Page 73 of The Compass Series

CONNOR

A ll the guests had dissipated, taking with them their gossip and judgmental commentary. All that was left in the church were Aaliyah and me. I was only still there to make sure everyone got the fuck out and left the poor woman alone.

Her back was to me as she stood at the end of the aisle, staring at the arch filled with beautiful flowers. The train of her gown was spread out behind her, and her shoulders were rounded forward.

“Aaliyah.” I spoke gently, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my suit. “Where is your wedding planner?”

“I sent her away. I just couldn’t handle being around people. Marie tried to comfort me, but I told her to go make sure her son was okay.”

“Oh.” Her body stood a bit straighter, yet she didn’t turn my way.

“I can have my driver take you home. Or if there’s somewhere else you want to go…

anywhere…anywhere you want to go, I’ll take you.

” I took a breath, unsure what I should say next.

There wasn’t anything I could say to make the current situation any better for her.

Her head shook a bit, and she fiddled with her fingers. “Do you think he’s all right?” She turned my way. “It just doesn’t seem like him to run.”

I took another step toward her but didn’t speak.

She must’ve known a different Jason than I had.

The Jason I knew was a runner, through and through.

When things got hard, he dashed. When he had to put in a bit of actual work, he’d throw a fit and end up in Bora Bora for a mental break.

He was the definition of unstable, yet Aaliyah didn’t see it that way for some reason.

She seemed truly shocked by the events that had taken place.

Me, on the other hand? The idea of me being shocked that he’d bolted seemed absurd.

How had he tricked her into believing he was someone worthy of her time?

“We were right for each other. I know we were. I felt it…” She shut her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “At least, I thought I felt it. I mean, I know he’s been stressed with work lately, and…”

She was seconds from falling apart, and I didn’t blame her. She had every right to fall into a million pieces right then and there. I had to get her out of that place. Out of that dress. Out of her tragedy.

“Aaliyah, we should go.”

“He won’t answer my calls.” Her eyes were filled with water, but no tears fell.

“Maybe there was an accident, and that’s why he hasn’t answered my calls.

Maybe there was some kind of panic at the office, or maybe someone told him a lie about me.

I heard people talking yesterday, but they were just making things up, Connor.

I swear. But maybe he believed them. Maybe someone got in his head.

Or maybe…” She took a breath. “Or maybe everyone was right. Maybe I was just another blip on his roadmap of women. Maybe I wasn’t anything special.

” She choked on her next words. “Or maybe…maybe…maybe…”

She covered her mouth with her hand as her body curved forward, and the tears began to flood her face.

She sobbed into her hands, shaking uncontrollably as realization set in, the knowledge that on that day—the day of her happily ever after—she was left standing at the altar alone, with no love story to hold her upright.

Well, fuck.

This was awkward.

I walked down the aisle to meet her.

Step by step, I headed in her direction, moving toward her as quickly as I could, and when her knees began to buckle, I was right there to catch her.

She wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight in her beautiful white dress that looked as if it had been made solely for her.

She looked like a goddess who’d been struck down by lightning.

Shit wasn’t fair. From what I could tell, Aaliyah seemed like a good person.

This kind of crap shouldn’t happen to good people.

Jason was an asshole for what he’d done.

“Why wasn’t I enough?” she cried, repeating those words over and over again as the pain in her heart poured out of every part of her being.

I didn’t know what to say or how to make her feel better, so I pulled her closer to me, holding her weary body against mine.

I remained quiet and still as she lost herself within my arms. I wouldn’t try to fix her because one could never fix what was broken.

Sometimes, you just had to stand in the wreckage and hope you could learn to live within the new shattered pieces.

“You don’t have to stay with me,” she said as we sat on the ground in front of the altar.

We’d been there for quite some time, at least an hour, yet I wasn’t going to leave her side until she was ready to walk away.

The woman had just been stood up on her wedding day; the least I could do was sit with her.

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sure you have better, more important things you could be doing.”

I didn’t say a word. It was clear she was feeling lost, abandoned, and alone, and I knew if it were me, I’d hate to be by myself.

So I refused to leave her there on her own.

I saw it in her eyes each time she told me I could go, a small hope that I’d choose to stay.

She just needed one person who wouldn’t walk out on her that afternoon. Therefore, I stayed.

Her knees were bent and pulled into her chest as she hugged them, staring forward into the distance. “The reception would be starting right now,” she whispered. “There would be music, and dancing, and happiness…” Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy with streaks of her mascara down her cheeks.

I didn’t reply.

She hopped up. “I think I’ll go.”

“Go? Go where?”

“To the reception.”

“What?”

She nodded her head, obviously in a state of shock because she was talking insane. “Yeah, you know…just to check it out.”

“What? No. That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, it is. Can you drive me?”

“Huh? No,” I flatly stated. “Of course I won’t drive you there.”

“But earlier, you said you’d drive me anywhere I wanted to go. You swore you would.”

Women and their impeccable memories.

“I don’t think that’s a healthy choice…”

“But it’s a choice, and I’m sure you’re sick of sitting here, so we should go there.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Connor.”

“What?”

I looked at her eyes and the roundness of her shoulders, and she gave me the most pathetic puppy-dog-Sarah-McLachlan-commercial-eyes. “Please?”

For Christ’s sake.

“Fine. Just go change out of your dress.”

She gathered up her ridiculously long train in her arms and started full speed ahead. “Nope, no time. Let’s go.”