Authors: Whitney Boyd
Chapter Twenty-One
T
he bishop has been droning on for a few minutes, mentioning things like honesty and trust. I am on the edge of my seat, waiting, and then, there it is. In the same melodic voice, with the same majesty and beauty as the rest of his sermon. This is it.
“If any of you have reasons why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.” The bishop has finally uttered the magic words. I think of Joan of Arc, standing firm for what she believed in, I picture Martin Luther King proclaiming that he has a dream and I hold on to those ounces of courage.
Josh looks down at the floor and I stand in the pew, grasping the pillar beside me for support. “I object,” I say, my voice quavering so much it is nearly incomprehensible. My words carry with more power than I felt, however, across the pews, throughout the enormous cathedral.
Everything moves in slow motion. I don’t think anyone had even entertained the notion that this would happen. Gasps ring out from those around me, but the people in the front are slow to react. They mustn’t have heard, although it’s pretty obvious with me standing here that something is amiss. The bishop gapes at me then looks in shock at the bride and groom. “Did she just object?”
“I object to this wedding,” I repeat. The second time is easier, and I grow louder. My words echo and resonate. There is a flurry of voices.
“What’s going on?”
“Who is that girl?”
“Ooh, mom, I love her dress, can you get it for me?”
“What did she say?”
“Who the hell is that?”
“Charles, we’re in a church! Watch your language, you old coot!”
“I knew she wasn’t a cousin!”
Dr. and Mrs. Adams rubberneck from the front row, disbelief written on their faces. “Isn’t that the girl who came by the house?” Mrs. Adams shrieks and then puts the back of her hand to her forehead and collapses into her husband’s arms.
Monica is holding tight to her older sister’s arm. Both girls are paler than if they’d seen a ghost, although Sylvia doesn’t seem to be overly shocked. A single tear falls down her face, leaving a line through her foundation. Jenna, on the other side of her, glares at me, alternating between calling me names like whore, slut and bitch at the top of her voice and whispering into her best friend’s ear.
I step out of my pew and walk up the aisle. I am oblivious to the chaos around me. I am looking only at Drew. I can’t read his face. His expression is inscrutable. He is not dashing down the aisle to meet me, but neither is he comforting his bride. My eyes meet his and words fall from my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize, my voice carrying over the crowd and confusion. “I’m sorry to barge in like this. I’m sorry to interrupt. And I need you all to know I’m not the type of girl who rudely and crazily barges in on weddings, not usually. Sylvia, I am sorry to ruin your day. I wish we had met under better circumstances, and I am truly, deeply, sorry. Additionally, I want to make it clear that I am sane, I promise. But despite all this, I have to object to this wedding.”
The bishop finds his tongue. “On what grounds, young lady, do you find yourself making this objection?”
I am no more than ten feet from Drew. I stand in the aisle and regard him steadily. “Drew, you are my soul mate. You broke up with me and when you did you broke my heart.”
“Jilted lover,” someone behind me says knowingly to their companion. I ignore them and continue.
“I haven’t been happy since you left me. I’ve had nothing but bad luck. But this changed when I decided to come find you. You have the power to turn my life around. You made me live my life in crazy, unpredictable ways. You make me laugh. Your spontaneity and zest for living give me reason to plough ahead even when times are rough. You are the one who got away once, and I cannot live with myself if let you get away again.”
The nave is so silent you could hear a pin drop.
“Yesterday, you told me you loved me.” My voice is low and cracks on the word ‘loved’. I can sense that the guests in the back are straining to hear the rest of this, but it is not meant for them.
Sylvia covers her eyes and lets out a moan. Monica and Jenna glare at me and I have no doubt that if either had a weapon close by, my life would be in grave danger.
“You kissed me, Drew and brought me to the motel. You wouldn’t have done that if you were fully committed to your fiancée. This is why I object,” I nod to the bishop. “I object because Drew hasn’t been faithful to his betrothed and the reason why is me. He loves me.”
Someone on Sylvia’s side of the nave blows her nose loudly into a handkerchief and the spell of reverence breaks. All hell breaks loose and for a few minutes everyone is on their feet, shouting at me, shouting at one another, shouting at Drew.
“I knew that your son wasn’t mature enough to marry!”
“He’s your son too, Marilyn!”
“I couldn’t hear the whole thing. What did she say about him saying he loved her?”
“Who is this girl?”
“How dare you barge into this holy edifice and make such blasphemous accusations!”
Even the Prime Minister, seated in the second row adds his two cents when he states, “This is the best wedding I’ve seen in years!” He grins and surveys the mess around him.
The bishop raises his hands high above his head, the flowing sleeves making it seem like wings, and for a second I am worried that he’s about to call down fire from heaven or something and smite me.
“Silence!” he thunders in his deep voice. “This is a house of worship, not a den of unfounded accusations and confusion.” He turns to Drew who hasn’t moved from his spot.
“Young man, explain yourself. Is any of this accurate?”
Drew’s eyes dart from one side of the room to the other. He licks his lips and wipes his brow, where large beads of sweat have appeared. “Uh, well sir, okay, I can explain.” He shoots a pleading glance at Sylvia and then an equally pitiful one in my own direction.
“This is Charley.”
I half expect to hear everyone chant “Hi, Charley,” like people do in the movies at AA meetings and such. Nobody says a word.
He looks ill, his face turning a decided shade of green. For a moment I expect him to throw me under the bus, to say that I’m lying and he has no clue what I’m talking about. Then he opens his mouth.
“Charley and I dated. And it’s true, I loved her once upon a time, but it’s done. Sylvia, you’re the one I’m marrying.”
Scumbag.
“You may be marrying her,” I retort, “but you didn’t merely love me once upon a time. You told me yesterday that you loved me. Stop pretending. Why are you doing this?”
The bishop stares at Drew. “Is this true?”
Drew shifts from one foot to the other and grips the altar for support. “Uh, well, okay, let me start again. So I may have said that, and maybe I technically believe it. But the point is, I love Sylvia as well. Look, I’m about to get married and be a one-woman man for the rest of eternity. I think I’m entitled to a little fun beforehand, am I right?” He grins unsteadily, his eyes wild.
He actually is telling the truth, I think. This lowlife jerk is admitting that he lied to me all in the hopes of having some fun.
An old man beside me shouts out, “We can’t hear, speak up!”
Sylvia steps forward, her eyes focused on Drew. “Are you having an affair with this girl?”
Drew stares at her and then slowly nods. “No. I mean, yes. Well, I did. It’s over now, but I did.”
“Over?” I say shakily. “It’s only over because I refused to keep it up when you were married. You said you wanted me but you couldn’t stop the wedding because it would be too big of a scandal.”
Drew clenches his hands and wipes more sweat off his forehead. “I, uh, well, maybe you misunderstood me, Charley. I think you’ve done enough damage here. Shouldn’t you go?”
I am seething. He can’t brush me off. “You are going to go ahead and get married? You can’t commit and you know it.”
There is a long pause and then Drew groans. “Blast it, Charley. How dare you barge in and accuse me of this. I can too get married. I’ll prove it.”
Sylvia cuts in before I can retort. She stares at her fiancé with hurt etched into her face. “Let me see if I misunderstood too, shall we? You proposed to me. You wanted to marry me. But then you admit to wanting some fun before you get tied down? How is that love? How is that commitment? Were you leading me on? Why did you propose to me then? Why did you want us to get married? Is it about my inheritance?” Another tear joins the first, leaving a second line through her makeup.
Drew doesn’t seem to know where to look. He glances at me, changes his mind and almost looks at Sylvia and then stares instead at the ceiling.
“It’s not anything about you, Sylvia. I wasn’t trying to lead you on or nothing. Maybe I am a little scared of commitment,” he admits. “Maybe I was trying to prove a point, show that I can settle down and whatever. But this stuff with Charley was accidental. It just happened and doesn’t mean much. I was going to go ahead and get married anyway, but this is getting ridiculous. Maybe marriage isn’t for me. I can’t do it. I’m sorry, Sylvia, but I can’t marry you if you’re going to be this anal about me having a little inconsequential affair before we’re married. I don’t want to be your ball and chain forevermore. I’m out.”
I don’t know what to think. My plan to stop the wedding is working, but not in the way I planned. Drew is not the person I remembered. He’s not the honorable man from my dreams. He’s shifty and shady and only concerned with himself.
Drew clears his throat. “Bishop, I will have to agree with this objection.” He motions in my direction. “I can’t get married.”
Drew pushes past me and runs out of the church. Everyone stares down the aisle to the spot where the groom was last seen. There are no words, nothing that can be said to make this situation better.
In what I can only assume is an act of desperation, the bishop waves for the organist to resume her playing, and mournful music fills the cathedral.
“The wedding is off, oh poor Sylvia, to be abandoned at the altar!”
“I still don’t understand . . . who is that girl?”
“I wonder what’s going to happen to all the catered food? Is the reception still on?”
“Men always get cold feet before their weddings, it’s natural. He’ll be back.”
“I don’t think he’ll be back. Did you see the expression on his face as he fled?”
Belle, like an overgrown puppy, rushes up to me and gives me a hug. “Charley, so good to see you again! I can’t believe that he dumped Sylvia at the altar. How scandalous! Maybe you can go talk some sense into that cousin of yours.”
Jenna marches by and grabs Belle by the arm. “That is
not
Drew’s cousin, you bumbling dolt. Come on.”
Sylvia and Monica and their parents shove past me next, and to my shock, Sylvia gives my hand a tiny squeeze. I think, in her own way, she is grateful to have found out this way rather than live a lie of marital bliss with a man who did not truly want to be with her.
The rest of the guests settle back into their seats, talking, whispering and staring at the girl who broke up what would no doubt be the Island’s fanciest wedding of the year. I totter back to Josh, my high heels making it difficult to walk, what with my head spinning and my eyes full of tears.
I fall into Josh’s arms and he leads me back outside. I blink at the change in lighting and begin sobbing. I know there are people milling around who witnessed the humiliation, but I have no pride left. I don’t know how Sylvia managed to walk out of that room with her held high.
My world is ending. Why was I led here? Why would the fates have pushed me back to Drew if I was just going to be crushed like this?
Josh steadies me and half drags me into the cemetery. Huge trees shield us from accusatory eyes and whispers of outrage and finally, when we reach a stone bench, Josh lets me collapse. My shoulders shake and I bury my face in my hands.
A diamond with a flaw is worth more
than a pebble without imperfections.
—Chinese Proverb
Chapter Twenty-Two
T
here is no such thing as fate,” I whisper. We’ve been sitting in the cemetery for hours. The sun has gone from directly above us to somewhere close to the horizon and the temperature has dropped drastically. I cried until I had no tears left, and then I curled up in Josh’s lap and moaned until my throat hurt. At one point Josh moved us from the hard, stone bench onto the softer, cool grass, and now I’m chilled.
“My grammy was wrong, there is no higher power controlling my destiny.”
My head is in Josh’s lap and he is stroking my hair over and over. “Don’t say that,” he says. “I don’t know if there is a God or not, but I can promise you that there is some kind of power in the universe. I’ve felt it. You’ve felt it. It leads us, it prompts us, it inspires us.”
“You’ve always told me I’m stupid to be superstitious,” I sniff, gazing up with bleary eyes. “You’re saying what you think I want to hear, it’s not what you believe.”
Josh cradles my head tenderly. “I think your superstitions of throwing salt over your shoulder and feeling panic when your neighbor’s black cat crosses your path are insane. There is no merit to them. They are exactly what the name implies . . . superstition means fallacy or false notions.”
“I knew it,” I complain, closing my eyes again to block out the world. My head is pounding.
“Hear me out,” Josh commands and I reopen my eyes in time to see him wink at me. “I said your superstitions were crazy, but I haven’t said anything about your beliefs in fate or God or providence or whatever you decide to call it. How can the billions of people on the earth who believe in something all be wrong? How can there be noted scientists and doctors who confess to praying every day if it’s a big hoax? How can someone die and just be finished or snuffed out? There has to be more and I fully believe there is.”
“You’ve never said anything like this before,” I say in wonder. “It’s like I don’t even know you.”
The side of his mouth lifts. “I have a few other things I need to tell you that I haven’t said before either, but not right this second. First I need to know, how are you? Are you dehydrated? You’ve cried more than I thought possible.”
I laugh at the way his mouth twists as he talks. Gingerly I sit up. “I’m doing okay. I feel broken still, and used. But at least I know that Drew and I are nothing. It’s been years that I’ve been trying to figure out why he dumped me and what I could possibly have done wrong. He haunted me, being the one who got away, like an elusive dream. Now I learn that it’s literally him, not me. He’s a basket case when it comes to commitment, and all this time I’ve been hating myself for something not even related to me.”
I hesitate because I feel like Josh needs to know the full story and this is where it gets personal. “I’m embarrassed right now. I’m humiliated and I wish I hadn’t had to throw myself at him in front of all those people. I mean, the bloody Prime Minister was there, for goodness sakes. But maybe you’re right. Maybe there is a higher power that led me here. Then it all must have happened for a purpose. And maybe that purpose was so I could finally be free of Drew once and for all.”
Josh watches me without looking away and I feel exposed and naked but not in the way I felt earlier. It’s different, more cozy and safe.
“Good.” The one word says so much. Josh pulls me to him and gives me a long hug. I can hear his heart beating in his chest with a steady, rhythmic thumping.
“Thank you for coming with me,” I say. “I needed you, especially today. I don’t know how I could have survived without you having my back.” It sounds too casual and cavalier, my thanks. I wish he could see into my soul and see how the gratitude is bubbling up like a volcano. “I really love you, Josh. Thank you for being such a good friend,” I finish with a rush and pluck a blade of grass from the ground in front of me. I roll it between my fingers as I meet his stare.
The amount of love and kindness pouring from his eyes makes my breath stop short. I’ve never had anyone look at me like this. And then I know what’s coming and it’s like a tidal wave that I can’t stop.
“Charley, I’m going to come right out and say it. I should have said it a long time ago, but I’ve been a coward until you showed me how. The fact is, I had to come. I’ve been crazy about you ever since I first laid eyes on you that first day of law school. You had your hair in a ponytail and were sitting two rows ahead of me. You were reading an article on
Entertainment Weekly,
but when the professor asked a question, your hand shot up faster than Hermione in
Harry Potter.
I knew right then that you were someone special and I’ve been consumed with you ever since.”
I need him to stop because there is only one way that this can end . . . badly. We’re friends and any time friends try to move into a more than friends zone, inevitably someone gets hurt and the friendship is over. I love Josh too much to want our friendship to end over something so . . . so trivial. I hold up my hand.
“Please, Josh, stop, don’t say anything else, okay?”
Josh grabs my hand and clutches it tight. “No. Remember what you said in the hotel yesterday? About how we can’t always live with regrets? Well I’ve been depressed for years over you. I’ve tried to think of ways to tell you but it never would come out right. I watched you get hit on by guy after guy, and suddenly I see you falling headlong for Drew. I can’t bear it anymore and regardless of what you are thinking right now, you have to hear me out.”
I shake my head and begin to say no, but Josh keeps going. “You own my heart. You are my best friend. You make me laugh. When we are apart, all I can think about is when I get to see you again. These past few days when you’ve been with Drew, I’ve been in agony. I even ended up spilling my soul to a bartender the other day because I couldn’t keep it bottled up any more.”
“That was you?” The bartender in the lounge had mentioned a lawyer from Calgary who was depressed over a girl he loved who would never love him back. How could I have been so oblivious?
“You’re healing right now. I don’t expect you to leap at me with open arms and confess you’re madly in love with me.” He pauses and grins sheepishly, “Although if you did I would be okay with that.”
When I don’t move he continues. “Anyway, I had to tell you. Now you know. You are my world. You are more beautiful than any girl I’ve ever met. Your intelligence inspires me. You are kind and sweet and innocent and I love you.” He stops and then whispers once more, “I love you.”
This is all wrong. I need Josh, but I need him as my friend. I need him to turn to. Not to be another guy who will date me and let me down.
“We need to go home,” I finally say. I can hear traffic and people walking by. The wind whispers in the trees and a seagull caws forlornly in the distance. “We need to go back to Calgary and forget this happened.”
“No, you’re wrong. What if I am the reason you had to come out here? What if fate led you to me?” Josh isn’t giving up.
“Josh, you have to stop!” I explode. My frustration over the last few days hits a boiling point. Josh can’t be doing this, not now. “We aren’t dating material. We’re friends, we’re best friends.”
“Why can’t friends be lovers? Isn’t it every person’s dream to be in love with their best friend? I know my parents are each other’s best friends.”
“You can’t logic your way to a win, Josh,” I breathe. “And I am not going to let myself get swept away in this romantic idea. I loved Drew, I know I did, but love isn’t enough. I love you, but not in that way. All it will do is ruin the good thing we have going.”
Josh’s face is a mask, an unreadable, plastic disguise. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do.” I hate seeing him like this, rigid and hurt. I hurt him. What would I give to reach out and smooth away his pain. But I can’t. All I can do is sit here.
“I saw the way you’ve looked at me the past few days.” Josh makes one more feeble effort. “I saw glimmers of something more. You can’t deny that, can you?”
“It would never work out between us.” My heart is as heavy as my voice. “Please stop.”
And he does. Josh stands and gives me his hand. Ever the gentleman, even though I know he is wounded in a way I understand oh so well, he helps me up. He helps me across the grass in my heels and then flags a cab when we get back to the main road. The cabbie takes us to the hotel, where we take the elevator to our room without speaking.
He showers, I call the airport and book us two tickets home for tomorrow morning. The only words we manage are, “The flight is at seven. We need to be at the airport an hour before.”
There is a gaping distance between us as we lie in bed just two feet across from each other. I can’t say goodnight, because I know for him, tonight may be one of the hardest nights of his life. I know what he is feeling, the cold fingers of rejection on his soul.
His breathing remains steady. He isn’t sleeping. And neither am I.
I lost Drew. I lost Josh. Strangely, the latter hurts the most.
Finally I know what rock bottom is. Rock bottom isn’t losing your job or being without money. Rock bottom isn’t even being rejected by someone you had a crush on for years. Rock bottom is the death of a friendship you valued more than any earthly possession.
Rock bottom hurts.