Dad gasped, covering his heart with a hand. “I expected this kind of behavior from your siblings, Brookie, not from you.” He sniffled, wiping away fake tears, which the couple walking past my father’s car seemed to think was strange. It was certainly notnormal… except that it kind of was on brand for my dad. “You promised that you’d never think I was embarrassing.”
I covered my face with my purse, trying not to die right on the spot. “Just gooo.”
“And to think that I was considering you to potentially be my favorite child…”
The rain had gotten heavier over the past hour, and I still stood outside the restaurant, waiting for my fiancé.
They’d probably given away our table by now, so even if he still showed up, we weren’t going to get dinner. Truthfully, I wasn’t even up for a date anymore.
I was cold and my makeup was most likely running down my face from all the crying I’d been doing the past thirty minutes.
At this point, I was only still waiting here because there was a little bit of hope left inside of me. Maybe he told me the wrong time, or maybe he somehow thought we were meeting up an hour later. I didn’t want to think he forgot about me. Reece never forgot about me and our plans before, so admitting it might’ve happened now was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Ma’am?” someone said from behind me. I turned around, looking at the hostess, who offered me a sympathetic smile. She looked like she was in her mid-forties. “Don’t you want to come inside?”
“No, it’s alright.” I tried smiling back at her, but my muscles refused to move.
“Are you sure?” She handed me a cup, some kind of tea, I assumed. “It’s pretty cold out here.”
It was January and I stood here in a short dress. I had a jacket, but it started to do little to warm me.
I took the tea from the hostess and thanked her wholeheartedly. “My fiancé should be here any minute.”
She nodded slowly. “You’ve been standing here for an hour and a half. I don’t think he’ll show up anymore.”
My shoulders sagged, and a deep sigh drew from my lungs. “I don’t think he will either,” I admitted. “But… I don’t know. He’s never stood me up before, and we’ve known each other since we were like two.”
Was this oversharing? Probably, but it was better than calling my dad and telling him Reece didn’t show up.
Dad knew Reece was struggling, he just didn’t know how bad it really was.
Things had to change, I knew that. I also knew that I was going to have to call my mom or my dad to pick me up… and once they did, Ireallyneeded to tell them what was going on.
They could help me help Reece.
“Did he tell you he’d be late?” she asked.
No, he didn’t. In fact, Reece hadn’t even tried to reach out to me, not a single message or call. Nothing. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Maybe he got caught up at work.” That definitely wasn’t the case.
“Maybe.”
“I should go…” I handed her the now half-empty cup. “Thank you, though. I really appreciate it.”
“Of course.”
50
REECE
My eyes ripped open as I heard a key jiggle in the door.
I looked out of the window, seeing it was pitch black outside. As my phone lit up beside me, drawing my attention to the time, a rush of panic flooded through my veins.
Fuck. Brooke.
My heart was racing, knowing very well that I fucked up big time. It was too late to throw away all of the liquor bottles on the coffee table, too late to make it seem like I’d accidentally fallen asleep.
Brooke stepped inside, but she didn’t even look at me.
