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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

VALE

When I turned twenty, my father forgot my birthday.

He remembered all the years before. It was hard to forget because he had two daughters who shared the same day.

So, he sent a card with a hundred dollars, as if he could buy himself out of his guilt for not being around, and he’d call to wish me a happy birthday.

But he never said he loved me.

That year, Blair was away at Alabama, where she went to college. Alena was on a field trip with her senior class, and my mom was alive, but she had a work trip in Atlanta that she couldn’t miss. Of course, she called, suggesting we video chat over pizza to celebrate.

But then there was a knock on my apartment door. I looked through the peephole and choked back tears.

It was Nash. He had a brown bag with cheeseburgers and a bouquet of red tulips. At the time, he said Alena sent him to check on me. I still think that’s true.

But now I know he drove four hours just to see me.

We sat at my little kitchen table and ate burgers while he asked about my classes. He smiled when I told him I had a 4.0 but turned to stone when I told him I didn’t have many friends at Clemson.

I didn’t fit in. I never fit in.

I had a roommate who tolerated me. Guys who fucked me but never asked me out. And a best friend and twin hours away, but the thought of them was good enough. It got me through.

So, Nash took me to the bookstore that night and spent over five hundred dollars on my wishlist. At the time, he said the books were for school.

Now I know he bought them to keep me company since he couldn’t.

When he left that night, I got that hollow ache in my chest, the one you must get when someone breaks up with you. That’s what I figured at the time. I was right.

But this ache doesn’t end. I can’t find the bottom of it. I just keep falling deeper into its darkness.

For four days, I call in sick to work. I blame it on my period, which I force to start by taking off my patch. I want to bleed it out of my body, every last pain over Nash.

It doesn’t work. Forgetting him will be a slow death.

Blair and Stacey bring me food. I ask them to leave it at the door. I tell them I have a migraine, too. That I don’t want to let in the light. It’s not a lie.

I want to lie in darkness. I want my sheets to stop smelling like Nash, but I’ll never wash them. I want him to stop texting to see if I’m okay, but I won’t block his number. I want to answer him and say I’m fine without him. Go to hell.

But I don’t.

This is hell. Love, you can’t have. Love, you have to lie about. Love, you have to let go.

I’m avoiding Alena because she’ll hear it in my voice. I’ll burst into tears the first time I hear her sweet voice; I know I will.

I need time to stop crying. But I don’t get it. After five days, Alena’s knocking on my door.

“Vale,” she calls out, “you better be shacked up with some hottie in there. And you better get your ass up and open this door and let me see your fuck-hair and smile, telling me you’re just getting railed and you’re fine.”

I don’t answer. My stomach twists. She’s too close to the truth.

“Vale, I’m serious.” She whimpers, “You’re scaring me.”

“I’m coming.” My voice cracks. I’m dizzy, opening the door to the blinding sunlight and her sweet face.

“Oh my god,” she gasps. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shield my crying eyes from the sun.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Okay, fine.” I let her step inside. “It’s some hottie from the sex club. He railed me properly and gave me fuckhair, and now I’m having a pity party because it’s over.”

I’m not lying to her; I’m twisting the truth to protect her.

“Oh my god,” she gasps again, horror hitting her face. “Your neck. Your legs. What did he do to you?”

“I asked him to do it.” My bruises don’t hurt as much as the truth.

“Vale!” she explodes. “Did this guy hurt you? Did he ra?—”

“No.” I stand, hanging my head. “I wanted him. I wanted everything he did to me, and now he’s gone.”

I turn, seeking my bed, and she follows.

“Why?” Alena sits while I lie down. She starts rubbing my back. “Why did he have to go if you wanted him so much? Why did he leave you wrecked like this?”

“Because… ” I close my eyes, searching for a lie that feels like the truth. “Because he’s committed to someone else, and I understand, even though it hurts so bad.”

“So he was cheating?” she asks. “And he didn’t tell you or something?”

Damn, this is hard. My pain is too deep and raw, and my lies are only digging my grave deeper.

“It’s just over,” I mutter, tears streaming down my face. “And… And I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Alena cries with me. She lies down, spooning and holding me. “I’m so sorry.” She gives me minutes to sob. “Men suck,” she mutters.

“Yours doesn’t.”

She’s too silent.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing. I’m here for you. My shit is stupid.”

I turn around, worried. “Are you okay? Please tell me. Give me something else to think about.”

“I’m fine.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m just pissed because Loch isn’t happy about my dad and godfather being his groomsmen, but who else can it be since he won’t ask his brothers to do it.”

“Does he not have friends to ask? Like you have me and Blair?”

Focusing on her makes this feel better—just a little.

“He said his brothers are his friends,” she sighs. “That’s why he can’t pick between them.”

“So then have like a hundred groomsmen on one side and me and Blair on the other. Girl, it’s your wedding. If you want us doing cartwheels down the aisle, we will.”

“But then that makes the service big, and I’ll get nervous. You know me. I prefer wild animals over people.”

“Clearly… ” I can’t help it. I have to make her smile. “I prefer people who are wild animals.”

She laughs. I don’t. But it’s a start back to feeling like my broken-hearted self.

“Well,” she says, “at least you didn’t do your primal play kink the week of my wedding because it looks like an animal attacked you. Clearly, he wasn’t a beige flag.” Pause. “More like a red flag. It might be for the best.”

Her words echo her father’s, and all I can feel is more pain. Pain over losing him. Pain over lying straight to her face.

It feels so wrong that Nash is right. We can’t hide this, and we can’t do this to her.

“Can I take you out today?” she asks. “You need air, sunshine, and five spicy margaritas.”

I let her convince me to eat a little, shower, and put on my black mini with white polka dots and my Mary Janes. But I don’t braid my hair. I can’t. It reminds me of how Nash would unbraid it.

After a lunch of fish tacos and, yes, margaritas, Alena suggests we get my dress fitted.

“It will make you feel better,” she says as we enter the wedding shop. “It worked wonders for curing Blair of her NFL dick disease.”

“I don’t know,” I reply, aiming for the bridal side of the store. “She’s still running a fuck fever over Beau Bronson. Apparently, he gave it to her so big and blue that she’ll never be the same.”

Alena laughs, and she’s right. Standing on the platform, surrounded by mirrors, I do feel a little better. The sage green dresses she chose are stunning. They flow to the floor, cinch tight around the waist, but have a convertible top. You can twist and wear its two wide fabric straps in multiple ways.

“Blair is wearing hers twisted and over one shoulder,” Alena says, admiring me. “So wear yours however you like, too.”

“I like it this way,” I reply. “It looks more traditional. Like a Grecian goddess style, twisted and tied behind my neck.”

“Traditional?” She laughs. “Since when are you traditional?”

“Alena?” A deep voice calls. “Is that you, sweetpea?”

No. Please. No.

“Dad!” she shouts back. “We’re in here.”

I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m frozen, watching the horror in the reflection of the mirrors. Mirrors.

Nash sweeps the velvet curtain aside and does it again. He stops dead in his tracks, but this time, it’s not over his daughter. It’s over me.

“Doesn’t she look beautiful?” Alena beams, rushing to hug him.

“Yes,” Nash answers with his heated stare locked on mine. “Very beautiful.”

Don’t you dare cry.

You can’t. You can’t let Alena know.

It takes everything I have to hide the breaking inside. The crushing weight. The suffocating pain. I want to die, but I have to stay standing.

“Dad,” Alena is focused on him, “you look so handsome.” She adjusts his jacket collar. “See? You make a navy suit look good. Maybe now you can go on those dates you always hide from me because I know you’re hiding something. A girlfriend, right?”

God, this is cruel.

“No. No girlfriend…” He swallows hard, still looking at me. “We were, uh, just here getting fitted. I didn’t know you’d be here, too.”

He’s talking to me, not Alena, but thankfully, she’s not aware.

“We?” she asks. “Is Michael here, too?”

Michael?

She means Axel, and this is so fucking brutal and cruel. Them, lying to her. Nash, looking at me. Alena, trusting us.

I can’t do this.

“I’m done.” I look down, lifting the hem of my dress to run to the changing room.

“But dear,” the seamstress says, kneeling by my feet, “ I’m not done.”

“But I…” I chew my lip. I fear the burn, the biting at my eyes, the tears threatening to fall.

“Hey.” A voice calls out. “Where’d you go?”

“In here,” Alena replies to Axel.

It gets worse. So much worse. I’m trapped as Axel enters the room, too. Yes, he looks as sexy as Nash in his navy suit, but it’s ugly, the secret we hide. But they can’t hide it from me.

I know.

That’s how Axel looks at me. That’s how Nash looks at me, too.

They know.

They know Nash has broken me, and I know their bond.

“You look stunning, Ms. Monroe,” Axel says with no ire, sounding soft and sincere.

“Right?” Alena gushes. “Her twin looks equally gorgeous. You’re walking with Blair. And, Dad, you’ll walk with Vale down the aisle. Hell, you all will look so good; no one will look at me.”

“Yes, they will.” I force myself to speak up. For Alena, I always will. “No one can outshine you now or on your wedding day. You’re going to be the queen.”

Whoops.

I cringe. I didn’t mean to use that word. It’s the one Ms. Faye used when we saw Alena in her dress, and it just slipped out.

Nash clears his throat, looking away. Axel gives me a “Watch It” look, and Alena is still unaware.

I don’t know the details of these men and their bonds as kings with queens, but I’m wearing the bruises of an idea.

Bruises Axel suddenly notes, his stare shocked, then masked. Bruises Nash won’t confront. He’s forcing his focus on Alena. Bruises I see in the mirror, and suddenly, I’m not proud. I’m embarrassed.

Mortified.

Degraded.

Abandoned.

“Please,” I tell the seamstress. “I need to excuse myself.”

She lets me rush away, aiming for the dressing rooms.

“Vale,” Alena calls out. “You okay?”

I force my strangled throat to work. “Gotta pee.”

But I don’t. I hide in the ladies’ room and cry, muffling my sobs with my fist, desperate for Alena not to hear me. But like every best friend, she does. She must sense it like I can feel her pain, too.

“Vale?” She swings the door open. “What’s wrong?” She sees my tear-stained face. “Do you hate the dress or something?”

“No,” I mutter. “I just hate seeing my broken heart and bruises in it.”

She pulls me into a hug. “They’ll fade. Just like this pain. I promise it’ll go away.”

Thankfully, when we emerge, she’s right.

Nash is gone.

Axel is, too.