Page 99 of Love, Second Chances and Other Nonsense
“There were two staterooms,” he continues, his voice dropping slightly. “Side by side, with connecting doors between them. My parents and everyone else had one room.” He swallows hard. “And I was assigned to share the other room with Millie and Rhonda.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, but I force myself to remain composed. “You shared a room with Millie.”
It’s not a question, but Adam nods anyway, misery etched into every line of his face. “Yes.”
“Your mother put you in a room with the woman she wanted you to be with,” I say, the words coming out flat and emotionless despite the storm raging inside me. “The woman who wasn’t your fiancee.”
“Yes.” He looks down at his hands.
I try to picture it, Adam sleeping in the same room as Millie, just feet away from her. Brushing his teeth at the same sink. Changing clothes in the same space. The intimacy makes my skin crawl.
“Why didn’t you refuse?” I ask, my voice finally betraying some of the hurt churning inside me. “Why didn’t you demand a different arrangement?”
“I should have,” he admits. “I was stunned when I saw the room assignments. I asked my mother why she’d done it, and she said it was more cost-effective to get two staterooms.”
A bitter laugh escapes me before I can stop it. “Cost-effective. For a family that could afford a Caribbean cruise.”
“I know. It didn’t make sense then, and it makes even less sense now.” Adam runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I used to find endearing but now just seems like a nervous tic. “I should have stood my ground. I should have demanded my own room, or refused to go altogether.”
“Why didn’t Hailey share with Millie and Rhonda?” I ask, grasping at the one logical solution that might have made the situation less inappropriate. “That would have made more sense than your sharing with them.”
Adam’s face flushes with shame. “My mother said Hailey snores, and Rhonda is a light sleeper. That they’d be miserable sharing.” He hesitates. “But on the last day, Hailey got drunkand told me the real reason. My mother had told her that she was trying to give Millie and me some ‘quality time’ together. She thought it was quite funny.”
My head spins with the implications. “Your mother was matchmaking. While you were engaged to me.”
“Yes.” The word seems torn from him. “She was trying to push us together, hoping that spending time with Millie would remind me of what we supposedly had in high school.”
“And you went along with it,” I say, my voice trembling slightly now. “You didn’t tell her it was inappropriate, or disrespectful to me, or just plain wrong. You slept in that room with her.”
“I told myself it wasn’t what it looked like,” Adam says, desperation creeping into his voice. “That Rhonda was there as a chaperone, that nothing could happen, that it was just a sleeping arrangement.”
“That’s not the point!” The words burst out of me, louder than I intended. “The point is that your mother deliberately created a situation that undermined our relationship, that put you and Millie together in an intimate setting, and you let her!”
Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. My hands are shaking, and I clench them into fists, nails digging into my palms.
“You’re right,” Adam says quietly. “There’s no excuse. I was afraid of making a scene, of confronting my mother, of dealing with the fallout. I told myself it was just a few days, that it didn’t mean anything, that when I got home, we could put it all behind us.”
“Do you have any idea,” I say without turning around, “what it’s like to know that the person you loved, the person you were planning to marry, shared a room with another woman? That he slept feet away from her while I was alone, wondering why I wasn’t enough?”
“Caitlin—” His voice breaks on my name.
“I’m not finished,” I cut him off, whirling to face him. “Your mother arranged this to push you and Millie together, and you didn’t fight it. You didn’t stand up for me, for us. Do you know what that feels like? It feels like I meant nothing to you.”
Adam flinches as if I’ve struck him. “That’s not true. You meant everything to me. I was just too weak to stand up for what mattered.”
“That’s almost worse,” I whisper, the fight draining out of me suddenly. “If I meant everything to you and you still couldn’t put me first, what does that say about us?”
The question hangs in the air between us, unanswerable. Adam looks utterly defeated, shoulders slumped, eyes hollow.
“What else?” I ask, forcing myself to continue. I feel like I’m walking across a tightrope without a net, each step more precarious than the last. But I can’t stop now. “What else happened on the cruise, Adam? I need to know everything.”
I sit perfectly still, afraid that if I move, the fragile control I have over my emotions will shatter completely. Adam looks at me with a mixture of concern and resignation, like he knows what he’s about to say will hurt me but he’s done hiding from it.
“Go on,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Finish telling me about the cruise.”
“There isn’t much to tell until the last day. I saw Rachel’s post on Instagram that you were back in Oregon on Thanksgiving Day. I spent most of my time trying to avoid everyone and get in touch with you.”
He hesitates and then plunges ahead. “Millie and I went scuba diving the first day. There were supposed to be others with us, but…”
