It doesn’t help.
I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t do this. For the first time in years, the fear of what will happen outweighs the fear of what might.
Except I’ve waited too long. I’m completely trapped now. There’s no way I can escape unseen.
Not in this monstrosity.
There’s a knock at the door of my dressing room and I retch, nearly throwing up as panic grips me. But I don’t want my father to see me like this—I don’t want to hear what he’ll say—so I do what I always do.
I pretend. Pretend I’m fine. Pretend my life is what I always hoped it would be.
Pretend I don’t spend every day wondering how in the hell I got here.
But it’s not my father who walks through the door.
It’s Deidre Bradshaw.
The smile on her face falters the second she sees me. “Good God. What the hell’s happened?”
“I can’t do this.” My voice is as weak and shaky as my legs. “I can’t marry him.”
I wait for her to tell me it’s too late. That the church is packed and the music has started.
Instead, Deidre digs around in her purse, pulling out a key fob. “Take this.” She shoves the device into my hands before scanning the room, eyes landing on a door opposite the one she entered. “Where does this lead?”
“I…” I trail behind her as she goes toward it, kicking the overfluffed skirt I didn’t want out of the way with each labored step. “I don’t know.”
Deidre twists the knob and peeks out before opening it wide. “Come on, honey. Time to go.”
Is she serious? “You want me to just leave?”
She turns to me, expression serious. “Do you want that man waiting at the altar to be your husband?”
My whole body revolts, stomach clenching like I’m goingto gag, making it impossible to speak. All I can do is shake my head.
Aggressively.
“Then let’s go. Head 'em up, move' em out.” She collects my purse from where it sits on the elegant sofa my friends would be occupying if I had any, then looks outside again. “Coast is clear for now.”
I’m leaving him.
Oh my God, I’m actually leaving him.
I grab the skirt of my dress, hiking it up as much as possible so I can run, pausing to meet Deidre’s eyes as I pass. “Thank you.”
“Thank me later.” She gives me a warm smile—the kind my own mother has never offered—and shoves the bag into my hands. “If you need a place to stay, you know the code to the garage.”
I will definitely need a place to stay. Somewhere I can lay low and figure out where in the hell to go from here.
After giving my friend a quick squeeze, I run without looking back. Fighting as much of my dress behind the wheel of her rented sedan as I can before closing the door, I tear out of the parking lot, leaving everything behind. My job. My car. My home. My money. I’m losing all of it.
I might even lose my parents.
The possibility should upset me more than it does. They’re all I have left of the life I lived before Matt and I got together. And they’re my freaking parents. They should be on my side no matter what.
But they won’t be. The lure of being financially secure for the first time in their lives is too strong.
On some level, I understand. I never wanted to live the way they did either.
