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Thankfully, the dinner interrupted any chance of real discussions and once the music began guests started to come over and talk with ‘The Jet’ leaving her time to escape into the back and out of sight of the Brokens as her friends dubbed them. She was ready to stay there all night, but the announcement of the bride and groom’s first dance made her consciously aware that she still had maid of honor duties left, the first of which was a dance with the best man along with the rest of the wedding party.
She stepped to the edge of the dance floor and smiled brightly as Emma and Miles moved around the space. She was genuinely thrilled for her friend and everyone there could tell, including Jake who had managed to sneak up behind her without her noticing. She jumped when his hand settled on the small of her back.
“I never could sneak up on you before Cee,” he said, guiding her onto the floor pulling her closer than necessary.
She tried to take a step back, but his hold was firm as were his eyes. “Maybe I’ve simply forgotten everything about you that made me aware of you.”
“The girl with the photographic memory, not likely, so what is it? Surely the girl who’s left a trail of broken hearts all over the city couldn’t possibly be so in tune with her friend’s happiness that she forgets everything around her.”
“You exaggerate,” she said glaring up at him.
“No? I can count twelve guys in this very room, myself excluded, that haven’t been able to keep their eyes off of you, not the happy couple but you. Their sad puppy dog eyes do nothing for you and their hearts just get stomped all over again and again as you ignore them.”
“You’re crazy.” She laughed getting angry that he’d dare utter one word her way about hearts being stomped all over—not when he’d broken hers to start.
“Am I? Well, you’re the one who made me this way.”
“I’m the one?” she asked incredulously, before lowering her voice. “I’m not the one who didn’t show up at the church. I’m not the one who decided that a stupid football career was more important than the girl he professed to love. And I’m not the one who’s apparently slept with the entire eastern seaboard and most likely the southern one too.”
“No?” he demanded. “Well, I’m not the one who made the ridiculous ultimatum of a wedding ring or a Super Bowl championship one. I’m not the one who gave up on a chance of actual happiness and success. I’m sure as hell not the one who walked out on an entire town.Yes, anentiretown, who loved them and was there to support them during the hardest time of their life. And I’m not the one who clearly gave up on love.”
“Get over yourself, Jake, I did a long time ago,” she said trying to break free of his hold now that the song was over, but he was just getting started.
He pulled her around so her back was up against him and with the circle of his arms held her there. He clapped and cheered good-naturedly with the crowd until a new song began, a very slow one, before spinning her out and then back into his arms. He just held her, dancing for the first half of it, making her ache in ways she hadn’t in years. Although, she was grateful to his words when he finally spoke as they stopped the worst of it.
“Then perhaps you could tell me how you did it so I can getyouout of my system. I couldn’t believe it when you gave me that ultimatum, you or football. You knew, youknewhow important youbothwere to me, so tell me, why did you do it?”
“Maybe I was tired of playing second fiddle to a stupid pack of boys throwing a lump of pigskin across a field trying to beat each other into the ground? Maybe I was tired of living in the shadow of the great Jake Warren? Or maybe, just maybe, I simply fell out of love like most nineteen- and twenty-year-olds do but didn’t want to be the evil villainess who broke poor little Jakey’s heart?”
“I was wrong,” he said suddenly letting her go as the song ended, “you have changed.”
“What? I was supposed to stay the same naïve sixteen-year-old who felt flattered because the big man on campus, the star of the football team, and king of the school asked her out?” she asked following him back towards the bar where he grabbed a shot and chugged it down. “Was I supposed to ignore the fact that I gave upeverythingI’d achieved and decided to follow you toyourdream school, which didn’t give a fig about academics, but where a star athlete could shine? Was I? For god’s sake Jake, I got into Brown, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton despite no one thinking I really could do it. Got amazing financial packages offered for any of them but instead I went with you and wasted an entire year doing only part-time work because it was all I could afford because they wouldn’t give me a dime. God, you’d been there a year already, you knew everyone, and I’d just lost my mother. What was I supposed to do? Go off to a school hundreds, thousands of miles away when my heart was already broken?”
Jake tried to walk away but she headed him off and stopped him near the back of the room behind a tall decoration where no one could see them.
“Tell me Jake, what should I have done? I was barely holding it together, not that you ever noticed I wasn’t okay. You were the star of the school, and I was just the pretty little thing on your arm. Hell, maybe that’s what I needed at first, but somewhere along the line things changed. You changed. I changed. You were noticed more and more, there was a constant following around you, girls throwing themselves all over you, in front of me, and you never once, notonce, put your foot down,” she added as the pain of that sliced through her deeply.
“Then out of the blue you ask me to marry you, in front of your entire family, at Christmastime, what was I supposed to say…no? I once again put my feelings aside that it wasn’t entirely right, and you were the one who wanted the wedding to be that soon,you, not me, you. Why I really don’t understand but you did.” Stacey was beginning to run out of steam knowing that if she kept on going, she’d let the tears fall and wouldn’t be able to stop them. So, she stopped looking away.
“So, you really did fall out of love with me?” he stated, more to himself than her. “All you had to do was say so Cee. You didn’t have to throw me under the bus damnit. All you had to say was you didn’t love me anymore—that’s it,” he added shaking his head before walking away from her and towards Lisa and Celia.
Something in his walk called to her, it was the same walk she’d seen over and over the past few years. The walk of a man whose heart had just been rejected, but something about it being from Jake tore the pieces of her heart that were held together by string apart and she knew that no matter what she’d never be as unlucky as she was just now.
How could she be? She’d just torn the last, slimmest chance of happiness for herself away, because she was scared of getting hurt.
Jake was right. She hadn’t changed. She was still the same scared girl wanting someone to love her, and always being left out in the cold. A single tear rolled down her cheek and she marched herself into the bathroom before anymore could fall. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and vowed, “I will not fall apart, not again.”
Stacey returned to the edge of the party and slowly made her way through the crowd until she reached the head table. Emma looked at her and asked worriedly, “Is everything okay? I saw you and Jake arguing.”
“It’s nothing,” she said forcing out a half convincing laugh. “Tristan made a comment about me being a heartbreaker and he was trying to see how far he could push.”
“Really? Cause it looked to me like he was mooning after you, and I’ve gotta say, that’s certainly a record breaker, you’ve known him less than four hours and he’s already ready to take you home to Mama.” Stacey couldn’t help but laugh for real that time and Emma smiled back.
“You know I think it’s time for the speeches,” Emma told her when she stopped laughing. “You did remember to write something nice right?”
“Of course, Em, I won’t tell anyone that you doodled all over your notebook that you’d be Mrs. Thomas Drone all senior year.”
“Oh my, I’d forgotten about that completely.” Emma laughed. “Whatever happened to him?”
