Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“No fair,” I shout, but it’s a joyful protest, and with each hit, I feel another brick come loose inside me, crumbling away.
I steer away from them, weaving through other cars before I jerk my car around, then ram into the side of Dev’s lean green machine. His smile is electric, his hair a wild mess around his face, his eyes full of wicked glee.
“Got you,” I call out as his car whirls in a circle, beeping loudly like a Vegas slot machine.
I hit him again. Again, his car spins. While he’s doing a one-eighty, Ledger hits me from the side with a loud crash.
More bricks crumble inside me, toppling down.
From speeding down the country road, to chasing the veil, to cutting the dress then hitting the hammer, the entire afternoon of my un-wedding day has felt like a necessary explosion of pent-up, complicated, messy emotions leading to this moment—when I’m blowing off steam on an amusement park ride.
But there’s one big problem.
My day is a lie.
Dev and Ledger think they’ve saved me from embarrassment. They think my heart is breaking. They think I’m hurt and they’re just applying the Band-Aid of fun for a few hours and now I go home and tend my wounds for months.
Yes, I’m embarrassed. Yes, I’m hurt.
But not for the reasons they think. I can’t keep the truth in much longer. It feels so wrong to lead them on. Just like everything felt wrong inside me earlier today when I hadn’t told my besties the secret of my doubtful, worried heart.
Look where that silence got me.
Oof.
My torso slams forward, but I jerk my gaze back at a woman with a septum piercing, jet black hair, and a wicked smile. In her electric blue bumper car, her face says gotcha before she moves on from me and slams into a guy with a crooked nose and chunky silver rings on all his fingers.
“Babe!” he shouts. “How could you do that?”
“Love you,” she says, then slams into him once more.
She’s having such a good time. She’s here on a date with her honey. And I’m Ledger’s and Dev’s…pity date.
All the adrenaline burns off.
I can barely move my car. When Dev and Ledger hurtle toward me, I don’t jerk the wheel away or race off. Instead, I let them hurl into me.
When my car stops spinning, I’m facing down both men in their bumper cars. “I didn’t want to marry Aiden anyway,” I say, finally admitting it.
I slump back into the seat as they stare, wide-eyed, at me.
As the sun dips toward the horizon, the unlit vintage sign above the diner beckons, the orange script-y letters for Beverly’s visible from the highway exit. We pull off the ramp, then turn into the lot around six.
With its brushed metal exterior, a mint green door, and a poster in the window of a stack of pancakes happily drowning in syrup, this diner might be one of the stars in a road-trip movie.
Today, it’s about to become the setting for Aubrey’s big reveal.
The walk up the steps feels ominous. The whole drive felt that way after my bumper car blurt-out. But the convertible wasn’t the place to chat about it further. Besides, on the ride down here I needed to deal with my cell phone. It was like an overstuffed suitcase, bursting at the seams with text messages. I messaged my mom and told her that I was doing okay and I’d talk to her tomorrow. I checked in with Garrett and he said not to worry about a thing. I texted my bridesmaids, telling them to please, pretty please, go dance in their sexy black dresses with their men because I am going to be fine, fine, fine.
And I will be.
We reach the door, and Dev holds it open for me. Once inside, Ledger gives a chin nod and a “How are you doing?” to the woman working behind the counter.
“Doing well. What can I do you for?”
“Table for three, please.”
Decked out in a vintage 50s pink waitress dress, she has a short, tight afro and slick red lipstick, and she’s topping off the coffee of a guy in a mesh ball cap. He’s got a beard, tattoos snaking along his pale arms, and the tired slump of a trucker. “Have yourself a seat anywhere,” she says like she’s sure glad to see us. “I’ll be right with you.”
Elvis isn’t playing on the sound system. It’s Taylor Swift, and that seems fitting. The queen of heartbreak.
Ledger leads the way past a rack of postcards and T-shirts, then a family in a booth arguing over ordering sundaes, and another foursome zoned out, each pair of eyes on their own screen.
Ledger stops by a circular booth in the back. “Ladies first.”
I slide in, taking the middle. He moves next to me, Dev on my other side.