Chapter 4

It had been one whole week since that dinner. Wedding invitation samples covered the table. Jenna, my best friend, sat across from me while Alex sat close beside me, his arm slung over the back of my chair, and I kept playing my part, pushing forward with the wedding plans as though nothing had changed.

“Tell me again why I let you two plan my wedding?” I said.

Jenna looked up from the laptop balanced on her knees. “Because I'm your best friend, we’ve been inseparable since college, and somewhere along the line I realized you have terrible taste.”

I gasped. Alex laughed beside me.

“See?” Jenna pointed at him. “Your fiancé agrees with me.”

“Alex has terrible taste too,” I said.

“Careful,” he said, pulling me closer against his chest. “I gave you the good side of the bed.”

“And that makes you an expert on wedding planning?” I said, pulling away.

“Absolutely.”One side of his mouth lifted higher than the other.

That was the strange thing about betrayal. Alex still looked like the man I’d fallen in love with. Betrayal doesn’t change the face of the person sitting beside you, and for a minute I wished I hadn’t spent the last few days learning things about him I couldn’t unlearn. I wanted, badly, to just be happy, planning my wedding and letting myself enjoy it.

“So,” Jenna said, turning the laptop towards us, “I’ve narrowed the venues down to three.”

Alex leaned forward squinting at the screen. I stayed where I was, my mind drifting back to the conversation with Zara. The meal Zara had made him. The lunch he’d claimed was with James.

And here I was, planning my wedding with this same man, listening to Jenna complain about floral arrangements as if my entire relationship hadn’t shifted beneath my feet.

“Eloise?”

I blinked. “What?”

Jenna's brows furrowed. “I asked which one you liked.”

“Oh.” I looked at the screen. “The second one.”

“You didn’t even look,” she said.

“Come on, I did.”

“You looked at it for just three seconds.”

“Yeah, three very meaningful seconds.”

Alex laughed. Jenna threw a cushion at me, and I caught it, and for a few minutes everything felt normal. Jenna talked about the guest list, Alex interrupted her twice, and I found myself actually laughing.

It unsettled me how naturally my body leaned toward him, how when his hand settled on my thigh my first instinct wasn’t to move it. My body still wanted him, still craved his touch, and our old intimacy, and hating myself for it didn't make the wanting stop.

“By the way,” Jenna said, closing the laptop, “I need to meet the florist tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked.

“Yes, Tomorrow.”

“Alex glanced at her. “Six work?”

“Six? For what?” I said as I looked between them.

“The venue needs the decoration details confirmed before the weekend,” Jenna explained. “I’ll handle the flowers. Alex can handle the payment and contract stuff.”

I looked at Alex. “You two better pick something I’d like. I don’t trust your judgment.”

“Relax babe, I got you,” he said, kissing my forehead.

I smiled. Jenna reached across the table for her keys and at the same moment Alex reached for a pen that had rolled near them, their fingers brushing. Neither reacted, but I noticed the way he pulled his hands back a beat too slow.

Stop reading into everything. I told myself. He’s just being polite.

“Good, I’ll send you the address,” Jenna said, already heading for the door, keys shoved in her pocket.

She was so happy being my wedding planner, and I didn't want her to know what had been happening. It would break something in her too, I thought, not just for me.

I’d protected Jenna from things before, my mother diagnosis, the two months I nearly failed out of my licensing program, because that was simply what I did for the people I loved. Carried it myself so they wouldn’t have to.

Jenna really didn’t need to know yet.

***

TWO DAYS LATER,

Silence had settled over my office for more than thirty minutes. Zara hadn’t moved much, her arms folded loosely across her stomach.

“Something’s changed,” she finally said.

I looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Alex.” Her fingers gripped her arm.

The name still did something strange to me. I kept my voice casual. “What about him?”

“He feels distracted lately. He’s physically there, but it’s like his mind is somewhere else.” Her thumb moved slowly back and forth against her arm as she spoke.

I made a small note. A pattern was starting to shape up.

“Have you asked him?”

“He says he’s busy.”

“Could he simply be overwhelmed with work?” I questioned.

“Maybe.”

The word had no conviction behind it.

The silence stretched, filled only by the distant murmur of voices and a car horn drifting in through the window, neither of us willing to break it.

“No,” she said finally, “I don’t think that’s it.”

I sat up straighter. “Why?”

“This feels different.”

I leaned back slightly, taking a note as the suspense within me built. “And what makes you think he is different?”

She hesitated. “I think he’s seeing someone.”

Another woman, I thought.

“I saw a message while I was with him this afternoon.” She added.

Alex came home to me, then went to Zara, and now there's a third name in the rotation. “What message?” I asked

She was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t read all of it. His phone was beside him, It lit up with a notification, and I caught the first line before he snatched it away.”

I kept my expression calm. “What did it say?”

Zara's lips parted. “It said, I wish you were here with me right now, baby.”

Inside me, everything had gone still. This message wasn’t for Zara. It wasn’t for me either. Which left exactly one question: who was it for?

I wanted to ask who had sent it, what time it came in, whether he’d looked nervous when he grabbed the phone away from her, but that was too many questions for one session.

A good therapist would have let the silence do its work give.. , but in the moment I wasn’t her therapist anymore, I was just a woman collecting evidence, wearing my license like a disguise.

I wrote in the corner of my notepad.

Time. Find out.