Best Man for the Wedding Planner

Cold eyes locked with hers. “How it felt? How about it felt like you’d ripped out my heart and stomped on it, then handed it back to me and told me to have a nice life? Some of those dents don’t pop back out, you know. They’re permanent.”

“I’m sorry, Dan. I wasn’t good at breaking up with you.” She bit down on her lip. Loving him had been the easy part. Leaving had been horrible.

“Then why did you?” He backed away, reached down and fiddled with a fork that was on the room-service cart. “I’ve gone over and over it in my mind, Adele. It never felt right, that your feelings just up and changed like that. Not that I’m perfect, but...” He put down the fork and sighed. “It was so out of character for you. It made me wonder if everything that was ‘us’ was really a lie. If it had ever been real, or if I’d just wanted it to be.”

She walked over to the window and looked outside, her chest aching at his last words. She’d loved him, all right. More than she’d thought possible. Which was why she’d wanted to spare him the pain that would follow.

When they’d been together, she’d lived in an apartment close to campus, with a view of downtown Toronto. The view that greeted her this morning was that of snow-covered mountains, blue sky and evergreens so dark, they were nearly black. Worlds apart. Maybe she should just tell him the truth and get it over with. Maybe he would understand.

Maybe she finally would, too. Because what had seemed like an obvious choice eight years ago suddenly seemed less sound.

“It wasn’t a lie,” she said quietly, resting her hand on the window frame. “None of it was a lie, Dan.”

“Then it just doesn’t make sense. And it makes me angry all over again.” His voice came closer, and she knew he was standing behind her. Chills shivered up her spine and along the back of her neck that had nothing to do with her illness.

A lump lodged in her throat in response to the rawness of his voice. “Maybe I should just go.”

He sighed. “It might be easier. Best. Something.”

She escaped to the bathroom and hurriedly changed out of his clothes and back into yesterday’s trousers and sweater, already missing the spicy man-smell. A glance in the mirror had her reaching for a cloth to wipe the smeared eye makeup off her face, and she scraped her hair back with her fingers, wishing for a hair elastic to tame the wild strands. She smoothed it as best she could, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t shift.

Guilt. That was what she felt. Guilt at lying and guilt at leaving. And she wasn’t sure if telling him the truth would make him feel better or worse.

When she left the bathroom, he was standing by the window, in the exact spot she’d vacated. He looked lonely and unapproachable. Had she done that to him? She’d considered her actions a kindness and had told herself that repeatedly over the years when thinking of him. But now she was wondering if it had been a convenient way to avoid accepting the hurt she’d caused.

“You hated me, didn’t you? And you still do.”

He shrugged, but didn’t turn around. “I wanted to, and that’s enough.”

But he hadn’t. And oh, that hurt, too. But what could she say? That she was wrong? That she’d made a horrible mistake? It had been the right thing, breaking it off. Nothing had changed, had it? Except he still didn’t have that big family he wanted, despite her setting him free.

Why?

“Thank you for looking after me last night,” she said softly. “It was more than I deserved.”

He spun around. “You keep saying things like that, and I don’t understand. It’s like you’re telling me one thing and meaning another. Just like the day you walked out. Cut the subtext already and just say what you mean.”

“I... I can’t.” No one here knew about the cancer or the hysterectomy. Not even Harper, who’d become her best friend.

Dan’s lips were a thin, angry line. “Then maybe you should go. We always had honesty between us, Delly. Right up until that last month. I knew something was wrong, but you wouldn’t tell me. I thought maybe it was that we were graduating and you were unsure of the future.” He laughed, a bitter, sharp sound. “I thought if I proposed it would be okay. But instead you dropped me like a hot potato. That’s when I figured you’d met someone else. I can understand you not wanting to admit it back then, but for God’s sake, you could at least have the guts to be honest now.”

His words bit into her like a bird’s beak pecking relentlessly against her skin. She wasn’t one for crying, but tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and the lump in her throat tightened to the point of pain.

He had been going to propose.

She didn’t reply. Instead she stumbled toward the bed, grabbed her coat and handbag from the floor, and then headed for the door.

“Delly...wait.”

The plea in his voice sent the tears spilling over her lashes.

She kept going.

* * *

Adele slept for two hours that afternoon, and then went back to bed again at eight and slept through until Monday morning. When she woke and rubbed her eyes, she realized it was still dark out and checked her phone on the nightstand. Barely seven. She coughed, a dry-sounding hack that hurt her chest, but the worst of the congestion was gone.

Her cat, Mr. Num-Nums, was curled up by her feet, his black tail wrapped around his fluffy black-and-white body. As she moved, he lifted his head and blinked slowly, and then with a little chirpy meow, he hopped up, made his way up the bed to her belly, put his paws just above her belly button and started to knead.