Interlude
The room was filled with friends and his family. There was a photo wall, party favors, and Save the Date cards. There was a date. Colors had been chosen. A venue secured. My dress ordered. The groomsmen and bridesmaids had been selected. It was all settled.
We were celebrating our engagement. I should have been happy. I was engaged.
To the wrong man.
The people around me didn’t know that. They were talking about my life. The new one that would start after Ian and I were married. There would be babies. And a house. Friends who would talk about the economy and the price of gas. A life on the surface.
Ian was saying something to me. But I couldn’t hear him because all the sound and air had been sucked out of the room.
His words were muffled and foreign. I stepped away from him.
From the people who were toasting this new life.
A life that would crush me. A life that wouldn’t fit no matter how many times I said it would.
I kept stepping away until I was running. Running from Ian and his horrible sister. From his mother and father. From Callie and Zoey. I pushed open the bathroom door, gasping for air. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t marry Ian.
I couldn’t do a four-bedroom house with double sinks in the master bathroom. I couldn’t do babies and a honeymoon in Europe. This was not the life I wanted nor the man I wanted to live it with.
I’d made a horrible mistake.
I’d call Tristan. Tell him I was sorry. That I wanted to try again. My fingers shook as I hit his numbers on my phone.
“Hello?”
It wasn’t him. It was her. It was Jennifer. He went back to her. They probably got married. They had chicken and fish and a DJ. People threw rose petals at him. He probably told her every night that he loved her. Because he did. He married her. Because he chose her over me.
“Hello? Who is this?”
Callie burst through the door and yanked the phone from my hands. “Evan. Shit, give that to me. Sorry, wrong number.”
“No.” I looked at the phone, my last connection to him gone. My last chance to tell him I was sorry. There was a noise now. I didn’t know if it was in my head or in the bathroom. It was loud, the buzzing sound of people whispering over another sound. One I hadn’t heard since my father died.
“Evan, look at me.” Callie knelt before me, taking my face between her hands. “Deep breath in. Hold it.”
“I can’t do this,” I sobbed. Someone else walked into the bathroom.
“Shit.” Zoey tried to block anyone else from seeing me.
“Go get Craig,” Callie said over her shoulder. “Evan. You need to fucking breathe.”
I could hear her and knew that was what I was supposed to do. Deep, slow breaths: that was what we taught people that were panic-prone. That wasn’t me.
“Move.” Craig pushed the spectators who were watching me break on the bathroom floor. “Come on, Blu.” Craig scooped me up off the floor.
“I made a mistake. You have to tell him. Please tell him I’m sorry,” I begged Craig. It wasn’t Ian I wanted him to talk to.
Craig tucked my head to his chest. “I will. I will.”
I closed my eyes and clung to Craig as another’s heart was breaking in that ballroom. He’d be in the first stage tonight.
I was in the final stage.
Acceptance.