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“Hudson got engaged to Stella Mendes,” I add, moving the attention from me to my family.
There’s been nothing too exciting in my life. During college, I immersed myself in my studies, and now, all I do is work to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about my high school sweetheart. I’ve been disciplined enough not to look him up, though the urge has hit me so many times.
Admission time. I did look him up twice when I drank too much. The first time was the day after I graduated from college. God, I wanted to share the news with him. He had known it was my dream. The second was a year ago when my sister-in-law passed away from breast cancer. She’d died young, in her early thirties, and regret hit me that day. I wanted to apologize for what I’d done.
I couldn’t find anything on him. He had no social media accounts, nothing. Gage was a ghost to everyone I knew since we broke up.
“I heard about their engagement,” he says. “News travels fast when a Hollywood celebrity gets engaged to a Blue Beech local.”
“Lucy died,” I go on, my voice lowering as my chest aches.
“I heard about that as well. My heart broke for your family when my dad told me.”
“Dallas had another baby with Stella’s friend and personal assistant.”
“Damn, I have missed some shit.”
“Care to share anything else personal aboutyou?”
“Not much to me, Dyson. I’ve never been engaged to a celebrity or knocked anyone up.”
I wait for him to elaborate, wishing on anything that he’ll give me more, but he doesn’t.
“One-sided conversations are so fun,” I comment.
“The hell do you want me to tell you, Lauren? What do I owe you?”
This is not a conversation I want to have first thing in the morning before working a double.
I cross my arms and shift in my seat to look out the window. “I wish I had never told you anything. I should’ve moved on, gotten married, had fifteen kids, so I could prove to myself and everyone else that I could be happy without you.”
“Yeah, well, I wish I could say the same shit, but my love for you, my fuckingobsessionfor you, has never allowed that. My love for you has ruined my entire fucking life.”
The hell?
“What did I ruin for you? You could’ve easily gotten married and started a family. Don’t blame that on me. It was your stubbornness.”
“I was married.”
I suddenly feel like I’m suffocating. “Say what?”
“I got married.”
“You’re married?” I shriek like I misheard him.
“No, I got married and am now divorced.”
“You’re lying.” The words sound like whimpers leaving my lips.
He shakes his head. “I’m not.”
“You said you’d never made love to anyone else,” I whisper.
“Never loved her.”
My brain is scrambling. “Why would you marry someone you didn’t love?”
“It’s complicated.”
