Page 139 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
Safe might be better for some people, but not for me.
My palms are slick as I sit on the bed in our room, waiting for Alice to come out of the shower. I think might hurl into the trash can if the nerves in my stomach don’t stop banging around like a ship’s rigging in a storm.
It’s killing me, having to break Alice’s heart the night before our wedding. But I love her too much to let her marry someone whose heart will always, at least a little bit, belong to someone else.
Maybe nobody’s heart ever wholly belongs to a single person. People wander in and out of our lives, taking pieces with them, leaving us less than whole when they go. But Alice deserves better. She deserves the kind of all-consuming, passionate love I know for a fact exists. I’ve had it.
Just not with her.
I can’t imagine life with Tressa being anything less than a giant adventure, one that excites me every day. The prospect of spending years holding her, mining the depths of this Tressa who has proven she’s changed enough to want me to be happy, to communicate, ignites an electric charge under my skin. It hums, spilling anticipation though my blood.
Alice comes out of the bathroom, her wet hair dripping on the shoulders of her Iowa T-shirt, short legs sticking out of an old pair of shorts. She takes one look at my face and her shoulders sag, the defeated posture twisting my heart.
“We need to talk, Al.”
Nine
Tressa
SAMMIE’S EYES FIND mine in the mirror as my fingers zip her into her cobalt blue bridesmaid’s dress. “Can I ask you something?”
“As long as it’s not ‘what the fuck are you doing here.’ ”
“No, it’s not that.” She pauses, turning around to inspect the rear view. “When did you change your mind? About Noel.”
“It was never about Noel. It was about me.” I reach out to tighten the silver bow at the back of her waist. “I fell in love with him that summer but I wasn’t ready. I wanted a fling, some fun, and to go back to school. When I wised up, started to see our meeting as serendipity instead of inconvenience, he’d gotten back together with Alice.”
“You waited too long.”
I shrug. “It was stupid and self-centered but I thought he’d be waiting when I was ready. We didn’t feel breakable, not to me, and . . . yeah. I waited too long.” Tears fill my eyes but I smile through them. “You look gorgeous. When do you need to be at the church?”
“An hour.”
A knock echoes through the hotel room, turning both of our heads.
“Miranda must have forgotten her key.”
“I’ll get it,” I tell her.
Noel’s face appears on the other side of the door and my blood freezes. He’s wearing a threadbare T-shirt and khaki shorts, socks, and running shoes, and an expression that looks as sick and miserable as I feel inside.
“Can we talk?” His voice cracks a little, like he’s a teenager again.
“Of course.”
I lead him past Sammie’s huge eyes, and when we cross the threshold to one of the suite’s bedrooms, he turns and clears his throat. “Sam, you shouldn’t go to the church.”
Her mouth falls open as he closes the door and walks to the bed, then sits and faces me. A second later, I hear the front door snick closed and know we’re alone. Noel pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, the slump of his shoulders making me want to hold him.
I stand by the door, scared to move and make this dissolve.
He looks up, his blue eyes stoic. “Sit?”
The familiar heat between us increases, even though I sit far enough away that we’re not touching.
“I called off the wedding.”
My heart slams into my rib cage, knocking the breath from my lungs. “Why?”
