AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She looked at me the same way she did the day she walked out the door. Full of hate and blame.”
Cameron grew quiet. He had been there the day she slammed the door on our relationship. We’d been doing nothing but fighting for weeks. I’d been spending more time at Cameron’s than I had in my own home. When he had finally convinced me to return and work things out with her, I’d found that she had been spending the days I’d been gone packing up her stuff. The living room was full of boxes and when the realization hit that she was going to leave me, a sense of panic came over me. I didn’t want to lose her.
It was three in the morning as I stood in the living room begging her to stop packing and come to bed with me, that we’d see someone together and work through everything. That was when the truth finally fell from her lips. Her words had been forever carved into my memory.
“It’s all your fault Connor died.”
The second those words had fallen from her lips, I couldn’t breathe. She had just confirmed everything that I felt in my own being as being true. In that moment, I wished it had been me who died on the pavement that night. When I didn’t respond to her, didn’t fight back, she looked at me, tears in her eyes, and she scrambled to take those words back. It no longer mattered because everything I’d had left in me to fight for her was now gone. I couldn’t be with someone who felt that way, and she could no longer hide it. She’d said those words. I stopped begging her to come to bed with me and dropped my head in defeat. I said nothing more. I just turned and headed towards our bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I’d laid in bed that night staring at the ceiling listening to her cry herself to sleep, just as I’d done the past few months. Only this time, my own tears fell down my face.
The next morning, Cameron arrived just as Bailey was carrying the last box of her stuff out to her car. We’d started fighting the second I had walked out the bedroom door. There was nothing more that we could have said. We’d spewed a lot of hateful words to one another. Once her car was packed, I watched from the front window. I watched as she hugged Cameron tightly, then she wiped tears from her cheeks, kissed him goodbye, and climbed into the car without even as much as a wave to me. When she drove away, I knew it would be the last time I saw her.
“I don’t know what to say, Jackson. Perhaps if you talk to her before the wedding and get things sorted out…”
“There won’t be any talking. I know full well exactly where she stands on the subject of us. That is a path, my friend, that I won’t be revisiting. All I need to do is concentrate on getting through this damn wedding.”
“Well, all I’m going to say is this should be interesting.” Cameron said, turning onto my street.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’ll be paired together. AT the church you’ll have to walk down the aisle together, you’ll be seated together for dinner, and you’ll have to dance together.”
I let out a breath, knowing full well that Cameron was right. “Well, I guess I’ll just talk to Ryan and ask him to have Cara choose someone else.” I shrugged.
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Jackson, Cara chose her. They’ve been friends as long as you and Ryan. Asking her to change her lineup would be wrong. How would you feel if Cara asked Ryan to change his lineup because of Bailey?”
“Fucked if I care.” I shrugged.
“That’s a lie and you know it. Now get your shit together and be an adult.”
I opened the door and jumped out of his truck, making my way to the front door of my house. I was halfway up the walkway when I heard Cameron call my name.
“What?” I yelled back.
“What are you going to do?” He questioned.
“I’m going to get my shit together.” I shrugged and opened my front door, closing it behind me.
Bailey
Two Weeks Later
“Here is the dress,” Zoe called, flying out from the storage room in a huff, carrying the dress bag over to me. “Why don’t you go into this change room, slip into it, and I will have one of the girls come in here and help you.”
Zoe, the owner of Sunset Cove Bridal, gave me an annoyed look as she hung the dress on the hook. I’d had to change my appointment from this afternoon to this morning because I had to work. I could hear the irritation in her voice when I called. She complained the entire time as she shuffled around her schedule to accommodate me.
“So, everything is going to be done in this small change room?” I asked, staring at the tight space. I couldn’t imagine two people being in this room.
“Unfortunately, yes. I know there isn’t much room, but as I told you on the phone, we have a full morning because the men of the same party are coming in to be fitted for their tuxes. Plus, I’ve had strict instructions from the bride that they are not to see anything in relation to any of the dresses,” she said, letting out a loud huff.
“It’s only a bridesmaid’s dress. It’s not like it’s the wedding dress.” I snipped back. I was tired of her attitude.
“I’m simply doing what I’ve been asked. I made special concessions for you to come in, otherwise I’d have told you that you’d need to find the work around. If only you’d have been able to keep your appointment, we wouldn’t be having these issues.”
I rolled my eyes when she turned her back away from me and unzipped the garment bag. This woman was a pill. I watched as she removed the dress from inside its garment bag when the bell above the door jingled. I looked toward the door in time to see Jackson come walking in and take a seat in the chair just inside the door.
