Chapter 8

BEA

I had no apartment to go home to.

Despite the multiple conversations about my things being stored in Law’s apartment, that was the one thing that hadn’t sunk in. I didn’t even have an empty apartment to go home to. The keys had been turned in yesterday and I stayed in a hotel suite just down the block last night. Normally, in a situation like this, I would call on my best friend. Ky had a couch I’d slept on plenty of times. The truth was, I couldn’t call on him for this.

I wasn’t even sure why he’d left. Yes, I had discussed how him being with someone else in high school had messed us up for a bit, and how I only ever slept with two people because I didn’t want to be like those other women who could hop from man to man the way they did. More power to them, it just wasn’t my thing. Maybe some considered it a flaw that I couldn’t separate my feelings from sex, but if that’s what it was, then I was fine being flawed.

I knew the things Law said to Ky had hit hard, especially after finding out that Law was the reason Kylan never came clean with me about his feelings in the first place. Still, Law said those things, not me. I kind of felt abandoned all over again. I didn’t blame my friend though, it had been a crazy, emotional roller coaster of a day for everyone.

It still left me with one real option. I had to go home, to my parents’ house, and that was the last place I wanted to be while nursing a heartbreak. Multiple heartbreaks? I didn’t know. I just knew that my heart hurt, my head wasn’t too far behind, and my legs didn’t want to hold my body up any longer. The floor of the damn church started to look a little too inviting again when Mina finally tugged on my arm.

“Come on, I’ll take you back home.”

My little sister still lived at home. Rather, she lived at home again after staying in the college dorms didn’t work out for her. I glanced at Mina for a minute, and decided her problems would be a good way to avoid my own.

“What ever happened between you and-”

“Don’t say her name,” Mina barked angrily.

“Okay, but what happened?” Mina had a good friend who had almost seemed like part of the family for a while and then suddenly, she stopped coming around and Mina was tight lipped about whatever caused their fall out.

“She just did something horrible that I never want to talk about again. Can we leave it at that?”

I nodded, though my eyes never left Mina as she ushered us to her car and helped me make sure I had every bit of my wedding gown inside before she shut the door. I wasn’t sure how I managed to fit in her tiny little Mazda Miata, especially with all the extra fabric from the gown draped around me, but we somehow managed. Mina’s choice in cars was something Flynn and I always teased her about.

“One day, you’re going to have to upgrade your little toy car, Mina,” I teased. She didn’t even smile in response, just hopped in and got us on the road.

I had failed Mina as a big sister somehow. The knowledge made my heart ache even more than it had before. “Mina, if you ever want to talk about anything, you know I’m here. Right?”

Mina tipped her head up and down once but didn’t bother responding. She focused instead on driving us out of Atlanta and to our parents’ estate. My family was wealthy, which was why I didn’t understand what Law’s family always had against me. They treated me like I was the proverbial girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe, it was my profession that made them see me as less than, but if that was it, I wouldn’t apologize for it.

I was a language arts teacher at a middle school near where my apartment used to be located. I had been on the north side of Atlanta, in a smaller town on the outskirts, and didn’t look forward to the commute through the city in order to live in Law’s condo. It was one of the arguments I made for buying a house quickly rather than waiting like he wanted to.

In hindsight, I understood his hesitation. At least he did me a favor there. Except for the fact that I no longer had an apartment to call home. That was a giant pain in the butt. I would have to spend some of the money I’d squirreled away for a down payment on a house to find a new place to live.

“You could always stay with Flynn,” Mina told me. I groaned when we pulled into the long driveway.

“Ew,” was all I managed to say before both Mina and I burst into laughter. Our older brother, Flynn, was a confirmed bachelor and planned to stay that way for life if you asked him. There was nothing wrong with that, except it meant that his place had a revolving door for women and let’s just say, my sister and I had both learned the hard way that our brother didn’t keep his business to the bedroom.

“Yeah,” Mina wrinkled her nose in disgust, obviously remembering the same lessons I had learned. “That wouldn’t be a good idea at all.”

“The last time I was over there, he offered me a seat on his couch, and I just couldn’t. I was honestly worried about what I might catch from the thing,” I joked.

Mina laughed harder as she parked the car in front of our parents’ mansion. There really wasn’t any other way to describe it. The place was sort of ostentatious, but it would always be home when I needed a place to land. Knowing you had a place to go when you were down on your luck was comforting. Actually, being down on your luck and left with no other option was a different story. Feeling like a failure was no fun, even if it wasn’t my fault.

“I can’t believe I had to come here after my wedding day,” I lamented as we got out of the car.

“Could be worse, I guess.” Mina said as she rounded the car and came to take hold of my hand.

“How so?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. You could have married Law first and then found out about a torrid affair upon returning from your honeymoon with my future niece or nephew in your belly.”

I gasped. “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I read too much.”

“What in the world kind of books are you reading? Maybe you need to find a new genre.”

Mina laughed at my suggestion. “Nah. I’m good with the slap of ugly reality I get from darker romances. It stings less than being disappointed by fairytales that never come true.”

Not for the first time, I wondered what happened to my baby sister to make her so anti-love. It also, once again, made me feel like I’d been a bad big sister and missed something important that she might have needed me for.

I glanced around the driveway and noticed all the other vehicles scattered about. “Great, everyone is here to witness my complete humiliation.”

“Oh, come on!” My sister chimed in, sounding far too chipper. “They already saw that when you up and married an entirely different man at your wedding today.”

She wasn’t wrong about that, but it didn’t detract from the fact that I now had to face everyone after making the decision to do just that. I was sure there would be lots of questions – ones I didn’t particularly feel up to answering.

“Come on, my beautiful sister. The quicker we get this over with, the sooner you can go sulk in the soaker tub and try to drown your troubles in bubbles.” Mina said this giddily as she clapped her hands together. My sister was a complete contradiction. She was always bubbly and happy, making everyone around her want to smile at her ridiculousness. Then, there was her darker, “love doesn’t exist” side that was just so contrary. That side of her hadn’t always been there. The fact that it was a recent addition to her personality, in the wake of her best friend no longer being present in her life, made me worry all the more. It was a concern for another day, though. She’d already made it clear that it wasn’t a topic we would broach any time soon.

I allowed my sister to enter our family’s home first, but it didn’t take long before Mom was there with her arms wrapped around me. Granna was there before long too, enveloping me in her powder-fresh scent. She took my hands in her own and looked me in the eyes before pulling me closer so she could whisper in my ear.

“It might come with some challenges, but my ring rests on your finger tonight because one young man would stop at nothing to see you happy.”

“If that’s true, then where Is he?” I asked, knowing I was unable to hide the sadness in my voice.

My granna pulled back and winked at me. “He’s been here all along, waiting for you to come home.” I glanced around and when I didn’t see any sign of Ky, she grinned at me knowingly. “He’s out back with your brother and the rest of the men. I do believe they were trying to reassure him that you didn’t run off on your honeymoon with Law after all.”

“As if I would do that,” I countered.

“Well, the heart is known to do crazy things sometimes. Take for instance,” she patted the ring on my finger – the one that used to be hers – and smiled.

“I suppose you’re right about that.”

“Of course, I am, dear. Granna is always correct. If my Thomas were here today, he would tell you just that.” We both laughed knowing good and well that my poppy would never have agreed to that. He would say, “Yes dear,” to her face while vehemently denying it behind her back. She knew. He knew that she knew. It was their thing. I honestly wasn’t sure how Granna was able to keep going without him by her side any longer.

“Go on, dear one, go put that boy out of his misery. He needs to know you’re not upset with him after today.”

I didn’t understand why he would think that. We had already discussed things at the church earlier, but then I remembered the last moment I saw him and what Ky must have overheard. Hopefully, he didn’t think a long-ago memory managed to resurrect the anger and hurt I’d felt as a heartbroken teenage girl.

I ignored my aunt and uncle’s pinched face looks of disdain as I passed through the house and headed out the backdoor into the beautifully landscaped courtyard, complete with barbecue pit that could rival most high-end kitchens, pool, lounge area, and the huge outdoor table my mom had commissioned. The thing could seat twenty people easily. A long length of it was backed by an eight-foot hedge row and faced the pool while the other side faced whoever happened to be sitting across from them. Needless to say, I always chose to sit with my back to the hedge.

Kylan sat at the backside of the pool, nearest the very far end of the table, with his bare feet dipped into the water. My brother sat beside him, both of them with a beer in hand. I’d have to remember to thank Flynn for being there for Ky when I couldn’t be. They had never been friends growing up because of the age difference, but as we all came into adulthood, and age stopped distancing us so much, the two of them had formed a closer friendship over the years.

When Flynn glanced up and saw me approaching, he stood and offered to take Ky’s empty as I removed my shoes and hiked up my dress so I could sit down and dip my own aching feet into the water.

“Crazy day, huh?” I finally managed to say.

“I guess you could say that.” Ky mumbled back, still averting his eyes from me as he seemingly watched the water ripple thanks to our disturbance. We sat that way in silence for a bit before he asked his question. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

For a moment, I thought to feign ignorance, but I respected Ky too much to make him spell it out for me. Instead, I sighed and volleyed back, “Why would I?”

He turned to me then. “Seriously? Because we were best friends.”

“Yes, and your actions made it clear that’s all we were – to you. If I had told you, and you didn’t feel the same, it could have been the end of our friendship.”

“It nearly ended anyway, remember?” He asked. I nodded my head because it was true, especially after I turned him down for prom and he got angry with me. “I asked you to prom,” he reminded me, as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking.

“Yes, and I didn’t want to go to prom as your pity date.”

“My pity date?” His shock over my statement was odd.

“No one else asked me. I thought, after I saw you with Olivia, that you were only asking because no one else had done so. Olivia had already bragged to the other girls that she was going with you and that the two of you were a couple.”

“We were not,” he denied vehemently.

“You forget that I saw you with her – intimately.”

Ky sighed and ducked his head into his hands. “It wasn’t like that. Jesus, you’re going to think I’m stupid when I tell you,” He insisted.

“I’m listening. Tell me.”

“I was nervous. You had never been kissed, never even dated yet. I wanted to be your first everything,” Ky admitted. That threw me for a total loop, considering what I’d walked in on back then.

“What? But…” I started to question, and remind him that I’d seen him with someone else, but he brought his hand up in a gesture meant to quiet me. So, I waited.

“Bea, I mean it. Nervous was an understatement. I couldn’t screw up your first time and have you forever remember me as the awful way you lost your virginity. So, stupidity won out. Everyone knew Olivia was experienced because all the guys talked about her. I thought I could, you know, learn a few things. That way, when I was with you,” he shrugged his shoulders looking incredibly sheepish as he admitted this to me. “At least then, I’d know what to do so I wouldn’t hurt you or make it awful. I never realized that you saw me with her,” he confided as I sat there in stunned silence.

“I didn’t mean for things to go as far as they did with Olivia that day. Honestly, I never meant to actually have sex with her at all, but then one thing led to another and the next thing I knew, she put me inside of her. If that’s what you saw, then it had to be the absolute worst timing in the history of bad timing because I blew in less than a minute, shoved her off me, and yelled at her for doing that. You and I were supposed to have that experience together, Bea. It was never supposed to be Olivia. She was only supposed to teach me some other stuff, but she stole that from me – from us. Granted, I put her in the position to take it, but that was never my intention.”

I sat quietly, trying to digest everything he was saying. Taking my silence as him needing to keep going, I continued to listen as he spoke again.

“I refused to speak to Olivia after that because even though I was an asshole for using her the way I did, to learn about some things, she took something from me that I couldn’t get back. If she was spreading rumors about us being together, they were lies.”

If I thought my mind had been blown earlier when my fiancé left me a note, or later when he showed up to watch me marry someone else, it didn’t compare to learning this. Everything I thought I knew in high school about my best friend was suddenly being painted in a different light.

“I asked you to prom and you told me that you already had a date,” he reminded me.

“I lied.”

He nodded his head, as if he already knew as much. “I couldn’t figure out who would have been stupid enough to ask you out because I’d already told everyone that you were mine.”

“You did what?” I asked. His answer was only to bob his head in confirmation. Then we both sat quietly for a moment before I needed further explanation. “I don’t understand, Ky.”

“You turned me down, wouldn’t tell me who you were going with, and no one would fess up to asking you. I was so angry and jealous. I didn’t realize you thought I was really with Olivia the whole time. I just figured you weren’t into me like that. When Olivia walked by, I just grabbed her and asked, in front of you, hoping you would tell me I was making a mistake.”

We were such a mess when we were younger. I finally looked up and glanced around to see that everyone had gone inside and left us alone out by the pool. It was probably for the best since I couldn’t seem to control the tears leaking from my eyes as Ky spoke again.

“At prom, I kept watching for you. Olivia was pissed because I ignored her the whole time and just waited to see you walk through those doors. After the first two hours, when I still didn’t see you there with a date or your friends, I got worried. I called your house, and your mom told me you were sick and couldn’t go. I offered to come check on you, but she said you wouldn’t want that.”

“No, I wouldn’t have,” I admitted, “because I was at home crying in the prom dress my mom had bought for me. She thought for sure I was supposed to go with you and when I told her that you had a date, I think she might have been just as heartbroken as I was.” It was true. My mom had been devastated for me. It was the first time I had really ever talked to her about my feelings for Ky.

“When I went back to school on Monday, I heard all about your prom, the hotel excursion, and had to watch you parade Olivia around on your arms for two weeks while you ignored me,” I reminded Ky. “She laughed in my face because she was the one to break our ‘unbreakable friendship’,” I admitted to him.

Ky’s head snapped around, so he was facing me then. “She did what?”

I laughed. “Come on, you had to know,” I accused. “It was a challenge for most of the girls in our school. As you went through one after another, they all came back and told me everything you did with them – to them.” He flinched at that, eyes wide and sorrow-filled. “Why did you think I never spoke to you again until we ran into one another at the beach at the end of summer?”

He swallowed and then angrily swiped at the tears that ran down his own face. “I went out with Julie after Olivia because she told me about seeing you and Greg at the movies making out.”

I laughed once more. “I never dated or went out with anyone in high school.” Ky’s puzzled look made me wonder how my best friend and I had ever gotten so far off course with one another. “It took me until college, after seeing you with all those other girls, for me to get over losing you that way. I knew that it had all just been some fantasy I had concocted because I crushed on my best friend when I shouldn’t have, but it still stung every time those girls threw it in my face.

“As we became friends again that summer, and all through senior year, I let each of your dates and new girlfriends harden my heart and serve as a reminder that you didn’t see me like that. I was just a friend. Only ever your friend. Even as I told myself that, I couldn’t bring myself to date anyone else.”

“But you went to senior prom at another school, with some asshole who went there.”

“No, Ky, I didn’t go to any prom.” His jaw literally dropped. “I didn’t even tell you that lie either, so don’t get mad at me. Some other girl did, so that you would take her. I guess she was afraid you would ask me for some reason.”

“Because that was my plan until I found out you were going to another school’s prom that same night.” He seemed completely baffled. “Where were you then?”

“Here,” I told him honestly as I spread my hands in front of me, indicating the house where I’d grown up.

“Why, Bea? All you ever talked about during Freshman and Sophomore years was what prom was going to be like, what you were going to wear, and how breathtaking it was going to be.”

“No one ever asked me.” I shrugged my shoulders and looked away as he continued to stare.

“You never attended a single prom, anywhere?”

I shook my head.

“It’s all my fault,” he whispered. Part of me wanted him to take on that blame, but I made my own choices. I chose to stay home because I couldn’t stomach seeing him happy and dancing with some other girl while all dressed up. My early dreams of prom had always included my best friend as my date. It was bad enough having to see him in the hallways and at lunch carrying on with them. I couldn’t go and watch as they got to live out my prom dream while I sat on the sidelines with a broken heart.

“I warned all the guys away, two years in a row, and then…” He scrubbed his hands down his face and made some weird noise of distress. “You shouldn’t marry me for real. I had no idea I’d screwed up so badly and cost you so much back then, Bea. I’m so sorry.”

“We were kids, Ky. Neither one of us was great at communicating. My mom used to tell me that the hormones were the devil, and they made it harder for boys and girls to be friends at that age because we couldn’t figure out how to talk anymore. Back then, I thought she was just making excuses to ease my broken heart. With age comes wisdom though, and looking back, I know she was right.”

“Gotta say, I wish she had been wrong.”

“I don’t.” It was the honest truth.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Ky, we were both far too immature then, obviously, considering the massive miscommunications and stupid decisions that we both made. Imagine if we had tried to date, especially with all those girls constantly trying to break us up. We would have never made it and might not even be friends now as a result. Then who would have been there to save me from the crappiest day ever?” I ruffled the silk sheath dress I wore to get married in in order to highlight my point.

“Or maybe we’d already be married – legally – with two kids and a dog,” he suggested.

“Are you kidding? You were so easily led astray from me by Olivia, Julia, and all the others. There’s no way we would have made it back then.” My best friend offered a dubious look of disbelief that I just shrugged it off. Knowing the truth was something completely different than being able to let go of old hurts. I had spent enough time living in denial that going back to that place wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be.

“What about now?” He asked. “Is there a chance for us now?”

I smiled at him. “As of this morning, when I woke up, I was still in a relationship with someone else,” I reminded him.

“Yes, but we’ve been in our own crazy relationship for fifteen years. I think that means something.”

“It does. That’s the only reason I would even entertain dating someone else right now.”

“Dating? Just dating?” He asked as he reached down and spun his grandfather’s ring that sat on his finger. “Does that mean you don’t want to make what we did today official?”

That was a difficult question to answer. I actually wished it was already official and that our spur of the moment choice earlier today meant more than it did. I’d never take it back. Knowing we had a choice though, gave me pause to wonder if we’d done the right thing. “I’m torn,” I finally answered as honestly as I could.

“Because you still want to marry Law?”

It was a fair question, but I shook my head as I answered. “I told Law earlier that I couldn’t marry him now. The trust we had is completely broken.” Plus, there was that nagging reminder in the back of my mind that I felt relieved. I had also been humiliated and angry, but what I didn’t feel at all today – where Law was concerned – was devastated. Destroyed. Ruined. All things I probably should have felt at being stood up on my wedding day. It just wasn’t there.

“Do you wish you’d married him today as planned?”

“No. I’m glad it never happened.” I owed it to Ky to be completely honest with him, but I also owed it to myself to acknowledge what I’d just said. If I had never received that letter from Law today, I would have gone through with it, and most likely ended up with a failed marriage as a result. My head was in it, but my heart, she had been sitting stagnant for quite some time. Sure, I loved Law in a way, but I never had that mad, passionate in-love with him feeling. Weren’t you supposed to experience that with the person you were meant to be with?

Ky grinned at me. “Good. So, do you want to maybe go on a date with me tomorrow?”

I laughed at Ky’s timing and the boyish grin that accompanied his question. “I would love to.”

“Okay then.” His hand still fiddled with the ring on his finger. “I won’t take it off, Bea.” He finally said to me, as if confessing a dark secret. “I need you to know that I can’t do that. Our marriage might not be legal just yet, but I made promises to you, our families, and myself before God, and I plan to honor them, no matter what the law has to say about it.”

Tears pooled in my eyes at his admission. “I take it seriously too, Ky.” He let out a huge breath, as if he’d been holding it while awaiting my response. “I know we made vows to one another, and that we’ve been in one another’s lives forever,” I started to say.

“But?”

“This is a new journey for us and I had a different fiancé this morning, so I want to take things slow. We know one another as best friends. Bea and Ky. We need to get to know one another as something more now.”

“Whatever you need, we’ll work on it. I only have one request.”

“What’s that?”

“I know that Law isn’t going to let this go easily, despite his cowardly note and trying to jump ship first. It was one thing for him to be the one letting go of your relationship. It’s another for him to think he’s been made a fool of. So, I need you to be honest with me when it comes to him. If you’re talking to him, meeting with him, or if your feelings compel you to be with him again… Please, let me know first.”

“Of course.” There was no way I could even think of being with Law again, but I understood Ky’s worry. It was a legitimate one. That’s why I’d held onto Law’s letter. It was the one thing I could hold onto that was tangible. It was like a talisman, there to remind me of my anger, of his betrayal, and ultimate cowardice. I needed that because no matter what, spending more than two years with someone left you with a familiarity that was hard to break.