Chapter 1 - "I Snuck Out to Kiss My Ex During Our Engagement Party—He Found Us & Exposed Me to Both Families
My fiancé stopped saying my name when he saw my ex’s hand on my waist.
Inside, ninety people were waiting to toast our future.
I thought the kiss was the worst thing he could discover that night.
The fountain kept running behind me. Through the terrace doors, I could hear someone laughing, followed by the bright clink of a spoon against a champagne glass. Marcus stood on the gravel path in the jacket I had helped him choose that morning. He was looking at Tyler’s hand as it slipped away from my dress.
“Marcus.” I pushed a strand of hair away from my lipstick. “Please.” Tyler stepped back against a stone planter, leaving me alone in the space we had occupied together. Marcus didn’t move closer.
“How long?” he asked. There was no shouting, nothing loud enough to bring our families outside. I glanced at Tyler, hoping he might find words I couldn’t. Marcus noticed. “Look at me, Jessica.”
“It isn’t what you think.” The sentence sounded rehearsed, although I had never imagined needing it. Tyler had kissed me first. But I had touched his jacket, leaned toward him, stayed until I heard my fiancé call my name.
Marcus looked at my left hand. Less than an hour earlier, the photographer had asked me to hold it against his chest so the ring would show. Now I curled my fingers into my palm, and his mouth tightened. I wanted to uncurl them, but he had already looked away.
Three weeks earlier, Tyler’s first message had arrived while Marcus was cooking dinner in my kitchen. “Heard the news, Jess. Congratulations. He’s a lucky guy.” Marcus had asked who made me smile, and I had told him. He nodded, then asked whether I wanted more rice.
He trusted me enough to keep cooking. I answered Tyler while the plates were still warm. By the next week, we were talking about our breakup; by the week after that, I was turning my phone toward my lap when Marcus sat beside me. Each time, I found a smaller name for what I was doing.
When Tyler asked to attend the engagement party, I told Marcus it would be rude to exclude someone who only wanted to congratulate us. Marcus had been folding laundry. He held one of my sweaters for a moment before saying, “I’m not thrilled about it. But I trust you to handle it.”
Now that same man stood three feet away, holding his arms close to his sides. “We’ve just been catching up,” I said. I reached for his sleeve. He stepped back before I could touch him, and the crunch of gravel sounded terribly loud.
“Marcus, let’s go inside,” Tyler said. “We don’t need an audience.” Marcus kept his eyes on me. Behind him, the terrace door opened, spilling music across the garden.
My sister Emma appeared first. She looked at Tyler, then at me, and stopped with her hand still on the door. My mother came behind her carrying a champagne flute. “They’re ready for the family picture,” she began.
Nobody answered. Her gaze moved to Marcus’s face, then to mine. I waited for her to ask what had happened, to give me a question I could answer carefully. Instead, she lowered her glass and said, “I’m sorry, Marcus.”
“Mom, you don’t understand.” She looked at me then, but Marcus was already reaching into his pocket. He took out his phone, opened something, and turned the screen toward me. It was a message I had sent Tyler the day before.
May you like
“Maybe I need some closure before all of this.”
My mother leaned closer to read it. Marcus watched me as I finally understood: he hadn’t come outside wondering where I was. He had come outside to ask about the messages...
