I miss you.
The words didn’t help. If anything, they only made the ache worse.
None of that mattered. I had two trips with Raelynn, my best friend—my wife—to fix everything.
I didn’t have a plan yet, but I’d create a damn good one.
All I knew was that I needed to keep her in my life.
Preferably as my wife.
Chapter Eight
Raelynn
“You’re doing what now?” Nova practically screeched through the screen.
It’d been a couple days since Austin agreed to this crazy plan, and I still felt just as shocked as Nova looked.
“Uhh, I’m not sure how good of an idea this is,” Vera said beside me.
We sat on the couch at her apartment with Nova on FaceTime from her honeymoon. I’d called an emergency meeting because there was no way I could process this on my own anymore. At the very least, I needed them to join me in my crazy for a bit.
“There isn’t really any other idea to replace it.”
“I can’t believe your dad even suggested it,” Nova said.
“Dad’s expect crazy things,” Vera muttered, referencing her own experience.
“So, how do you feel about it?” Nova asked.
The question took me back because I hadn’t given space to any feelings that didn’t revolve around me believing I was doing the right thing for my dad. But with two sets of eyes waiting for an answer, I peeked behind the curtain I kept everything behind.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, not quite sure how to explain the tight band of tension around my chest. The harder I thought about it, the tighter it squeezed. “Trapped?”
“Yeah, no one puts Rae in a corner,” Vera joked.
“It’s just that…” I paused, trying to decipher what caused the most discomfort, but it wasn’t something. It was someone, and that hurt the most. “For the first time, I feel uncomfortable with Austin. Especially after our fight. He said some mean things—maybe we both did.”
“You never told us the details,” Vera reminded me. “What did he say?”
Bracing myself, I recapped the argument, watching their jaws slowly drop with each new detail.
“Ex-fucking-cuse me?” Nova demanded.
“Ohhhh. Naughty Nova has come out with her big girl words,” I joked.
“Yeah, I’m about to go Supernova on him.”
Vera snorted, and I winced.
“Yeah, I know it’s corny,” Nova confessed. “I’m not as good at threatening as you are.”
“I appreciate the effort,” I said.
She blew me a kiss through the screen.
“I can’t believe he said those things to you,” Vera said.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I’d never heard him be so mean before. It was like he was so mad he changed into someone I didn’t recognize.”
Recalling the layer of ice that fell over his eyes when he flayed me with his words had my chest caving in on itself all over again. Austin had been frustrated with me many times before but never so angry I didn’t even recognize him. It…scared me.
Watching him shift from my friend to a version I never knew existed hit every button I had—reminded me of every reason I never wanted to get married in the first place. Just because you thought you knew someone—you never really knew what hid in the depths of them. You never knew what would come out when push came to shove until it was too late, and I never wanted to be trapped in a corner with a monster.
That morning played out like a perfectly curated nightmare just for me.
“I just—I don’t get it. We could have easily got it annulled, and he turned into this immovable brick wall. I mean, why would he not want to get it annulled?” Because marriage was apparently this huge sacrament to him—a vow that couldn’t be broken, and you didn’t even take him seriously. “Maybe he’s not completely wrong. I didn’t even know how much marriage meant to him,” I conceded, dropping my gaze to my wine swirling in my glass. “Or how little he thought of me.”
“We all say things we don’t mean in anger,” Nova said, speaking from experience.
“Not that it makes it right,” Vera added sternly before conceding. “But I’m sure Austin was hurting, too.”
“Why? Because his friend won’t stay married to him? Wouldn’t he want to be married to someone he loved?” When the girls didn’t say anything, I looked up to find them having their own silent conversation. “What?”
When they watched me with wide eyes, I waved my hand, urging them to just spit it out.
“It’s just that Austin cares for you as more than a friend, and if marriage meant so much to him, maybe the combination created a possibility in his mind,” Nova explained.
I huffed a laugh. “Please. We’re friends.”
“Yeah, but if you ever wanted more, Austin would have jumped all over it.”
I gave Nova a doubtful look.
“And if you ever pulled your head out of your stubborn ass, you could admit how much you care for him, too,” Vera added. I tried to respond, but she held up her hand. “As more than a friend.”