We may or may not have broken up. Can it even be considered a breakup if we were never officially together to begin with? If I never fully gave my heart over to him?
Declan loves me.
My chest aches with the pain of knowing that I’ve hurt him – and in the process, hurt myself. I wish that hearing that he loves mecould have fixed everything. I wish it could have repaired whatever broken pieces inside of me are too scared to just let myself be happy.
My bruised heart is aching and my thoughts are muddled, but there are two things I know to be true.
One: I’m afraid of giving my heart to someone who could take off and leave it behind.
Two: I’m terrified to deal with the fallout if I do give my heart over to him and it doesn’t work out. The sidelong glances, the probing questions, the pitying looks – I don’t want to go through it again.
I’ve got some serious shit to work through, but I can’t think about it right now. Not yet. Once those floodgates open again, I have a feeling they’re not going to close easily.
If I could burrow under the covers of my hotel bed and hide out here for the rest of the day, I would. But Olivia and Cam are hosting a brunch at the inn for their immediate family, the wedding party and any out-of-town guests who booked a room here. I don’t have time to fall apart just yet.
There will be time later on to tell Olivia and Grace about how Declan told me he loves me, then left after I ruined things. Maybe I’ll even confess to the way I put on a brave face for the remainder of the reception, then cried myself to sleep once I was back in my room.
For now, it’s time to put that brave face back on, do something about the disastrous state of my hair, and get my ass to brunch.
∞
Despite everyone being hungover, exhausted or both, the brunch is lovely. The happiness radiating off Olivia and Cam is infectious. They’re positively beaming, and they can’t stop touching each other:his arm around her waist, her hand on his leg, their fingers twining together on the table. My best friend looks good as Mrs. O’Brien, and I get unexpectedly weepy the second I see her.
It’s easier than I expected to go through the motions of normalcy. I plaster on my best semblance of a smile, laugh at Cam and Ty’s jokes, and pretend to be shocked when Olivia tells me she saw Grace and Ethan dancing together last night –twice.
I tell myself that I’ll fill Olivia and Grace in tomorrow, or maybe the day after that. Olivia just got married, and even though she’s not jetting off to a honeymoon – they’re waiting until fall when the weather isn’t so hot in Santorini – she’s still in that happy, just-got-married bubble. Why should I be the one to pop it?
I also skip family dinner on Sunday because I’m not ready to face my family and the questions I know they’ll have after finally getting to know Declan at the wedding. I know they’ve heard the rumors about us dating, and they’ll want to grill me about it now that I’ve given them an opening. If last night had gone differently, I’d woman up and face their questions. But not now. Not yet.
So I hide out at home, trying to keep myself busy with laundry, cleaning things that really don’t need to be cleaned, and listening to my favorite nineties country station so loudly that I can barely hear my own thoughts.
It almost works – except that Declan is everywhere.
He’s there on the couch, where he finally opened up and let me in on his past, something I know was a huge step for him.
His memory is seated at the table where we sat together and ate warm brownies that had just come from the oven, only we did more kissing than eating, and his lips tasted like melted chocolate.
And my bed – I can’t bring myself to change the sheets, because Declan and I last slept in them together just a couple days before the wedding. If I close my eyes and bury my nose in the pillow he used, Iswear I catch the faintest hint of his body wash, something woodsy and clean that I’d been meaning to ask him about so I could buy some to keep here for him.
Add it to the list of things Ishouldhave done to show Declan how much I care about him, but never did.
That line of thinking is sure to send me into a doom spiral, so I get back to my cleaning and reorganizing, hoping my brain will feel a little less chaotic if the space around me does.
It’s nearly dinnertime when my phone dings with an incoming text.
Grace:I think I need to start working out or something. Why am I so sore from dancing??
Olivia:You’re pushing 30, it’s bound to happen.
Grace:Bite your tongue, bitch.
Grace:Sorry, MRS. Bitch.
Me:We still have a few years, don’t rush it!! But same, my feet are killing me.
Olivia:I hope you both had a great time, despite your aching, aging bodies.
Me:It was the BEST time! Truly the most perfect wedding I’ve ever been to.
