No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(57)

Her expression grew serious. “But we get to shower after this, right?”

I arched a brow, exhaling slowly. “Is that an invitation?”

She shoved my chest, laughing harder. “No. Separate showers. Separate places.”

“Damn.” I took her hand in mine and led her toward the kitchen. “Come on, let’s do this.”

When we reached her center island, I ripped open the bag and dumped it upside down, spilling out its contents onto the marble surface.

The double-sided yellow sticky note stuck out from beneath a pile of fabric. Hannah plucked it free. “Your list?”

I nodded. “That list and all the shallow emptiness it represents, that was the old me. That piece of paper is the only physical evidence of how badly she f*cked me up. You got a pan we can burn this in?”

After a slow nod with a dubious expression on her face, she bent down and pulled out a large pan with both hands. It had a metal lid with a glass insert in the center.

I tilted my head, reconsidering the idea. “It won’t ruin the pan?” The last thing I wanted to do was destroy something of value as we obliterated items that had become worthless.

“Nope. It’s a SCANPAN, fired in thirty-six-thousand-degree heat. We’re good.” She put it on the stove and lifted the lid.

I dropped the list into the center of the dark surface. “Excellent.”

She dropped the lid down, her attention shifting to what remained on the counter. “Pants?”

I nodded. “New pants I’d bought for the infamous date and wore that night, which had the pocket that held her ring in a velvet box. Don’t know why I kept them. Everything else was tossed in the trash in a fit of rage. Every letter, card, movie stub, T-shirt, her favorite pillow, our favorite movie, her favorite CD—all of it was thrown into a giant heap on February fifteenth. Weeks later, I realized I’d forgotten the pants.”

She lifted the lid off the pan again and tipped her head toward it.

I grabbed the pile of wool and dumped it on the list. The material spilled far over the edge of the large pan, making it seem woefully inadequate. “You sure we won’t set fire to the place?”

Hannah set the lid on the counter, then bent over, opening a slim cabinet door beside the stove. She pulled out a fire extinguisher and placed it beside the lid.

I snorted. “Use that often?”

“Precautions of the trade.” She crossed her arms. “What now?”

“Your turn. Do you have something from Dumbf*ck to burn?”

Her gaze fell to my pants overflowing from her pan. She stared at them, blinking.

I waited, remaining patient, knowing that we walked this path together. My anguish was hers; her pain, mine. I hoped to relive this one last time, then banish it forever, finally moving on with our lives.

“Yeah.” Her voice was quiet, but strong. “I have something.”

Hannah turned and left the kitchen. I followed her into her spare front room where she disappeared behind the half-opened door of a walk-in closet. When she emerged, a large black garment bag was in her arms. She crossed the room and laid it flat across an empty table that was pushed against the wall beneath the window.

She took a deep breath. Then with slow movements, she proceeded to unzip it from top to bottom. A mass of frothy white material billowed out. The more it spilled out on its own, the faster she pulled, until a giant heap of silk and lace covered her table.

“That’s it?” Staring at the dress, I tried to make light of the heavy tension in the room.

She nodded. “It’s all I have.”

When I glanced at her, she sighed. “I threw away everything of his and ours too. There were so many things, I had to stack five large trash bags and a chair out by the curb. I stripped the sheets, bared the walls, got rid of the big screen that he’d bought for the living room. All of it.”

“But not the dress.”

She shook her head.

“That you kept a dress and I kept pants should say something ridiculous about us, but I can’t for the life of me figure it out right now.”

I stared at the pile of white fluff—her wedding dress. The ultimate symbol of most girls’ dreams and hopes for her future lay in a heap, once cherished, now discarded.

Gauging her mood as she stared at the pile with me, I said the first thing that came to mind. “A pan on the stove ain’t gonna cut it. We’re gonna need a bonfire.”

She didn’t even laugh. In a lunging movement, she scooped up the mass. Then she spun around and left the room. I followed her down the hall, watching as the outside edges of the bundle in her arms dragged along the walls, tiny beads scraping where they made contact with the smooth plaster.

Not wanting her to have any permanent marks to deal with after this, I reached behind her and held the fabric away from the walls.

When we made it back to the kitchen, Hannah nodded to the stove. “Grab the pan.”

I obeyed and followed her to her back door. While she slipped her socked feet into a worn pair of sneakers, she blindly fumbled with the latch, which was hidden by the mountain of material, until she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

A cold, damp breeze hit our faces. The mineral scent on the air felt cleansing, renewing, as if the universe conspired with us to set things right again.

We crossed her patio decking, then went down three steps and out into a sloping yard. Near the water, a grouping of teak Adirondack chairs surrounded a brick pit filled with ash.