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“Layla and I aren’t in a committed relationship. She can kiss who she likes.”
Amy looks at me like I’ve gone mad. “I… Luke, don’t take this the wrong way, but… are you okay? Do you think you need to talk to someone? A therapist, or something?”
I blink at her. “What? What do you mean?”
“Do you think maybe you’re a bit depressed?” She asks gently. “Because from where I’m standing, it sort of looks like you’re going through a midlife crisis.”
I frown. “I appreciate the concern, but this is the best my life has been in a long time. I’m not depressed in the slightest.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Seriously? You’re almost forty years old, and you don’t have a wife. You don’t have kids. You don’t have a house. You share a flat with a couple of boys ten years younger than you—”
“Josh and Zack aren’t boys. They’re good men. And I don’t see why a ten-year age gap should stop me from being friends with someone.”
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re not just friends with them, Luke. You’re living in a flat with them like a student. And now you’re coming to my wedding with one of your ex-pupils on your arm.” She crosses her arms. “I’ve just told you that she’s spent the whole evening kissing my husband’s brother, and you didn’t even bat an eyelid!” I go to respond, and she cuts me off. “And it’s not just him, either. I saw her getting awfully close with Zack by the drinks table earlier. Zack Harding, Luke. A famous ex-rugby player. Do you seriously think you can compete with him in the eyes of a twenty-eight-year-old girl? Especially one like Layla Thompson?”
A bad feeling slips down the back of my throat. “What do you mean, ‘a girl like her’?”
She scowls. “You might not remember her from school, but I do. And everyone, students and staff, knew Layla Thompson to be a certain kind of girl.”
I close my eyes.
I’d assumed that Amy was unaware of Layla’s bullying in high school. I didn’t consider for a second that she might have known about it. “What does that mean?” I say carefully.
Amy sighs. “She was easy, Luke. I had girls in my office all the time, complaining that she’d stolen their boyfriends. She skipped between men almost daily, and there were plenty of rumours that she was exchanging… favours for money. She was generally considered to be the loosest girl in the school, and clearly, nothing has changed—”
“Amy,” I say sharply. “What is wrong with you?! Why would you talk about a student like that? Layla’s time in school was very difficult. We should’ve been helping her, and instead, we stood by and let her get bullied and cast out.”
Her lips quirk up. “So you do know. Let me guess. She told you it was all lies?”
I throw my hands up. “Whether they were lies or not, it’s completely inappropriate to judge an underage teenage girl on what she does in bed! She was a literal child, and you’re calling her loose?!”
She sighs. “I’m just saying that these things form patterns. If she was sleeping around then, she very well may be sleeping around now.” She presses her lips together, looking out over the lobby. “This has always been your issue. You can’t see what’s in front of you. You’re so caught up in your romantic little dream-world that you block out all of the warning signs.”
I frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”
“My parents begged me not to marry you,” she blurts out suddenly, shocking me into silence. “Begged me. My dad even promised to pay all the cancellation fees for the wedding. They knew I was making a mistake, and they were terrified it would haunt me for the rest of my life.”
I stare at her, my mouth drying out. “What? I thought your family liked me.”
“Oh, they liked you fine; you were a perfect gentleman. Kind and sweet and caring. But they liked you as a boyfriend, not a husband. They knew from the moment they saw us together that we weren’t going to work out long-term.” She looks down at her nails. “I never told you this, but the night before our wedding, I almost didn’t go through with it. I knew, deep down, that it was wrong.”
Her words hit me like a bucket of cold water to the face. For a few seconds, I flounder, speechless.
“Then why did you?” I manage eventually. “Go through with it?”
She shrugs. “I was young, and you were the sweetest guy I’d ever met. I thought I was in love with you.”
“But you weren’t,” I finish. My heart feels like it’s cracking in my rib cage.
“No. And I knew it the moment you put that ring on my finger, and I felt absolutely nothing. We were doomed before we even said our vows.”
I take a deep breath through my nose. My head is spinning. I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
It was hard enough for me when our marriage fizzled out. I thought Amy and I were soulmates. I’d never even considered that we might fall apart.
But if what Amy’s telling me is true, maybe all of that love was one-sided. Was our relationship really all in my head? Am I really that stupid?
“Well,” I say finally, “for the record, I did love you. I never thought for a second that we wouldn’t make it.”
