The Hating Game

“Where’s your competitive spirit?” Josh gives me one last firm push and I’m propelled into a ragtag bunch of females, ranging from a lisping flower girl to a woman in her early fifties who seems to be doing hamstring stretches. Everyone looks at the bouquet. It’s lovely. We all want it.

I see Josh’s mom on the sidelines. She smiles at me, and then it fades, concern filling her eyes. Who knows what my face looks like. Mindy catches my eye and I can see her genuine regret that she has upset me. Josh repositions for a better view and he and his mother swap glances. She gestures to him, he bends his head and she tells him something. He looks at me sharply.

It’s all too much.

“Here we go!” Mindy turns her back on us and mimes doing some practice swings. The bouquet is a pink-lily confection.

I hardly register the slap of the flowers against my chest. They drop down into the waiting arms of the flower girl, who screams in delight. The entire audience is shaking their heads and laughing at my lack of coordination. Everyone turns to the person next to them and says, She could have caught that.

I’m so disappointed in not catching them the freak-out is triggered in full.

I politely laugh and manage to walk slowly from the other end of the dance floor, weaving through the spectators. Now I’m running. I need to get out of this room. I know he’ll be coming after me, so instead of choosing the most obvious sanctuary—the ladies room—I go down the waitstaff passageway and find myself in the garden beside the hotel.

A few boys in white shirts and ties are smoking and fiddling with their cell phones. They look at me with bored expressions. I pick up my pace until I’m trotting, running, the spikes of my heels barely touching the ground. I want to run until I reach the water. I want to leap into a rowboat and sail to a deserted island.

Only then will I be able to face up to it.

I have feelings for Joshua Templeman. Irreversible, stupid, and ill-advised feelings. Why else would this hurt so much? Why did everything in me ache to wrap my arms around the wedding bouquet and see him smile? I dither along the water’s edge.

The footsteps approaching come too fast. I bite back a swell of impatience and open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind.

Then I see it’s Joshua’s mother.

Chapter 24

Oh, hi,” I manage to say. “Just . . . getting some air.”

Elaine looks at me, and opens her purse and finds her pack of Kleenex. I’m confused by it until I press it to my eye and it comes away wet.

We stand, looking at the water glittering darkly under the fading sunset sky. I’m too upset to comprehend I’m about to unload to his mother. Any sympathetic ear at this point will do me. It’s not like I’ll ever see her again.

“He never told me about Mindy.”

She is aggrieved, and frowns back across the lawns. “He should have. You shouldn’t have found out this way.”

“It all makes so much sense. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. The way he’s been acting has been pretty unbelievable.”

“Like he’s in love with you.”

“Yes.” My voice breaks a little. “He told me once he’s a good actor. I can’t believe this.”

She says nothing and puts her hand on my shoulder. Every single glimmer of foolish hope feels extinguished in this moment.

“I don’t think he has been playing a game.” Elaine’s mouth twists.

The word game only crystallizes further the hurt in my gut.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but you have no idea how good at games he is. Every day of our working relationship, Monday to Friday. This has got to be the first time he’s played me on the weekend, though.”

Elaine looks past me, and I can see Josh’s silhouette pacing along the side of the building in agitation. She shakes her head and he stops.

“Why did you come today?” She is genuinely curious.

“I owed him a favor. He told me I was coming along for moral support. I didn’t know why, but I came anyway. I thought it was something to do with him dropping out of medicine. And now I find out his ex-girlfriend is marrying his brother? I’m in a soap opera right now.”

Elaine steadies me with a hand on my elbow. When she speaks, she’s got a fond smile teasing at the edge of her lips.

“I speak to him on Sundays, and I’ve known you for as long as he’s known you. A beautiful girl, bluest eyes, reddest lips, b