Don't Kiss the Bride

“Skylar, I don’t want to hurt you,” he says in a low, tortured voice.

I cover his hand with mine and link our fingers, and his immediately squeeze mine. “Then why are you? We don’t have to do this,” I say tearfully. “We can just go back to how things were. Because it was perfect.” I take a gulp of air. “Wasn’t it?”

He smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It was. More than you know. But it’s still not right. Not right now.”

“I don’t care about our ages. It doesn’t matter.”

“I care. And so do other people.”

Other people?

“Who—”

He cups my head in his hands and presses his lips to my forehead. “Please, Skylar. Go and do fun things. Graduate high school. I’ll still be here.”

“I don’t want to do that. I want to be with you now.”

Slowly pulling away, he leans back against the bed again with a look of utter defeat and exhaustion. “We can’t do this. Not now. And I don’t want you to worry, nothing else changes. I don’t want you to leave. I promised to help you and that’s not changing. I still want us to be friends, more than anything.”

I try to put my arms around him but he grabs my wrists and gently steers me away. “Skylar don’t make this harder. Please. Just trust that I’m doing what’s right for you.”

I stand up and tug my sweater down.

“Is that the line you give women?” I spit out. “If it is, you should find a new one. Because it really sucks.”

Not able to look at him, or hear any more of his shitty excuses, I pick up my cat and storm back out of his room.

As soon as I get behind my closed door, I wrangle myself out of the sweater dress, pull off the socks, and then crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head.

Surprisingly, tears don’t come.

I’m completely numb and disconnected, as if I’ve drifted far away, up to the ceiling, and am looking down at myself. And I can see myself, lying in bed, as I have so many times.

Confused.

Broken.

Alone.

Tossed aside.

Chapter 40

Skylar

“Why did I let you talk me into this?” I say to Megan. The mall is hot as an oven and I feel like we’ve been in each store three times already while she tries to find the perfect something.

“Because we need to buy gifts. And clothes. I thought you said you still needed a fun holiday sweater?”

“I do, but haven’t you ever heard of online shopping? It’s so much easier than this.” I hike three shopping bags up my arm. So far, I bought two gifts for her while she wasn’t looking, a gift for Rebecca, a pair of boots for myself, and toys for Gus and Cassie. A few weeks ago, I had a gift custom-made for Jude, which I’m now second-guessing.

“Maybe your skinny ass has an easy time buying clothes online, but I need to try shit on to see if I can squeeze my tits into it.”

I smile at her as two screaming toddlers run out from beneath a rack of blouses, each holding huge lollipops, and almost wipe us out.

“Where are the parents in this place?” I sigh. “They just let their kids run around like wild animals. Did you see the size of those lollipops? They could choke to death—”

“Let’s go to the food court and get something cold to drink,” she suggests.

Last year that suggestion would’ve caused me major anxiety, but this year, I’m totally fine with it.

We wade through the sea of people to get to the center of the mall, and I snag us a small table while she goes to get us two strawberry-and-banana smoothies.

“I got you a pretzel,” she says when she finds me at the table twenty minutes later. “It’s plain, just a little salt.”

“Awesome.”

“So, spill the tea, hon,” she says after we’ve sipped our drinks for a few minutes and caught our breath.

I pull off a small piece of warm, soft pretzel and chew it before answering her.

“What tea?”

“With you and the hubby. How are things?”

My chest twinges at the mention of Jude. I was hoping we’d get through the day without talking about him. The wounds are still raw and aching and I’ve been working hard at healing them with the help of my therapist.

And Gus. Purrs and headbonks make all things better.

“Things are the same. We’ve gone back to being friends.”

“That sucks. I was totally team Jude,” she says, dipping her pretzel into a thick, bright orange cheese sauce. I’m not at a point where I could put something like that in my own mouth.

“I was too,” I say sadly. “I’ve run the gamut of being totally devastated, to confused, to pissed off. I’m mentally exhausted. But I can’t be mad at him for doing what he thinks is best for himself or for me.”