He Chose My Best Friend, Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 03

He Chose My Best Friend, Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 03

After emailing the venue and the photographer, I crossed two more items off my list. Only the hardest one remained: the wedding dress I would never wear, and my mother’s antique lace veil, her only heirloom.

The final fitting couldn’t be canceled online. I had to go in person, retrieve my things, and bring this charade to a close.

My phone screen kept lighting up on silent, Ben and Sloane’s names flashing in a relentless, two-pronged assault. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t scream at them, and I couldn’t forgive them. Silence was all I had to give, the last shred of my dignity.

When I pushed open the glass door of the bridal boutique, the familiar scent of lilies and the soft music made me pause. Sloane was there. She was sitting on the velvet sofa where I always sat, and Ruby was with her.

Sloane shot to her feet when she saw me, an eager, placating smile on her face. Beside her, Ruby—the little girl I had held and read stories to countless times—glared at me with a look of pure venom.

“Bad woman.”

The words, though quiet, stabbed me like a needle.

My stomach dropped.

So that’s what I was to them behind my back.

I ignored Sloane’s attempt to speak and walked straight to my private fitting room. For eight years, my only dream had been to wear this dress. Now, the cold satin felt like a beautiful shroud against my skin.

Last, I carefully put on my mother’s veil. The lace settled around my shoulders, carrying the faint scent of time. The woman in the mirror was me, but not. She was a bride about to step into her future. I was a lie that had been exposed.

The fitting room door slammed open.

Ruby rushed in, her small face twisted in a snarl. “You can’t wear that and marry my daddy!”

She was holding a small pair of tailor’s scissors. A flash of silver, and she lunged at my veil.

A sharp rip.

The lace—my mother’s heirloom, the vessel for every fantasy I’d ever had about family—tore, leaving a jagged gash.

“No!” I cried out, instinctively reaching to stop her.

In the chaos, the scissors sliced across the back of my hand. A line of blood welled up, the sharp sting making me gasp. I couldn’t take it anymore. I snatched the scissors from her and shoved her away.

Ruby stumbled backward and fell, her forehead hitting the metal edge of the fitting platform with a solid thud. She immediately burst into tears.

In that instant, something inside me snapped. All my grief and rage coalesced into a single, sharp sentence aimed at the child.

“Your mother destroyed someone’s family. That’s why you exist!”

The words were barely out of my mouth when the door was kicked open.

Ben rushed in.

He didn’t ask what happened. He saw his crying daughter, the scrape on her forehead, and the bloodied scissors in my hand.

He shoved me, hard. My back slammed against the wall, knocking the wind out of me.

“Are you insane?” he roared, his voice echoing through the boutique. “Mara! She’s a child!”

Every eye in the shop was on me. In their gaze, I was the hysterical monster who had attacked a little girl.

Only after he’d finished shouting did his eyes finally land on me. He saw the ruined veil. He saw the gash on my hand, still seeping blood. His body went rigid, as if time had frozen.

But it was too late.

Sloane rushed in. She didn’t look at me or at Ben. All she saw was the small scrape on her daughter’s head.

She swept Ruby into her arms, her eyes red, her voice trembling as she accused me. “Hate me if you want to, Mara. But my child is innocent.”

Her words were a dull knife, sawing at the raw edges of my heart.

Then I watched her raise her hand and rip the bracelet from her wrist—the one we’d woven together in college, a symbol of our friendship. The thin, colored cord dropped to the floor like a dead thing.

“We’re not friends anymore.”

With that, she carried Ruby out of the room without a backward glance.

Ben hesitated for three seconds. Then he turned and ran after them, leaving me—bleeding and humiliated—in the middle of the mess and the accusing stares.

I stood there, the chill of the wall seeping through the satin of my dress.

I didn’t cry.

Calmly, I asked for the store manager.

“I need all of your security footage, especially from the camera near this fitting room,” I said, my voice unnervingly steady. “I’ll be filing a police report. This is evidence.”

After I was done, I didn’t go to the hospital.

I took a taxi straight to O’Hare.

As the plane climbed, the lights of Chicago shrank to a blurry smear. I looked at the dried blood on my hand, then at the box beside me holding the torn veil.

Quietly, I said to myself:

From now on, their world, their family, their sins, have nothing to do with me.