Chapter 30
The bass throbs through the floor, shaking even the soles of my shoes. Everything's covered in purple haze, including the couples that are folding into each other.
I stand just outside it, under a canopy of white wisterias dripping from the ceiling, a champagne glass sweating in my hand.
Richard is behind me, pacing back and forth while on his phone. His voice is clipped with the kind of tone he uses when money slips through his fingers.
We haven't had a chance to talk since I vanished.
Judging by the look he gave me when I came back, he was pissed. But then he saw my face—ready to scorch him alive if he said one wrong word—and his whole posture softened.
He tried to hold me, but I stepped away and told him we needed to talk, just not here. I'm still trying to breathe through the last hour.
Mara leaps down from the stage after she's belted her karaoke rendition, glowing from the applause.
She snaps her fingers and the music shifts into something moody, sultry—a playlist that feels closer to my internal state.
And then she's in front of me, beaming, and it's impossible not to smile.
"Dance, babe? You can't just hide under flowers all night."
"I'm not hiding. I'm watching you shine."
She shakes her head, already reaching for my hand. "Not acceptable."
Richard's stern voice appears behind my ear. "I'll join you in a minute."
Mara doesn't give him a single eyelash of attention, just a flat: "No. I'm having this one with my bridesmaid. Alone. Hope there's no problem."
Richard's eyes flash before they start scanning the room, clearly searching for Ben, but Mara doesn't wait. She drags me into the current, right in the middle of her family and friends, the fog curling around us.
I'm tempted to tell her that I heard her, that I know she knows, but that would mean to tell on myself. So instead, I hug her tight, trying to let her know my gratitude this way. Because Mara doesn't hate us. She even gave Ben her blessing.
"Thanks, Mara," I whisper anyway.
She pulls back, tucks my hair behind my ear, eyes soft. "Always, babe," she says knowingly.
My eyes catch on Ben. He's leaning against the bar casually, glass of grappa in hand, Lisa's mouth moving beside him, but he's not listening. He's watching me—not glancing—watching every move I make.
Paul swoops in, steering Mara away, so now it's just me, alone.
I let go, dancing the way a woman does when she's calling her man to her. Arms unfurling upward, then sliding slowly down the line of my body sensually, from my chest, to my waist, to my hips.
I spin once, feeling the skirt whip against my thighs, and when I land, Ben shifts slightly, trying to catch a clearer view.
He even leans forward, as though he might cross the floor and the invisible line between us, but he doesn't.
Instead, he bends closer to Lisa, answering her. Then his eyes snap back to me, like he can't help himself.
Lisa leans closer to him, whispering in his ear, pulling him into normalcy.
I hate how well she's been playing the perfect wife tonight. I want her gone.
I can't do anything, though, so I just sway the other way to at least avoid seeing them, and that's when I notice Richard finishing his call.
Smoothing his collar, he walks straight for me with that smile, like we're still some fairytale couple.
I think he even winked at the idiot I've been—he orchestrated this whole thing, and weaponized me to hurt Ben, which makes me furious. Really furious.
Richard's almost there, weaving past Mara, his hand already reaching out for me.
I look at it and think of Ben at the bar, heartbroken because of me. I think of all the times I waited, reluctant to make a decision so I don't make the wrong one, and as a result, I made none, which was the cruelest one of all.
Richard opens his mouth, but I speak first.
"No," I say coldly. The simplest word in history that I never learned to say. But enough is enough.
I let Richard falter, his hand hanging in the air like a question, as I turn away.
My legs carry me before I even know I'm moving, a clarity so fierce it feels holy.
The room dissolves—the glasses clinking, laughter breaking as I walk toward Ben and it feels like I'm walking toward myself.
I push through the last couple and then I'm in front of him.
His hand stalls, glass halfway to his mouth when he spots me.
Lisa stiffens, something in her expression flattening, but she steps aside.
Three steps. Three steps is all it takes—
And then I’m on him.
My fingers find his shirt first, fistfuls of black fabric, dragging him down, tethering myself to those dark eyes.
A fraction of a second, but they reflect everything: the boy in the DJ booth eight years ago, spinning tracks, flashing that smirk when he asked if we'd met before like he felt it too—that we were lovers in every life before. That we will be in everyone to come.
"Ben, I want the mornings, the fights, the mundane. I want all of it, with you," I say, my eyes locked on his.
He freezes, doesn't even blink, like he can't believe it.
"It's never—never—been anyone but you," I say and press my palm to his jaw like an oath.
A smile breaks on his lips, and he hauls me close, his fingers tilting my chin to him.
"Finally," he says. Our lips crash together, and I kiss him like he's mine—like he's only ever been mine.
Somewhere around us, the world intrudes with cameras as though we're the newlyweds, but I'm too lost in him.
Until a scream splits the air—his name.