Page 74 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

“The podcast?” Jo tossed up her hands. “What does that even matter? We agreed we’re going to quit, and now suddenly you want to act like I’m taking something away from you.”

“Because you backed us into a corner!”

“Yeah, and it looked like that corner was working out fine for you all week,” Jo snapped. “You’re only doubling back now because it’s blowing up in your face.”

My mouth snapped shut. She was right. I was fine with quitting the podcast. In many ways, I’d been looking for a way out for a while, even if I wasn’t wholly conscious of it. And now here I was, all my frustrations—frustrations that didn’t even matter anymore—bubbling to the surface, rather than owning up to my mistakes. It wasn’t fair to me, and it wasn’t fair to Jo. I swallowed. “I’m asking you to help me figure out what I’m supposed to do about it.”

“On my wedding day,” Jo pointed out, and I winced. “You’re asking me to stop in the middle of my wedding to help you solve your problem. You’re my best friend, and I love you, but the codependency thing—it’s fucking bullshit.”

I was on the cusp of an apology, but at her words, a sarcastic laugh ripped from my throat. “Codependency thing?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously and she pointed a perfect, shell-pink fingernail at me. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. We’ve done everything together, ever since we were kids. Your problem isn’t with weddings, or Peter, or whatever else you’ve invented in your head. You’re scared of people abandoning you.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she just kept going. “You’re so scared of it that you do this … this thing where you self-sabotage and push everyone away, just so they never get the chance to hurt you.”

It was like the air had been knocked from my lungs. All I could do was gape at her.

Jo pressed her lips together, like she was holding back from saying more. She exhaled through her nose, long and slow. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

The silence dragged on for a moment and I absorbed what she was saying. The worst part was that she wasn’t wrong—it was hard for people to abandon me when I never let them get close in the first place, but somewhere along the way, I had become dependent on my friendship with Jo. “No,” I mumbled, my voice cracking, like it was fighting me saying the words out loud. “You’re right.” Not telling Declan about the plans for the podcast … maybe it had been a simple mistake, or maybe that was self-sabotage, too. But it didn’t matter now. The damage was done. I shook my head faintly. “We can talk about it later. You should enjoy your wedding.”

Jo nodded slowly. I could tell her brain was already shifting into problem-solving mode, the cogs turning. “I’ll send Peter to grab my phone from the hotel. That way you can delete all the posts. Change our logins. Assuming someone didn’t change them already.”

I bit down on the inside of my cheek. I didn’t know what I’d expected. Even Jo wasn’t capable of snapping her fingers and making it all go away. But a small part of me wished there was something more definitive. “Don’t worry about it. It’s already out there. Might as well own up to it, right?” I tried to pull a self-deprecating smile, but I had a feeling it came out as more of a grimace. “What am I going to tell Declan?”

Jo’s eyebrows slanted uncertainly. Her makeup was fresh and light today, the feathery brows and soft blush a stark contrast to her usual sharp contour and wine-stain lips. “The truth?”

“I’m not sure the truth is going to paint me in the best light, at the moment,” I pointed out.

“Okay, then make something up.”

“I can’t do that either. I don’t know what to do.”

She studied me for a long and quiet moment, the music from the live band spilling out onto the promenade through the crack between the French doors. “I know you’re new to the whole relationship thing, but you’re going to have to talk to him one way or another. You can’t ignore him all night.”

I blew out a breath, rapidly coming to the same realization. I needed to come clean, whether I felt ready or not.

Back in the ballroom, Renee had a microphone in her hand and was barking some order at the bartender, who was trying to manage the twenty-person pileup happening in front of the bar cart. The band had switched to a Latin song I didn’t recognize. Declan was sitting alone at our table with a glass of water, cheek resting on his fist as he watched Jo’s parents dance a merengue.

He glanced over at my approach, looking surprised when I sat down. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I echoed, unease roiling in my gut. I wasn’t ready to do this. I had to do this.

“Are you avoiding me or something?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But not because of anything you’ve done.”

I hated myself for the wounded look that crossed his expression, but in a blink, it was gone, carefully concealed behind a mask of concern. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Even when I was pushing him away, here he was, worrying about me. God, I’d make a shitty girlfriend. Maybe that was the real reason I’d avoided relationships for so long. Because as scared as I was of getting hurt, I was equally scared of hurting someone else. The Breaking Hearts part of the podcast was a marketing gimmick; in reality, no one had ever asked me for more than I was able to give, and that suited me fine. But more than anything, I was terrified of putting someone through what my dad had put my mom through. What too many selfish people put the people who loved them through every day: heartache and betrayal. I just never envisioned that betrayal would look like this.

I took a deep breath before I worked up the courage. As soon as the words left my mouth, there’d be no turning back. “Where’s your phone? I need to show you something.”

Over by the stage, feedback wailed from a microphone near the speaker.

Declan extracted the phone from his pocket with a frown. He entered the passcode before passing it over to me. “I don’t—”

“I promise I can explain everything.” There were no social media apps on his phone, so I pulled up the browser and searched for GossipHub. It wasn’t big enough news to make one of the headline articles for the day, but there it was in the sidebar, the little thumbnail of me and Declan together. I waited for the page to load before I passed it across the table. My heart crawled up into my throat, so high that it felt like I was going to vomit it right up. “Just … before you hate me, please hear me out.”

He shot me a quizzical look before his attention turned to the screen.