Chapter Two

Jay

“You’re a fucking bastard, Jay. A fucking cruel, heartless bastard. If I didn’t have an operating list, I’d come over to your house right now and stove your fucking, bastard head in.”

Such an erudite surgeon. His patients would be so proud. I hold the phone a safe distance from my ear until he’s finished his rant, deserving every single word of it, including having my head stoved in. Unfortunately, that volley of swearing was only a warmup. Already my headache throbs.

“I mean, what the fuck Jay-Jay? You’ve called off the wedding, like, six days before—six days! And you won’t explain why? Are you mad? I’m surprised you haven’t had your head smacked in already by Ellie’s dad.”

I’m surprised, too, but thankfully, he managed to restrain himself at the last moment for the sake of his successful legal career. And anyway, Ellie is quite capable of giving me a head injury herself, to be honest. She doesn’t need men fighting battles on her behalf. I may have broken her heart, but she’s still got a decent left hook—as I discovered yesterday, by breaking the news that after four years of togetherness, a mortgage, an engagement, and plans for wedded bliss, I’m pulling the plug. Suffice to say, Evan’s current tirade isn’t the first I’ve received on the subject, and I daresay it won’t be the last.

“Fuck, Jay. I spent fucking weeks on my speech. It was fucking hilarious.”

Evan is my best mate and was supposed to be my best man. We met on the first day of med school and got very drunk together at freshers’ fair. Cementing our new friendship, I puked down his shirt, and he pissed in my wardrobe, mistaking it for the toilet. Neither of us have touched vodka since, although other alcoholic beverages are more than welcome to pass my lips, none more so welcome than now. As of yesterday, the role of best man is redundant, and he may choose to rescind the best mate position, too, since all my other friends have deserted me and taken root in Camp Ellie. Even my own parents and sisters are giving me the cold shoulder. But perhaps I’ve underestimated him because now that he’s got it all off his chest, his tone is definitely softer.

“Just give us a clue, Jay. We all deserve that, at least. Have you been over the side and found another girl?”

“No,” I sigh tiredly. “As I have reiterated several times, I haven’t found another girl.”

It’s as if I haven’t spoken.

“Because your Ellie is a fucking angel, mate. You can’t let someone like her get away.” He swears under his breath. “Listen, Jay, I’ve got to go; they’ve just wheeled the first patient into the anaesthetic room. We’ll talk later, yeah?”

We probably will talk later, or rather, he’ll yell some more, and I’ll suck it up. That’s all I can do because the truth is unpalatable to everyone apart from me, and even if I did have the balls to tell them what’s going on, I’m not sure they’d believe me.