrained by that arm around her. As if it made her someone else entirely. “Take care of yourself.”
Abby nodded, her throat bobbing because she wouldn’t see her again. Her bones ached with it, her heart squeezed, and her ears rang, everything in her urging her to double down, but she was too tired to fight. She’d already lost.
“You too,” she whispered.
She popped another half pill, stalked back into the reception, and didn’t look back.
She posted up at the bar and drank until she slurred.
T.K. and Jill tried to console her, but Abby shirked them and blacked out before the bartender cut her off.
In the muddled, painful recap, she apparently knocked over a waiter, resulting in a shattered stack of plates.
She advised the startled guests to fucking relax, among other pearls of wisdom, until Mick finally stopped her.
Dylan and Mick’s brother dragged her out of the reception with T.K. and Mick following behind.
“I’m never going to get her back,” Abby said as they shoved her in a car.
“Got to let her go, Cruz.” Mick squeezed her shoulder, bow tie drooping like a mirror to her frown. “And you’ve got to take care of yourself. Okay?”
Abby nodded, threw her head back on the seat, spinning and sick, alone on the road of her own inevitable crash.