“Where’s your ring?”
Her spine stiffened and she turned, finding him lurking in the shadows. “What are you doing here, Lance?”
“I was invited.”
“And you decided not to come. Lance, you have to go. I don’t want to make a scene.”
He pushed off the brick exterior and sauntered closer. He was wearing his good suit, the one he preferred for weddings. “They invited me, Julie. I have every right to be here. Ryan and I are old friends. You shouldn’t have left without me.”
She scoffed. “You said you weren’t coming.”
His eyes narrowed and he caught her chin in a tight pinch between his forefinger and thumb, angling her face upward and studying her. “You look different. Did you change your hair?”
She jerked her face away and took a step back. “I want you to leave.”
“Why?” He looked at her left hand. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring? You’re always losing things. I shouldn’t have gotten you such a nice piece of jewelry if you weren’t going to take care of it.”
“I took it off.”
His sharp stare cut to her face, and her breath held in her lungs as he glared at her. “You’re not supposed to do that,” he said slowly. “When you put it on, you made a promise to me. I think it’s time to come home.”
She took another step back. “I’m not coming home.” She didn’t know where she would live or where she would work, but she knew she didn’t want to go back to Maryland.
“You’ve been here long enough. It’s time to get back to reality, Julie.”
“No. This is reality, Lance. I left. And I’m… I don’t want to go back.”
“What do you think this is?” he snapped. “You take off and get to come back when you feel like it? Your home is with me, in our house. It’s time to come home. Get in the car.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to live in Maryland anymore. I… I don’t want to marry you.”
His jaw ticked and his glare contorted. She braced for the expected stream of insults.
“You leave me and it’s over, Julie. I’ve been carrying you for years, introducing you to friends, paying for your lifestyle, trying to show you how the better half lives. You think I need that sort of hassle? You never appreciated how much I’ve done for you, how much I had to convince others to give you a chance or invite you along, when the women were making plans. You’re always lost in your head, bringing other people down or taking life too seriously. You never figured out how to have fun. You’re lucky you’re pretty, but you’re getting older. What do you think will happen without me? You think you can do better?”
He laughed, the sound cold and chilling her to the bone, but he was far from finished. He wouldn’t stop until he turned her into brittle ice and shattered her into a million pieces.
“Who’s going to take care of you? Your family? You’ll rot here. You’ll never be happy in a town like this. You’re spoiled, and without me that lifestyle you’ve grown so accustomed to will disappear. You don’t have the brains to support yourself.” He scoffed. “You can barely figure out what to make for dinner.”
She refused to let him bate her, so she pressed her lips shut, but his words hit their mark and penetrated her steely exterior, slicing her heart to shreds. She kept her spine ramrod straight, letting him rail at her, taking it all in and reminding herself this was the real him.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and he paused from degrading her. His voice softened. “Come on, baby, let’s not do this. I don’t want to fight. Let’s go home. We can take a few days to reconnect, like old times.”
His polarized comments left her dizzy with a sense of whiplash. He reached for her hand, and she jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”
His gentle expression hardened. “I’ll tell everyone the things you said about them.”
She hadn’t said anything negative about anyone. It was Lance who always complained and talked behind their friends’ backs. She rarely interrupted or disagreed, so in his head, he probably thought she felt the same way. And he’d said terrible things about them. She’d lose all of them, and they’d think she was an awful person.
He’d set himself up for just such an escape, always insisting on extreme privacy, wanting to live far away from her family and friends in Pennsylvania, and threading embarrassing truths through every stitch of turmoil, so she wouldn’t bother explaining how bad things had gotten along the way.
He always, even at his worst, made sure she felt somewhat culpable. It’s how he kept her quiet and ashamed for so long, fearful others would judge her. And in Maryland, she had no one who would believe her word against his, because he’d arranged it that way. He was always so doting when others were watching, a master performer who took method acting to the extreme.