Page 3 of The Long Way Home
“Anderson, thank you for seeing her. For choosing her. For being the one who reminds her every day that she deserves the happiness she has created for herself. I can’t imagine anyone more perfect for her than you.
“I’ll admit, I was skeptical at first. Not because of you, but because of how fiercely I’ve guarded Margo. She is the most important person in my life, and I wasn’t about to let just anyone step into her world. But then I watched you with her. The way you listen when she talks, even when she’s going on about how each shade of white paint somehow completely changes the mood of a room. The way you sincerely laugh at her jokes, not the polite laugh, but the real one. And most of all, the way you look at her, like she is the only person in the room you see.
You make her feel seen. You make her feel safe and loved. And I know because I’ve seen her light up in ways I didn’t think were possible again. That’s all I could ever want for her.”
I raise my glass, my voice softer now. My eyes sweep across the room, friends, family, the happy chaos of celebration, but before I can turn back toward the happy couple, my eyes freeze, and my breath snags mid-inhale.
He is here? I must be hallucinating. Too much champagne, maybe. I squint, trying to make sense of it.
Oh,shit.
He sits just beyond the second table, half-hidden behind someone’s shoulder, but completely unmistakable.
Rhett Hayes.
For a heartbeat, the words blur on my tongue. My pulse stumbles, traitorous. I don’t let my gaze linger, not even a second, but I feel him looking back at me. Calm, steady, as if my sudden unraveling doesn’t register to him at all.
Do not let Rhett Hayes ruin this moment. You’ve already let him ruin too many things.
I force my mouth to move as my grip tightens around the microphone. “So here’s to my sister, Margo, and my new brother-in-law, Anderson…” My voice steadies, mostly. The practiced rhythm returns. But my fingers tremble slightly against the glass stem, and I pray no one notices.
“To a love that endures, that heals and still makes room for joy. May your days be filled with laughter, your nights with peace and your half of the closet with only half of Anderson’s hoodies, because trust me, those are Margo’s hoodies now.”
I let out a small, shaky laugh at the last line, hoping no one can see how thrown off I am, and glance at Margo. She is smiling through glistening eyes, leaning into Anderson, and my chest warms just a little.
Glasses clink. Laughter bubbles. Applause makes its way through the room. For a fleeting second, everything feels almost perfect.
Except my glass feels too heavy in my hand, my smile too forced. I manage to set the microphone back on its stand, nodding at the polite applause as if nothing inside me has just cracked wide open.
I can’t process it. Why is he here, in the same room as me? How did my body not prick up the way it used to? Didn’t it sense he was in my orbit? My brain stutters as I try to make sense of the puzzle piece that no longer fits into my life.
I walk back toward our table on legs that don’t feel steady, rehearsing normalcy with every step. Smile. Breathe. Don’t look over to him again. Just keep moving forward.
Ben stands as I approach, ever the gentleman. He slides my chair out for me while his hand brushes my back.
“You killed it, babe,” he says warmly, kissing my temple as I sit. “Seriously, I know you were worried you’d mess up orsomething, but you really only tripped over your words at the end.”
I force a smile. “Thanks, Ben.”
“Anyway, speaking of public speaking,” he says, spinning the conversation back to himself like a practiced trick, “did I tell you my client called me personally to thank me for the pitch I did last week? I swear, moments like that remind me why people hire me. Not everyone could pull that off, you know? I mean, look, you’re a prime example. You hate public speaking, no way you could have pulled it off.”
I nod politely, gripping my glass. “Yeah… impressive.”
“And it’s crazy,” he continues, completely oblivious to my eyes darting to the other side of the room, “because I was running on three hours of sleep, but somehow, I still made it look effortless. Honestly, I don’t know how I do it sometimes. People tell me all the time, ‘Ben, how do you even…?’ and I just shrug. I guess some of us are just built for it.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. That’s the thing with Ben. There is always a performance to be had. A curated version of him that feels like it exists just for others’ perception. I swear it used to not always be like this.
When I met him just over a year and a half ago, we were electric. He had that kind of effortless charm that made you forget yourself for a while. That night, he made me feel seen. I wasn’t just someone’s sister or someone’s responsibility. I was picked from a crowd specifically for him. I let myself believe that kind of attention was something I’d earned.
“You know,” he says, leaning closer now, lowering his voice in that way he thinks is intimate, but my mind is elsewhere, “sometimes I wonder if you even realize how lucky you are to have someone like me around. I mean it. People notice me when I walk in, and then they notice you alongside me. That’s gotta be validating, right?”
I stiffen but force a laugh. “Yeah, totally validating.”
I guess sparks like that aren’t made to last. Not with someone like me. Those late-night conversations gave way to silence. His gaze turned impatient. The warmth faded under the slow creep of cold words and subtle dismissals. He was never outright cruel to me, just quietly corrosive. Sharp edges I didn’t see coming, making me feel like I’m too much and still not enough.
And yet, I stayed. I still stay. I guess that probably says more about me than him.
Familiarity feels like a trap, but it is one I know how to navigate. Unraveling all of this and stepping into the unknown again is terrifying. So, I’ve made a life inside the walls of something that no longer feels like love. Most days, I can convince myself it’s fine. That I’m fine. I’ve learned how to find fulfillment elsewhere.
