We climb out of the elevator and head toward the parking lot. When we arrive at Lizzy’s car, Max studies me for three beats. Four. Like he wants to say more but doesn’t know how. “I’ll see you later, then.”
I watch him walk away and feel half of my heart leave with him.
THE SIGHT of Hanna in a wedding gown steals my breath and makes my chest ache. She’s so fucking perfect—dark hair flowing down her back, lips parted as if the photographer caught her mid-sentence.
Meredith hoists her purse on her shoulder and flips her blond hair. She’s carefully put together, as usual, and smugger than ever. She was heading in to see Hanna’s mom and caught me in the parking lot.
“Gretchen was looking at that headline right there when she started having chest pain. The ambulance had to come to my salon and get her.”
I’m trying to tear my eyes off the pictures on the cover of the gossip rag, but I can’t. Not when right next to the picture of Hanna in a wedding gown, there’s a picture of her straddling Nate Crane’s lap in a hot tub. The picture is only a couple of days old if this piece-of-shit publication is to be believed.
“This is the woman you’re promising your tomorrows to?” Meredith asks.
I exhale slowly and force my shoulders to release. I can’t believe I ever thought Meredith’s nastiness was an admirable quality. “I’m sure it’s not what it looks like.”
She crosses her arms and shakes her head. “You said I treated you badly, but what about this?” She throws up her hands and turns to the hospital entrance, leaving me alone with this fucking magazine.
When I look down at the publication again, my heart plummets. For the first time, I understand why I once preferred women like Meredith to women like Hanna. It wasn’t their hearts I was trying to protect. It was mine.
“CAN WE go get coffee somewhere?” I ask as Liz puts the car in gear.
“Coffee?” She blinks at me. “Screw that. I vote for drinking martinis until we can’t feel our faces. Considering the day we’ve had—hell, the month we’ve had—I’d say we deserve it.”
I shake my head. “No martinis.”
She arches a blond brow. “Tequila?”
“Coffee?”
“Buzzkill,” she mutters, turning the key in the ignition and bringing the car to life.
When we finally get settled into a booth at the greasy spoon by campus, she’s practically vibrating with all the questions she’s not letting herself ask.
I make her wait and order decaf coffee and a milkshake. She orders coffee and a mountain of fries with liquid cheese, and we stare at each other while we wait for our food to come.
“Meredith’s baby isn’t the reason I called off the wedding,” I tell her. “Meredith was pregnant in October. Max and I didn’t start dating until November.”
She frowns. “Then why?”
I take a breath and wrap my hands around my coffee mug, needing its heat. “Because it hurt to find out that he only ever started dating me because he felt sorry for me. That he didn’t intend for anything to come of it.”
She draws in a quick breath but doesn’t lift her eyes to mine.
“But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t realize you knew,” she finally says. She dumps three sugar packets in her coffee and follows them with as many tubs of creamer. “About me telling Max to date you.”
I sigh. “It wasn’t that you told him to date me, Liz. It’s that you told him to fake interest in me.”
Her eyes fill. “It worked out, didn’t it?”
“I had to find out from Meredith of all people. And it hurt.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. She exhales heavily. “How long have you known?”
“I found out last May the first time. Then I remembered Sunday morning.” I show her the text messages between Meredith and Max.
“That son of a bitch,” she breathes.