Evans sits next to me, close enough for our shoulders to touch. He doesn’t say anything else and I don’t either. I extend my legs in front of me, grateful for the long dress on this chilly night.
In the distance, we can hear cheering, the music from the party…
“You know, I used to love weddings,”Evans finally breaks the silence. He looks straight ahead, almost like he’s talking to himself. “I used to love the hope, the happiness you see in the bride and groom. It’s contagious, isn’t it?” I don’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt his thought process. After a moment, he continues. “I used to have a best friend…Liam.On the night of Liam’s wedding, I proposed to Anne,”
I freeze. I don’t want to move—I don’t want to do anything to discourage him. He’s finally talking to me, opening up to me.
Anne. The runaway bride has a name now.
He bends his leg and rests his arm on his knee. “I met her through my brother,Murphy—she was one of the models. There was something about her. Maybe it was her beauty that made me so attracted to her.” He half-smiles. “She wouldn’t go out with me right away and I thought she was playing hard to get. Little did I know…” he sighs. “We’d been dating for a year when I proposed, and I was one-hundred percent certain she was the love of my life, so you can imagine the happiness I felt when she said yes. We started planning the wedding immediately and it felt like my life was finally taking shape. I opened my first club, I was going to marry the perfect woman, I was happy.” He says the word as if it’s foreign. It probably is foreign to him. “Everything was great. I was even in the mood to give an exclusive to one of the magazines about our love story. They were going to get exclusive photos of the wedding…” he pauses. “I couldn’t sleep the night before our wedding. I was too happy—too excited—to stay still. I couldn’t stop smiling.”
I look down, embarrassed. If he only knew that’s exactly how he makes me feel…
“Liam would always tease me; he’d tell me I was too into her and I knew he was right. I knew I loved her more than she loved me.” There’s sadness in his voice. “You can’t imagine what I felt when I stood at the altar—the venue filled with guests, family, paparazzi, everyone was there—and she didn’t show. The first few minutes I thought she was just running late. Every bride is entitled to a few extra minutes…then it turned into an hour. By then, my hands were sweaty and there was this feeling in my chest, like something heavy was pressing against it, making it hard to breathe.
“By the second hour, the crowd was impatient. They were talking, pacing, children were crying while I desperately tried to reach her. She never answered. By the third hour, it was obvious there wasn’t going to be a wedding. My family dismissed everyone and I—I couldn’t move. I stood there and watched everyone leave.” He chuckles softly. “It was a great front cover for that magazine.
“I stood there for six hours—unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything. I was…angry, sad, disappointed, confused. What had I done wrong?” he says. “I’d given her everything. Our house, honeymoon, the wedding—everything. Was there something wrong with me? Was I not enough? I loved her, I truly did, but sometimes love isn’t enough. What is it they say? No matter how much you love someone, sometimes they can’t love you back. I thought she loved me; she said she loved me. Why did she lie?” His voice trails off, lost in thought.
“I don’t remember how I ended up in my apartment.Caroline said I ran, but I don’t remember anything. When I got there, there was a letter. You’d think a letter would make it all better, but it only made everything worse.”
He looks at me for a moment before looking away again. “When I met her, she was already in love with someone else. When I met her, my brother wasn’t married yet….Murphy and Grace, his wife, they didn’t really date—one day,Murphy just announced he was getting married. The same day Anne decided to give me a chance.”
Oh, no. No. This is horrible.
My heart pounds in my chest, but I don’t move or say anything.
He smiles. “Everything made sense after reading that letter. Everything fit. Timing—everything. I’ll never forget the words of that letter. I’m sorry, Evans, I can’t marry you because I’m in love with your brother. I’ve always been in love with him, she wrote. I thought I could love you, but I couldn’t. She was in love with Murphy. In that moment, I thought back to all the dinners, all the double dates with Murphy and Grace and I couldn’t believe I’d been so blind. She explained that she tried to forget about him, but she couldn’t—she never got over him. She told me nothing ever happened between them and that Murphy was oblivious to the fact that she was in love with him. Yet, I still felt this…anger—this hatred—toward him. I got in my car and drove to my parent’s house, where he lived at the time. I wanted to confront him, punch him. I wanted to kill him.” He shakes his head. “It wasn’t his fault, yet at the same time, it was; I don’t know where I got the strength to drive away before I did anything stupid, but I drove to the airport and left New York.”