Page 165 of A Million To Fall

My brain rejects that thought almost immediately.

This is Skye.

I’ve known her all my life, and I know—I know—what we had was real. I know what she sacrificed and why she did it.

But it doesn’t matter.

Not really.

She said yes.

It’s done.

I have to let go.

I lock my phone and set it face down on the blanket next to me. There’s nothing left to say. Nothing left to hope for.

I have things to take care of. Work. Rent. The GED. Siblings who still don’t have a home. I can’t afford to plan my future around a girl wearing another man’s ring.

Even if, for just a moment, she felt like mine.

I drag a hand over my face and push off the bed.

Shower. Brush my teeth. Sleep.

Routine.

Because that’s what I do.

I keep going.

Even when it hurts.

forty-eight

Skye

It’s barely nine o’clock in the morning, and already I’ve heard the words “Mrs. Archer Longfellow” or some variation of it four times today. From my parents, from Lily. Oh, and there’s a tentative date for the wedding.

No time was wasted in between “congratulations” and hugs and pictures being taken.

“Next June? Before it gets too hot?” Mrs. Longfellow suggested to my mom, like I wasn’t standing right there. “Or is that too close to Skye’s birthday?”

“Maybe a long engagement,” my mom countered. “Give them time to graduate college.”

Mrs. Longfellow didn’t take that bait. “I like June,” she said, then dove into a discussion about wedding dresses. “We’ll have to go outside Stillwater. Probably even Minnesota. Maybe we’ll get something specifically designed.”

Archer didn’t stop smiling all night. Just kept making round after round through the banquet hall, shaking hands, giving hugs like he was doing victory laps.

And I just stood there, staring at the ring, smiling for the photos and the we’re-so-happy-for-yous.

When the celebration finally died down at well past midnight, when I climbed into my parents’ car, I stopped smiling. I haven’t started up again.

Instead I feel sick. Not in the fluish, feverish kind of way, but in the tight-knot-in-my-stomach kind. The kind that doesn’t let me eat, that makes me want to curl up in bed, pull a blanket over my head, and disappear.

I didn’t get a chance to call Boston last night.

It was too loud. Too impossible to slip away. And when I got home, I went to bed with the weight of it sitting on my chest.