On the Rocks(3)

And should consider themselves lucky.

Anyway, I didn’t need her to come with me. I had Grace, and Grace had her champagne, so everyone was happy. Things were going great. I loved this dress. I imagined I’d love it even more twelve sizes smaller so I could raise my arms without it falling down around my waist.

My phone beeped rapidly three more times in succession, but I refused to get down off the pedestal. I loved my friends, but didn’t they know that wedding dress shopping requires complete concentration and that I shouldn’t be disturbed?

“Oh. My. God,” Grace said as she stared at me, still clothespinned into the size 22 dress, enjoying, unbeknownst to me, the last few moments of happiness I would have for a very long time. “Oh my God,” she said again. The color had suddenly drained from her face, and it had nothing to do with the fact that prison waiting rooms had better lighting than this dressing room, or that she had rapidly consumed three glasses of champagne on an empty stomach.

“What?” I asked, finally able to tear myself away from my own reflection in the three-way mirror. I was beginning to feel a bit vain staring at myself for as long as I had, but I couldn’t help it. I looked freakin’ amazing in this thing.

“This can’t be right,” she said as she shook her head. “This can’t possibly be right. I’m . . . confused.”

“What?” I said again as I felt goose bumps rise all over my back and my arms. It was as if my subconscious was ready to admit there was a problem before my brain was, because my brain was too busy admiring the duchess silk satin I was swathed in.

“Check your phone,” she said as she snatched it off the floor and handed it to me. I scrolled through my text messages, realizing that I had three from friends and one from my little sister.

What the hell happened?

Are you okay?

Hang in there, Abby!

Hey sis, call me! I need to talk to you!

“Why is everyone telling me to hang in there and asking me if I’m okay?” I asked, confused. “What’s this about?”

“Someone is clearly just messing with him,” Grace said, forcing a smile so grotesquely insincere I worried for a second that her body had been invaded by a pod person.

“I sound like an echo, Grace. I repeat, What is going on? Answer me,” I demanded, my nerves finally detectable in my voice. “What the hell are they talking about? Why wouldn’t I be okay? I’m wearing Vera Wang. It’s impossible to not be okay in Vera Wang. It’s every girl’s happy place, a veritable bridal Shangri-la.”

Grace stuttered, and sputtered, and coughed, trying desperately to delay saying what she had no choice but to say. “Abby, look at Ben’s Facebook page,” she finally managed to squeak out as she tentatively handed me her iPad, the Facebook application already uploaded. “And here,” she said as she also handed me her champagne flute. “Drink this.”

For a second, I didn’t see it. I saw the usual pictures of him with his buddies, and wall posts from his friends, and stupid information about the Patriots and the Red Sox, but I didn’t see it.

Until I did. Then I realized there were a lot of things I apparently didn’t see.

Then everything faded to black.





Chapter 2



I Thought He Was the Love of My Life . . . and He Thought I Was a Sock




AFTER I SAW Ben’s Facebook post changing his status to single and telling everyone he had ever met in his life (except me) that we were over, I did what any red-blooded American girl who had been trying on wedding dresses for impending nuptials would have done: I went directly to his apartment and tried to break down his door with my fists. When that didn’t work, I walked halfway down the hallway, took off in a full sprint, and charged the door with my shoulder like they do on TV cop shows, but since I’m only five-two and weighed 110 pounds at the time, all I managed to do was bruise my shoulder so badly I couldn’t raise my arm above my head for six weeks. I probably could’ve tried ringing the doorbell like a normal person, which would have alerted me to the fact that he wasn’t home, but adrenaline and shock will make a girl do really stupid things.

I sat in the hallway outside his door for over three hours, calling him again and again and again until the battery on my phone died, with no answer. I had no clue what was going on, but I refused to admit that I had missed warning signs that Ben was about to freak out and tell me he didn’t want to get married by changing his Facebook status. Nobody is that stupid. Sure, there was his disinterest in all the wedding details, and the fact that I had to change the date multiple times because the timing wasn’t good for him. And sure, he was working really late every night, and we hadn’t hooked up in over a month, and then there was that random apartment rental site in Tucson I saw on his laptop that he swore was for a friend. But really, that’s not sufficient evidence to prove that your fiancé’s about to bolt. I mean, it’s not like he put it in skywriting or posted it on Facebook or anything.

Fine. I actually am that stupid.

I heard footsteps and knew it was him. We had been together so long I could recognize the rhythm of his walk, so I didn’t even bother to look up. “Oh, Abby,” he said when he reached the top of the stairs and saw me sitting on the floor with my head buried in my hands. “How long have you been here?” he asked, like he was oh so very sorry for the huge inconvenience of making me wait in the hallway.