Page 19

19

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE BACHELORETTE…

SHILOH

I know I should be happy given the poorly decorated party hat on my head and the fountain of endless drinks, but grief lassoes my heart—a constant reminder of the relationship that I just jeopardized. It’s not bad enough that I got into a fight with the one person who matters to me most, but to get into a fight hours before my friend’s bachelorette party?

I have to be the most selfish person on this entire planet.

I shouldn’t be thinking about my own problems right now. I should be here for Aeris, celebrating her future instead of dwelling on mine—or lack thereof. This is her last night of freedom. Tomorrow, she’ll be a married woman, starting the next chapter in her life.

Three weeks. My three weeks are up. After the wedding, I’ll get my wish and go back to my lackluster life without Fulton—without him reassuring me with words of affection or surprising me with sweet acts of service.

My eyes roam over the girls screaming their lungs out to a Britney Spears song, and judging by the way Aeris is swaying on her feet, I’m betting she’s more alcohol than blood right now .

I wish Fulton was here. I wish I could just live in the moment instead of always worrying about what’s to come. I wish I could stow away this self-directed anger and have everything go back to the way it was.

Fulton’s and my relationship has been nothing but a revolving door of will they or won’t they. One minute, I’m floating on cloud nine, and the next, I can barely keep my head above water as some leviathan latches a tentacle around my ankle and pulls me down, down, down into the depths of doubt and misguided self-preservation.

Did I overreact? I know Fulton was just trying to help, but I was so thrown off when he offered to pay off everything . That’s not pocket money, alright? At least, not for me. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who in their right mind would give someone that much money after only truly knowing them for three weeks? No matter how insignificant the sum might be for him, I vowed years ago to never take money from someone I care about. And I care about Fulton—so much it aches.

Ugh, I’m such a fucking mess. Who am I going to attack next, unprovoked, because I made the idiotic decision to keep all my qualms compartmentalized on a three-week vacation with some of the most successful people in the entire world? It’s not their fault that I hate my life.

I do, don’t I?

Then he made that comment about abandonment, and that was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m prioritizing work over him. Oh my God. I’m doing the exact same thing his dad did. And I’m no better than that girl who dangled a relationship in front of him just so she could pull it away at the last minute. The most important person in my life shouldn’t have to play second fiddle to my stupid job.

I sip rather aggressively on my dirty martini, hoping that I can either numb the pain or black out before the memories come barreling back. Aeris—even though she isn’t the host of the party—comes flouncing over to me with no knowledge of the untamed anger vibrating through my five-foot body, and she takes the liberty to sit down next to me, clinging to her drink like it’s Liquid I.V. instead of alcohol.

“Why the long face, Shiloh?” she asks in a motherly tone, her words surprisingly understandable for someone who I doubt can walk in a straight line.

I take a balled fist and try to scrub the frown from my mouth, as if it’ll suddenly disappear with a little elbow grease. “Sorry. I, uh, I’m just a little tired tonight,” I flub, the lie tasting like cigarette ash on my palate.

“Aw, love. You should get some rest. Nobody’s going to hold it against you if you leave early. I’m just happy you were able to show up for a while.”

Goddammit, Aeris. Why do you have to be so nice?

I shake my head, placing my glass down on the table that’s overrun with torn streamers, confetti, glow-in-the-dark penis stickers, and a disturbingly graphic, half-eaten dick cake with sprinkles for ball hairs and buttercream frosting for cum. There’s a very phallic theme going on here.

“It’s not that kind of tired. It’s like”—I press down on my chest, right where my heart is, right where it knocks against my ribs like death’s skeletal hand on my front door —“a soul kind of tired.”

Aeris nods in understanding, readjusting the pink Bride-to-Be sash over her body. “Do you want to talk about it?” There’s a sweet tone to her voice, as soft as velvet as it wraps around me in an incorporeal embrace.

“It’s not important. This is your big night. Don’t worry about me.”

It’s not my goal to put a damper on the evening—it’s just hard to be in high spirits when I’m already mourning this incredible vacation that Fulton so graciously gifted me. It’s like I can’t enjoy it anymore because it’s so close to ending.

Thank you, pessimism.

Aeris tacks on a frown, and she rests a hand on my leg, attentively searching my face for any crack in my carefully cultivated facade. “It is important. Don’t invalidate your feelings for me. Plus, how could I truly have a good time tonight if I knew my friend was going through something? This is our night. I want to celebrate it with all the important people in my life, and you’re one of them, Shiloh.”

Before I know it, a veil of tears has misted over my eyes, but I’m quick to blink them away. I’ve never met someone with as big of a heart as Aeris. We were strangers three weeks ago, and now I’m important enough to be in her bridal party.

I wonder if that would change if she knew how I treated Fulton.

I glance up at the conga line that the rest of the girls have formed, completely oblivious to the internal mayhem taking me for one hell of a death-defying ride. They’re all smiles and raucous laughter, drunk off good company and capitalizing on the overflowing buffet of carbs. For them, this vacation isn’t the end of the road.

A cold sweat tiptoes down my spine, and the Fulton-specific butterflies in my belly flap in a frenzy similar to the way animals flee when they sense danger. “Fulton and I got into an argument,” I whisper beneath my breath, picking at a hangnail on my thumb.

Instead of the sympathetic “Mm-hm, tell me more” I was expecting, Aeris turns into the fucking Terminator, her big, endearing eyes replaced with ones that verge on destructive vengeance. She tries her best to remain impartial, but the grit of her teeth says otherwise.

“What. Did. He. Do.”

A groan and a sigh roll into one, and I throw my head back against the couch. “He didn’t do anything. It was my fault. ”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

A flux of guilt tosses my stomach, and without so much as a warning, I collapse quicker than a house of cards, moisture sloshing over my waterlines. There’s a blistering kind of heat in my nasal cavities—one that goes against my harebrained decision to bottle up my emotions.

I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to take away from Aeris’ spotlight. I’ve convinced myself that I’m some selfless saint, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“My family’s business is going under. I didn’t want to burden Fulton with the truth b-because I didn’t want to believe it was really happening. Then I got a call from the bank telling me that they declined the loan we applied for, and Fulton offered to pay off all the expenses. I yelled at him because h-he just doesn’t understand. I’ve worked countless hours to help my parents siphon enough money for a retirement fund from a crappy little coffee shop, and to have all of that just disregarded with one flick of his black card? I’ve taken money from people I care about before, and all it did was l-leave them in financial ruins. Fulton?—”

“Take a breath,” Aeris says, rubbing a mollifying hand on my shoulder, the brown of her eyes like softened earth after a rainstorm.

I do as she says, feeling my body pulse from dehydration and the growing temperature of the room. Or maybe it’s because I’m crying out all my water retention. Everything’s overstimulating—the lights, the voices, the decorations. Fulton’s my first-rate reprieve, and all I want to do is curl up in his arms and fall asleep to the sound of his breathing.

We were happy. I was happy. Why did I have to ruin it? Why do I have to ruin everything?

“I’m s-sorry,” I slur through an alcohol-soaked voice, praying that the rest of the bachelorette party doesn’t take pity on me and form some kind of intervention. “I think I really messed up. And now he probably hates me, you know? I mean, I fucking hate me.”

I don’t know why I expect Aeris to be mad at me, but I’m grateful when she offers me a kind look, the makings of a small smile tucked into her cheeks. “You’re going through a lot right now. You don’t need to apologize. And you don’t need to find someone to blame either. You saw his offer to help as a debt that you weren’t willing to pay, and he saw your reaction to his offer as a rejection,” she explains, sponging up the last residuum of guilt inside me.

“I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.”

Snapshots of our fight keep coming back to me—each time worse than the last—and my heart winces when I replay the words that spewed from my mouth like magma from a volcano, hardwired to burn everything in its path.

“I don’t think you did. Fulton’s always been sensitive—that’s one of his strengths, believe it or not. He’s always second-guessing what to say or do, but when he finally got the courage to talk to you, I think some of that fear went away. I’ve never seen him so… himself …with anyone before. When you told him you were in trouble, his first instinct was probably to fix your problem for you, because that’s how he shows he cares.”

He told me he wasn’t going to let me drown.

“From the short interactions we’ve had together, Shiloh, I can tell you’re a very independent person. You’d rather have others rely on you than vice versa. But when you’re with Fulton, you just…”

Hoots and hollers from the other attendees simmer in the air, drowning out the sporadic sniffles that keep interspersing Aeris’ bestowment of wisdom.

“I just…?”

Aeris slips her finger under a strand of my hair, liberating it from the thin paperboard digging into my scalp. “You just let your guard down,” she finishes .

I knew I felt more at ease around him, but I didn’t realize other people could see it. Fulton doesn’t see me for my capabilities. He sees me for my soul .

“It’s that noticeable?”

“Oh, love, anyone with two working eyes could see how much you care for him. Don’t get me started on Fulton—that boy is an open book whenever he’s around you, and discreet isn’t in his vocabulary. He is undeniably, irrevocably in love with you.”

Love? There’s no way…it’s too soon. That’s preposterous. He likes me, sure, but love is a strong word. A word that definitely doesn’t fit the bill now that I’ve shown him my true colors. I can’t accept this. I can’t accept the fact that someone may love me, and I have to check back into reality in a couple days.

I open my mouth to politely rebut her statement, but Lila comes speeding into frame with the conspicuity of an elephant, swiping her finger through the frosting on Aeris’ haunting cock cake. “No, Shi. He loves you. With a capital L. Hell, me and the girls have a running bet to see how fast he asks you to be his girlfriend.”

Sensibility finally finds its way back to me after playing hooky, and cold, hard reality body-slams me into the ground. Everything is starting to click. A guy doesn’t research a girl’s specific hair care routine in case she has a bad hair day because he likes her. A guy doesn’t surprise a girl with baby turtles that she mentioned once in passing because he likes her. A guy doesn’t offer to pay off a girl’s business expenses because she expresses how devastated she’d be if her family’s shop went out of business because he likes her.

Oh my God.

I do my best to fix my haggard appearance without the help of a mirror, as if Fulton’s magically going to burst through the door and beg for my forgiveness. “How do I fix this? How do I choose between him and my family’s shop? ”

Just hearing it out loud, the answer should be obvious enough. So why isn’t it? Why can’t I let myself be happy? Is it because I never thought I was good enough? Good enough to manage a business, good enough to be somebody’s wife one day?

There’s a hand on my back, and while the fat droplets of my tears scallop my lash line, I crank my neck to find Cali in my peripheral. “Have you ever thought that maybe the two can coexist with each other?” she inquires.

A hiccup racks my entire frame as snot makes a… timely …appearance. “I can’t…”

“Your family’s business needs you, Shiloh,” Aeris assures me. “But Fulton needs you too, and I think you need him more. I think you need him to ground you—to remind you that there’s more to life than work.”

I can barely see in front of me. I can’t breathe out of my nostrils. It feels like my heart’s breaking all over again, but I’m the one committing the act. There has to be a way I can balance my two lives. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Fulton. I haven’t even given our relationship a chance outside of Cabo.

Josie and Faye both come over to console me, and Faye offers me a box of tissues as if her maternal instincts had suddenly kicked in—or she heard my obnoxious caterwauling from across the room. I take a tissue from her, pay my thanks, then blow rather harshly into it.

The organ in my chest hurts , and there’s an anchor in my stomach that keeps pulling downwards. “I don’t know how to live my life when?—”

“When you’re living for yourself rather than others?” Faye finishes, the understanding in her tone like a salve to the open wound on my heart, staunching any further bleeding.

I don’t, and I’m afraid that it’ll destroy me. I’m afraid of being out of control. I’m afraid of having my routine messed up. I’m afraid of change—and Fulton’s a bigger change than me potentially losing the entire shop.

“What am I even supposed to say to him? What am I supposed to do about his offer?” I panic, glancing around at the circle of girlfriends who’ve all put a pause on partying to comfort me , still a newcomer to the group.

Josie wipes a few confetti casualties off her skirt. “First, I think you need to be truthful about how you feel. Then, I think you need to at least try and hear him out.”

Fulton deserves the truth. He deserves to know why I blew up at him out of nowhere. All those words I put into his mouth…they weren’t true. And it was low of me to pin my own insecurities on him. I won’t let the night end like this— I won’t .

Even though my makeup is running, there’s a caffeine-deficient throb in my forehead, and I’ll be blindly walking into the Reapers’ man cave with a half-baked plan, I still have enough motivation to pull myself from my sulking.

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” I ask timidly.

And suddenly, the 90s playlist that was playing in the background is lost beneath harmonious laughter—the kind that crinkles noses, debuts dimples, and burns cores.

Aeris throws me a really ? look. “Love, an ocean couldn’t keep you and Fulton apart.”