Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam
At around ten-thirty, the rehearsal dinner finally over, Mia found me sitting on a bench by myself in a pretty solar-light lit garden that at the moment, I could not appreciate.
“There you are,” she said, taking a seat beside me. “How was the test between Ani and Tyler? I saw you doing it.”
I shook my head. “Only because Ani begged me to. I told her the truth—that the result didn’t matter. That she already knew the answer in her heart, and we’d support her no matter what she decided.”
Mia nodded. “This wedding is sort of turning into a real shit show. Pardon my language.”
“Ha. Tell me about it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t appease Ani—you know, tell her everything was going to be all right. Because I’m not sure it is.”
I turned to my friend, full of different torments of my own. “Could we have prevented this?”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Mia looked off into the shadowed gardens. “I don’t know for sure. I think I passed off a lot of sketchy behavior by rationalizing. Oh well, Ani loves him . That was probably a mistake.”
“We’ll help her through this.”
Mia hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “Ani’s with her mom now. I’m afraid her mom’s going to talk her into going through with it.”
“We’ll see her in the morning and do our best to be there for her.”
We fell into silence. Ani and Tyler. Lilly. Caleb. My mind flitted from one disaster to the next. And to other things. “I’ve been a terrible best friend. I don’t share things with you.”
Mia gave a soft chuckle. “You share everything with me.” She counted off on her fingers. “Your lunch, your car—when you had one that worked, that is, and your favorite lipstick when I forgot mine. Most importantly, you share your time. You not only listen to me when things are going well but especially when they’re not.” She took a glance over at me, clearly trying to figure out what was going on. I didn’t even know where to begin.
I felt a deep-seated need to—change. To be more honest. More open. Because this staunch independent thing I had going on wasn’t working all that well for me. “I’m a bad friend because I don’t open myself up to you in the same way you do to me. Even though I know you wouldn’t judge me if I told you more.”
“You can change that at any time, you know.” She paused. “Did Caleb do something dumb?”
“I slept with your brother,” I blurted.
“Oh, okay,” she said with a wry smile. “ You both did something dumb.”
I knew that she was trying to get me to laugh, but it didn’t work.
“I did do something dumb. Like, really dumb.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging, “now’s your chance to spill.”
I turned to my dearest friend. I felt gutted like I’d never been gutted before. And for the first time in my life, I was desperate to tell her everything. “Lilly told me that she’s in love with Caleb. Ironically, right before he asked me if it was okay to go public with our relationship.”
“Wait,” Mia said, trying to absorb it all. “You two got together, right? Caleb doesn’t care about Lilly.”
“No, you don’t understand. Yes, we got together, and yes, it was amazing, but then I ruined it all by saying nothing when he wanted to tell everyone and then letting Lilly tell him everything he’s been wanting to hear for four years.”
Mia rubbed her forehead. “Are you saying that you let Lilly make a play for him? Why did you do that!”
“I told him I had to think about things because I—” I got choked up. I started to cry, and my nose began running, and I had to wipe it on my arm. I felt certain my makeup was running too. “Because I thought he needed to have a choice. I didn’t want him to look back and think that after all those years wanting her, he could’ve had a chance to get her back.” And I’d basically effed myself in the process.
“Oh, Sam,” Mia said, which made me cry more.
I tried to wipe my eyes, but the tears kept coming. “But the truth is, I don’t have to think about anything. I love him. But it got in my head that he’s loved Lilly forever and he should have a choice. I couldn’t tell him, ‘Guess what, surprise! Lilly loves you! And so do I. Now pick!’”
“Wow.” Mia was stunned into silence. “So what happened?”
“I don’t know.” I gave a sad shrug. “He walked out of the dinner with Lilly. And that’s where we are.”
Mia patted my shoulder. “I understand why you did what you did. But you can’t just let Lilly do what she wants. You’ve got to tell him how you feel.”
Suddenly, someone called my name in the semi-darkness. A figure stepped into the light. “There you two are.” Wynn was busy looking around at the lighted gardens, the pretty winding paths. “This is a cool place.”
“Wynn!” I exclaimed, shocked to see her. I knew that she would be coming with the D’Angelos, but I didn’t expect her until tomorrow.
I turned my head and tried to wipe the watery streaks of makeup around my eyes, but it was no use. She would see me as I was, a complete and total mess. “What are you doing here?” I asked as I kept furiously swiping. “I thought you had the farmers’ market tomorrow morning?”
She was still checking out the scenery and hadn’t really focused on me yet. “The D’Angelos gave all the vegetables and stuff to their neighbors to sell for them. They thought it would be fun to stay over tonight and not have to rush to get to the wedding. I’m staying on the pullout bed in their suite.”
That was when she saw my face. And all the pain I couldn’t disguise. “Oh my God,” Wynn said. “What’s wrong?”
I’d never expected to open myself up to everyone all at once. And the struggle was oh, so painful. I realized then how little I told—well, anyone, but especially her. How I kept all my troubles to myself so that she could have this perfect life. Only I hadn’t made it perfect. My silence had just pulled us apart.
Mia stepped in because she knew I couldn’t. “Sam loves Caleb, but Lilly told Sam tonight that she’s in love with him. And long story short, because I don’t know if you know this, but your sister used to hate my brother until she started helping him get Lilly back a few weeks ago.”
“I sort of get that,” Wynn said, sitting down on the other side of me and resting a hand on my back. That simple gesture of comfort from my little sister undid me even more. “Caleb loves you too,” she said simply, as if it weren’t complicated at all. “I could tell. Plus I did Oma’s matchmaking test on you two.”
I sat up. “Wynn, no! Oma’s test is a bunch of—of malarky . It’s a fake. It’s gotten me into so much trouble. Doing it will only get you into trouble too.”
“No, it won’t,” she said very calmly. “It works.”
“When did you do that?” I thought of that night in Caleb’s apartment, when we were fighting. And driving her to the D’Angelos. I couldn’t recall her ever stopping to touch both of us at the same time.
“I did it on the way out the door to get ice cream the other night. I handed Caleb his crutch, and I touched you at the same time.”
I’d had no idea. “The fact that you did that for me is—really sweet. And clever. But it doesn’t change the fact that the test isn’t real.”
Wynn opened her mouth to protest, but before she could, Mia spoke. “Okay, forget about Oma’s test for now, ladies.” She was all business. “We have other problems.”
I looked at my sister. So young. So worried-looking on my behalf. “I’m sorry, Wynn.” I grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry for not sharing more of my life with you. I thought that I was protecting you from pain. But I was only preventing us from being closer.”
“I know you do everything for me,” she said. “I was a brat about Oma’s house. I knew you did what you had to.” She paused, seeming to be thinking of what to say. “It is kind of nice to see that you’re not perfect either. And you shouldn’t have been so nice to Lilly.”
My sister had just bowled me over with maturity and compassion. I should have breakdowns more often if this is what they led to.
“Okay, I’m glad you two have resolved things,” Mia said. “But focus, people. A few weeks ago at the farm, we all saw how you and Caleb were laughing, joking, and eyeballing each other—it didn’t take a rocket scientist for Lilly to see what was happening.”
“Are you saying that Lilly planned this?” That had crossed my mind, but Mia saying it confirmed my deepest worry.
“I don’t know,” Mia said. “But telling you she’s in love with Caleb is a great way to get you out of her way.”
“That’s devious,” Wynn said.
“This is the same woman who used to feign headaches to get out of having dinner with us when we’d go to see Caleb in Milwaukee.”
Nice.
“What are you going to do now?” Wynn asked.
“I mean, he left with Lilly,” I said. “I haven’t seen him since.”
“Caleb wouldn’t go off with her to like, to be with her,” Wynn said.
As I sat there thinking of the mess I’d created, my own words that I’d said to Ani came back to me, paraphrased of course. You don’t need anyone to tell you what’s in your heart.
If I loved Caleb, that meant that I also trusted him. He’d already chosen me over Lilly. Why hadn’t I believed that? If I had, I never would have given him a straight path back into Lilly’s arms. This bitter truth left me cold.
“What are you going to do?” Wynn asked.
This was exactly why I’d vowed not to fall in love—it made your life an absolute mess. But it was my mess, and I would do anything to fix it. “I need to find him and tell him that I love him and that I messed up.”
Mia’s phone rang. “Hi. Yes, of course,” she said. “Sure. We’ll be right there.”
I could tell from the solemn expression on her face that something was wrong. “What is it?”
“It’s Ani. She needs us.”
Before I got up, I grabbed my phone. I’m sorry, I texted Caleb. Please forgive me . That was all I had time for.
I prayed that would be enough.
* * *
Caleb
The rehearsal dinner ended, but Sam and Mia had gathered around Ani and then left with her. I took out my phone and hovered my fingers over a blank message box. The thing was, Sam had said in no uncertain terms that she was taking a step back. She didn’t want us to be public. Was she running scared, or had she simply decided that she didn’t care enough?
Needing to get my own head on straight, I pocketed my phone, yanked my tie off for good and shoved that in my pocket too, shrugged off my stifling coat, and started walking. I ended up outside a nineteenth-century glass greenhouse not far from the gardens. Twinkle lights lit up small trees that were inside. Nearby, there was a grassy knoll and a bench. I sat down, bending over, tenting my fingers, thinking. How had things gotten so messed up?
A little while later, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to find my mother. How she found me there, I had no idea.
“Hi, Ma,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. “I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow.”
“We came early. I just ran into Mia and Wynn, and Mia asked me to find you. How are you doing?” she asked, patting my knee.
That was the thing with Beth. She should’ve been a therapist, because she was so nonthreatening that she made nearly everyone she came into contact with want to spill their deepest secrets. She’d definitely had my number—from birth. The woman could tell when something wasn’t right with me from miles away. I blew out a big breath. “Why did Mia send you to find me?”
“Ani’s not doing well.”
“Oh. How serious?”
“She’s having second thoughts. The girls are all with her.”
“I’d better go check on Tyler.”
She held me back with her hand. “Yes, but first talk to me about Sam.”
“I have a feeling you might already know what happened.” If Mia had gotten to her, I was sure of it, and her shrug confirmed it. “Lilly somehow thinks she’s in love with me. But Sam told me she wanted to step back—from us. I guess she needs some time. Or maybe she’s run scared. Or just done with me. So… I’m not really sure how I’m doing.”
“There is a lot going on at this wedding.”
“Yes.” My voice sounded deadpan. Which was what I was inside.
“Can I tell you my thoughts?”
I gave my mother a wry smile. “Was there ever a time when you didn’t?”
She patted my knee again. “And I hope there’s never a time when I can’t. There’s something I’ve held back from saying all these years.”
“You? Hold back? How unusual.”
“The thing about Lilly is that she never supported you. Instead, she demanded support from you at a time when you were fighting for your life, so to speak. I’m exaggerating, but you understand what I mean about your first year of med school.”
“I guess I thought that by having her at my side, we could weather anything.”
“I always thought it was a dumb idea for you two to move in together as new college grads but whatever.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“No matter what happened between you two, you never faulted Lilly. You always said that you led her to Milwaukee, that you didn’t have enough time for her, et cetera. Your impulse is always to protect. To see the best in everyone. To be positive and optimistic. I think you learned that from protecting Gracie. And of course Mia afterward.”
“I think you might be right on that. But Sam doesn’t need my protection. And she doesn’t believe in fairy tales.”
“Sam’s called your bluff,” she said softly. “Maybe she doesn’t need things in the way that Lilly was needy. Maybe she’s more your equal. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want someone to be there for her and show her that things can work out occasionally.”
“She was pretty unreasonable when I asked her to act like a couple. Why didn’t she stand up for us?”
“I look at it a little differently. Letting you figure all this out for yourself is not running away.”
“What do you mean, ‘letting me figure this all out’?” I couldn’t have been more confused.
“Lilly made sure to tell Sam that she was in love with you before she spoke to you.”
Lilly told Sam…“Wait. Are you saying that Sam pulled away because of Lilly?” I’d sensed some jealousy—that her comment—and I remembered seeing her hovering around while Sam and I were talking, but this ?
“Sam didn’t rant about Lilly or run to tell you about Lilly’s feelings for you. She let Lilly do that. I believe it was her way of giving you a choice.”
“Lilly set things up to get Sam out of the way?” I was incredulous.
“I don’t think that was an accident.”
“Mom, you’re essentially saying something here. Something big.”
My mom shrugged. “I’m usually like you in that I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I’m just not so sure I can in this case.”
I raked a hand through my hair, trying to wrap my head around everything.
She said, starting to get up, “Hope you can get a hold of Sam.” She gave me a kiss on
the cheek.
I gave my mom a giant hug. “You’re the best, Ma,” I said. “Thank you for being you.”
“I love you too,” she said as she hugged me back. “Good luck.”