All Chapters of He thought he was the groom: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

It had been seven months since Ethan left me.At first, I didn’t handle it well. He kicked me out, and I had nowhere to stay. My apartment had been in his name too, so I had nothing but a few bags of clothes. My best friend, mara, insisted I move in with her. She has a small tiny apartment in the city, the one she had been renting since college, she made me move in with her.I avoided the small juice bar. Mara and I had called it The Corner Loft after a late-night brainstorming session fueled by too many smoothies and laughter. Ethan had celebrated there when he landed his first big record deal. I couldn’t bring myself to step inside.Then Mara had enough. She called me a hopeless mess, said I was crying over a selfish man, and practically shoved me back into my routine. Breaking thirteen years of old habits hasn’t been easy.Some nights, I still catch myself staring at my phone, waiting for a message that will never come. Waiting for Ethan to say he made a mistake, waiting for him to

Hours slip by, and Mara still hasn’t returned.I can’t stop wondering what she meant—what was so important that she couldn’t say over the phone.By the time I sober up, guilt and dread hang over me like a stormcloud. I drag myself into the shower, scrub my teeth until my gums ache, and keep my hands busy by scrubbing every inch of her apartment. Anything to stop thinking about him.But it doesn’t work.It never works.I open the email again. The glossy wedding invitation stares back at me, mocking me, right beside the details for that ridiculous couple-only cruise.And then I see it.My name, sitting where it doesn’t belong.My stomach twists violently, and I barely make it to the bathroom before everything I’ve eaten decides it wants out.Later, when the nausea fades and the silence of Mara’s apartment presses too heavy, I do something I swore I’d never do again.I stalk her Facebook profile.I made the mistake of opening Facebook, and that’s when it felt like the ground should split