AllFreeNovel
Share Us
While I wasn’t ready to look her in the eyes, I did manage to bring my gaze to the dashboard. “Yes,” I said.
“And you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, forcing myself to believe it. “Really.”
“Are you sure? Because it seems like maybe you’re not really over her yet.”
I took one last deep breath. “I just have the occasional flashback, that’s all. Get a little emotional.”
It was a lie. I wasn’t in love with Greta anymore. But I’d rather Clara think I was obsessing over my broken engagement than let her know the real reason I was so agitated.
“What about you?” I said, deliberately changing the subject. “Do you ever have Tyler flashbacks?”
“Yeah,” she said. “A lot, actually. I don’t know why, though. I know he was a jerk and I’m better off without him. I’m just having a hard time moving on, I guess.”
“You’ll get there,” I said. “You’ll see. It’s just not as logical a process as you’d like it to be. Even when you know that you’re better off without someone, it takes a while for your heart to catch up with your brain.”
She smiled forlornly. “Define ‘a while.’”
“For me it took about five months to accept it and really start moving on. How long has it been since Tyler broke up with you?”
“Two weeks,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, shocked. For some reason, I’d imagined her breakup was a few months in the past. “I had no idea it was so recent. Do you mind if I ask how it happened?”
She smiled a weak smile. “Darn,” she said jokingly. “Did I accidently leave out the best part?”
“Please don’t tell me he did it in a restaurant so that you wouldn’t make a scene or something cliché like that.”
“Better,” she said. “He sent me a text while I was at the bridal shop getting my dress refitted to accommodate my extra weight.” She pinched the few inches of flesh at her waistline. “Meet pounds one through fifteen. They’re the reason he broke off the engagement.”
It took me a moment to take it in. “You’re serious?” I said, making sure she wasn’t just messing with me. “He broke up with you over your weight?”
“Yes,” she said.
“By text?”
“Yes.”
“While you were at the bridal shop?”
“Yes.”
Holy shit. My breakup was officially out-awfuled. By leaps and bounds. Comparatively speaking, Greta picking up and leaving in the middle of the night without a goodbye seemed like an act of angelic mercy. What Clara had been through was absolutely heartbreaking. I pictured her standing there in her wedding dress in front of a three-way mirror, a seamstress with a tape measure telling her to tuck in her tummy and stand up straight while her mother and maid of honor sat on the sidelines telling her what a beautiful bride she was going to be. And then a text tone pinging. And then her looking down at her phone. And then her whole world crashing down.
“I don’t know what to say, Clara.” And I didn’t. What do you say to someone whose heartbreak was served with a heaping side of public humiliation? “That must have been awful.”
It was then that something occurred to me. Brides start shopping for their wedding dress about five minutes after the proposal, but they wait until the last possible minute to have their final alterations done. “So,” I said, a little afraid to hear the answer to the question I was about to ask, “when was the wedding supposed to be?”
It looked like her hands were shaking on the steering wheel. Then she uttered just one word:
“Tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 19
Clara
In my younger and more vulnerable years, my mother gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
