Chapter 2
She had moved to the city alone, been used by some man and left pregnant, and Charles was helping her out, that was all.
That was all.
Too many of those piled up into a blade, and by the time it went in, the pain almost felt like something I had earned.
Charles and I had been together seven years.
The year we graduated, he had nothing, and we rented the cheapest basement apartment in the city, and I pushed his broken-down car through a downpour with him.
When his business needed money to start, I put in every dollar I had saved.
His mother never liked me. She said a wedding planner spent her life circling other people's happiness and that there was nothing dignified in it.
So I kept showing up at her door with fruit and a smile, again and again, until she finally came around.
We were supposed to file for the license in the spring and hold the wedding in the fall.
I picked the dress myself.
I redrew the venue plan draft after draft on two straight sleepless nights.
I went to three different stores with him before we settled on the rings.
I had meant every part of wanting to marry him.
If it had not been for that message, I probably would have gone on lying to myself.
Because it was not the first time.
On my birthday, he had promised to take me to a late showing, and then Lucy called to say the power was out at her place and she was scared.
He put down the slice of cake he had just cut and told me, "I'll be right back."
I sat alone in the last row of that theater and watched the whole film through the credits, and he never came.
The night my fever hit 102, he was on his way to get me medicine when Lucy called about a burst pipe.
He stood outside the pharmacy for three seconds and then went to her apartment.
I took a cab to the hospital alone and sat in the emergency room on an IV until morning.
And then there was the day he was supposed to propose.
He'd booked the restaurant, bought the flowers, and I could already picture the exact moment he'd pull out the ring.
But then Lucy got drunk, crying her eyes out by the river, saying she couldn't go on anymore.
He left me sitting there alone in the candlelit private room and ran out to find her.
That day, the waiter came over, looking awkward. "Miss, do you still want these flowers?"
I sat by the window and learned for the first time what it felt like to hold a smile on my face while my hands shook under the table.
Over seven years, there were far too many nights like that.
Every single time, he told me it was the last time.
Every single time, I believed him.
Because I loved him.
And because I kept telling myself that once we were married, the boundaries would sort themselves out.
I kept telling myself that the title would give me some ground to stand on.
But today, I finally understood.
A man who put a woman second would still have her second after he put a ring on her finger.
The door opened.
Charles had come back.
His jacket was over his arm, his tie was crooked, and there was sweat all over his forehead, as if he had run the whole way.
The moment he saw me, he let out a breath, and then his face went dark.
"Evelyn, what is this?" he demanded.
I looked up at him.
There was a smear of blood on his cuff, and I had no idea whose it was.
He came up to me and dropped his voice. "I told you to hold things together. Why did you cancel the wedding?"
I stared at him, and the anger almost turned into a laugh.
"You're asking me why?" I shot back.
"Lucy's bleeding. She's pregnant and all alone. If I don't go, who will?" he said.
"What about the father of her baby?" I asked.
Charles frowned. "You know he took off."
"So you stepped into the role?"
His breath caught, as if he had finally heard how that sounded.
"Evelyn, it isn't what you think between Lucy and me."
"Then what is it?" I stood up, and the layers of that dress came down around me like a cloud sitting on my chest.
"Ten minutes before our wedding you left your bride to take another woman to a prenatal appointment.
"Tell me what would have to happen before you'd call this a problem."
He set his face. "Can you not make a scene right now?"
Making a scene.
I looked at the man I had loved for seven years, and he had never been more of a stranger.
"Charles," I asked him quietly, "do you assume I'll always forgive you?"
He froze.
I kept going. "Is it because I forgave you every other time, so you decided that today I'd stand up on that stage, clean up after you, wait for you to come back, hear one apology, and act like none of it happened?"
His Adam's apple bobbed, but his tone stayed cold.
"I never thought that," he said.
"That's exactly what you thought," I shot back.
I picked up the ring from the vanity and put it in his hand.
"The wedding's off. We're done," I said.
His face changed dramatically, all the color draining out in an instant.
"Evelyn, don't do something you'll regret."
"I'm not," I said. "I'm finally thinking clearly."