She’d never felt so betrayed by Tom. But with Leo’s proclamations fresh in her ears, Megan felt as though she had no right to the anger burning within her. It wasn’t fair. How many times had she bitten her tongue rather than speak up about something because of the guilt that had been eating away at her for eight years?
But this. This was too much.
Returning to her suite, the only safe place she could think to go, Megan had to walk past the intimate outdoor wedding reception of two women slow-dancing to the Beatles’ “And I Love Her” while their guests clutched tissues and one another. Megan could barely look.
That was what Megan and Tom had wanted. Despite Leo and before she knew about Missouri. It was what they’d wanted this weekend to be.
Megan got to the suite and closed the door behind her. She sat down but she couldn’t stay still. She had to stand, she had to pace, she had to somehow make her mind slow down.
But she kept thinking of Tom taking a job in another state without telling her. Assuming she’d just give up her own career, her own friends, and follow him. That she’d continue being a marionette, the Prescotts pulling the strings, that he didn’t even need to ask. Like his parents years ago when they’d mapped out Tom’s New York future, he’d just assumed she’d go along with it.
She heard the beep of the key card, saw the door open, and was suddenly, finally, alone with Tom.
Only now she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. Inexplicably, his eyes were blazing, his chest heaving. What did Tom have to be so upset about?
Before Megan could start yelling, Tom took off his suit jacket and threw it at the wall. She’d never seen him throw anything. Something was wrong. More wrong than Missouri. “Tom, are you—”
He stared at his jacket, now on the floor. When he finally raised his chin, he did it so slowly, Megan stopped breathing. She felt it before he said it.
He knew.
“You and Leo.”
Megan nodded, terrified this was finally happening and furious she hadn’t had the guts to make it happen before now.
“For how long?” His voice was low, a growl rumbling underneath, as though he were trying not to cry or had just been screaming.
She swallowed hard, unable to meet his eye as she gathered her thoughts, trying to guess how Tom had found out. What had she missed when she left the dinner? “Just the one time, Tom, I swear. It was eight years ago and I am so, so sorry I didn’t—”
“You expect me to believe it was one time when he just told me he’s in love with you?”
He rubbed his right hand, which appeared red and swollen. Oh God. He’d punched Leo. “All those times you begged out of hanging out with us when he was in town, all those times you hollered ‘Hello’ rather than talk to him on the phone, it was because you two were secretly messaging and meeting and whispering, disregarding my—”
“No.” Missouri aside, Megan felt a desperation to make things right that pushed her across the room. She needed Tom to know she was telling the truth. She took his hands in hers, searched his eyes for some fragment of them.
The very first time Tom and Megan had kissed was on their first official date. After weeks of hanging out, trying not to let their casual touches linger—trying to keep things between them breezy, featherweight, even though everything inside of each of them said, This is the one—Tom had invited her out for dinner. A proper dinner at a charming Mexican restaurant with a margarita menu longer than the entrée options. Megan knew she was already falling in love with him. They’d drunk enough tequila to feel bold (the server hadn’t even bothered to ask for ID) and took a meandering walk through the streets of Cambridge. They stopped on a little bridge that looked like something Monet might paint if he had attended an Ivy League school. Megan touched Tom’s chest because she couldn’t keep not touching his chest. He touched her cheek so softly because she knew he was tired of not touching her cheek. And then he’d said, “Please, may I?” and she’d said, “What are you waiting for?” and the kiss that she felt like she’d traveled every mile between Montana and Massachusetts to experience finally happened.
Megan’s eyes welled at the memory.
“I swear to you. I swear it was a stupid mistake that happened once. I had no idea he was trotting the globe while still having feelings for me—or believing he did. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but the reason I didn’t tell you was that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.” Tom refused to meet her eye. “I didn’t see the point in hurting you unnecessarily for something that happened when we were twenty-two and would never happen again.”
For a split second, he seemed to be softening, but then he threw off her hands and strode to the window. She could see the rigidity in his shoulders. He whipped around with a tremble in his jaw. “It’s bad enough that you cheated, but why did it have to be with him? And if I wasn’t good enough—if I’m not good enough, then why are we even doing this?”
His fury ignited her own.
“Hold on there. I’m not the only one who’s made mistakes. What about this move to Missouri? I can’t believe you went behind my back, Tom. When were you going to tell me? When the moving truck arrived? I’m so sick of not getting a say in anything. Like you think I can’t be trusted to make decisions about my own life.”
“You can’t be trusted,” Tom spat. “You and Leo proved that.”
Her rage braided itself with her shame, with the fear he was right. Wasn’t that why she hadn’t ever voiced her frustrations about John and Carol? She’d given up the right to demand anything from Tom when she’d slept with his best friend. Her guilt about Leo had made just as many of her choices for her as Tom’s parents had.
“That’s low and you know it,” Megan whispered. “You can weaponize my mistake or you can own up to the fact that when it comes to your family, you just roll over. We’re leaving New York City and you didn’t have the decency to even consult me. How dare you.”
“I…” Tom had no response. Whether it was out of the pain of facing the truth or because he didn’t want to waste his breath continuing this argument, Megan didn’t know.
The faint clanking of ancient pipes broke the silence. It carried on until Megan’s adrenaline drained away, replaced with a fatigue so deep, she thought she’d drown in it. She’d almost forgotten there was still a rehearsal dinner going on just outside their window.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he finally said.
“You weren’t supposed to tell me! You were supposed to ask. To talk to me about it. What about my life in New York? My work? My friends? Did that even occur to you?”
“I thought you could switch departments and work remotely for a while,” he mumbled. And then his eyes grew vicious again. “But all that is irrelevant, isn’t it? Because I might have taken a job without consulting you, but you slept with my best friend.”
Lightning flashed and thunder cracked outside. She waited for the accompanying rain to start hitting the windowpanes but heard nothing. The thunderstorm passed as quickly as it had started.
The silence that followed became a planet between them, with its own gravity and atmosphere. It expanded into a galaxy until fear and weariness, fury and despair, gave way to the numbness of practical matters.
“The guests,” she began quietly, too tired to formulate more than fragmented thoughts. “Our families. The rehearsal dinner. The wedding.”
Tom paused for so long, Megan thought he might come and hold her. Might try to make things better. But when the pause was over, it ended with a terrible blow.
“This isn’t a wedding.” Tom’s eyes flickered with bottomless anger and hurt. “This is a fucking funeral.”
His words took the wind out of her. “Are you saying…”
“I’m calling it off.” Tom spoke the words with more finality than she’d ever heard before.
The first time Tom kissed Megan was on an enchanted bridge during a time when magic felt real. Possible. They’d reached for each other because every molecule within them needed to.
And now, in a dimly lit suite overlooking the ocean and her grandparents’ boat, Happy Accident, Megan realized Tom would never kiss her again. She didn’t touch his chest because she couldn’t. He didn’t touch her cheek because he didn’t seem to want to. He grabbed the suit jacket he’d thrown in his fury and walked out the door.
Gone.
She clutched her stomach, winded from the brutal exchange. Corrosive tears burned down her cheeks, marking every hurt she’d kept to herself for the past twelve years. Every time Tom’d aligned himself with his parents rather than her. Every time he’d kept his mouth shut when they’d insulted her family. Because if she could only admit it, sleeping with Leo had felt less like a betrayal and more like payback. A betrayal for a betrayal.
She crawled into bed and pushed her face into the pillow, her professionally applied makeup staining the white hotel linens; sleep eventually overtook her. There was a part of Megan’s subconscious that wished morning would never come.