by Marci Bolden
As she stood at the end of the aisle, she ground her teeth together and debated what Jade would do. Turn and walk away, no doubt. Take the higher road. Avoid conflict. And she would have been perfectly at peace with that decision. Jade’s ability to contain her anger was a mystery to Darby at times.
However, Taylor wouldn’t hesitate to call Jennifer out for what she’d done. She’d march right up to her and put her in her place. And she would have been perfectly at peace as well. Taylor’s anger wasn’t a mystery to anyone. She never hesitated in sharing it. Darby couldn’t say she admired that trait, but she could definitely say she understood it.
After watching Jennifer put one package back and lean closer to examine another, Darby chose to channel Taylor and marched forward. She held her chin up and pushed her shoulders back with all the righteous indignation she’d been feeling ever since that video was posted.
“You intentionally made me look bad,” Darby accused without any sort of greeting.
Jennifer nearly dropped the eye shadows from the start she’d received at Darby’s harsh words. For several satisfying seconds she fumbled, clearly unsettled. She recovered quickly, though, and quirked an eyebrow at Darby. Any signs of the band geek were gone. Standing there with a smirk on her face and cocked brow, Jennifer looked more like one of the teenage tyrants who used to mock them. The glimmer of amusement in her eyes was far too similar to that of the girl who had unhooked Darby’s bra during chemistry class.
Cruel. Savage. Remorseless.
“I didn’t have to make you look bad,” Jennifer said with an evil smirk. “You did that to yourself.”
“You spliced my words together.”
“No. I edited the interview that you willingly took part in.”
Darby narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t a game of semantics. This was her life, and Jennifer had intentionally tried to ruin it. Darby hadn’t figured out why, but she was smart enough to know that Jennifer had used her. “You edited it to make me come off as mean and heartless.”
Putting the packages of eye shadow back on the shelf, Jennifer tilted her head in a way that was clearly meant to be condescending. Her highlights caught the incandescent glow coming down from above them, and her ponytail swayed. The image was a perfect representation of the patronizing scorn the cheerleaders in high school had always displayed right before tossing cruelty Darby’s way.
For a moment, Darby felt like a nobody standing in the crowded hallway as everyone rushed from one class to another, stopping only long enough to see if this was the day when the biggest outcast finally got her ass kicked. That day had never come. Darby had never been in a fight, but she’d walked with that fear every day for nearly four years. And that panic came rushing back to her as Jennifer narrowed her eyes and smirked wickedly.
“I wouldn’t be able to make you look mean, Darby,” Jennifer said with a soft voice, as if that would disguise the sharp edge of what she was saying, “if you hadn’t done something mean.”
Darby shook her head slightly as she tightened her grip on her basket. “You cut that bit about me making a profit on heartbreak to make it look like I was bragging about doing so, instead of pointing out that you were all but accusing me of—”
“Of what?” Jennifer pressed. “Of doing exactly what you are doing.” The sarcastic sweetness disappeared as she stood straighter and scoffed with a slight shake of her head. She looked over Darby from head to toe as if trying to determine if she was worth the trouble. When she met her gaze again, she glared. “You are using the pain of others to market your website. You are heartless.”
Darby gasped and leaned back. Of all the things people had ever said about her, that was not one she was used to. According to Jade, Darby’s heart was too big. Too vulnerable. After the shock of the accusation wore off, Darby said, “And you’re a fraud. You pretend to be some sweet, innocent little Internet star who happened to find success, but in reality, you’re a manipulator and a liar.” The moment the words left her, a weight dropped off her chest. She’d been holding on to that statement for days. Giving it life was invigorating. She straightened her spine with a newfound confidence and pushed on. “You wormed your way into my home under the pretense of helping me grow my business, when in reality you were there to trick me into saying things you could use to twist the truth into something ugly. You’re a big, stinking fake.”
Once again, Jennifer sneered and raised a brow as she gave that holier-than-thou look she’d damn near perfected. “You’re one to talk about fake. Look at you standing in a grocery store at ten o’clock at night in a fedora and pink sunglasses like you’re a freaking Kardashian hiding from the paparazzi. You look like a fool. A week ago, you looked like an extra from a Dean Martin movie.”
Darby furrowed her brow as she tried to connect the dots on Jennifer’s intended insult. Calling her a Kardashian? Okay. Calling her a fool? Whatever. But an extra in a Dean Martin movie? What did that mean? She yanked her sunglasses off and squinted at her foe. “Are you saying that I looked like a martini?”
“What?” Jennifer asked. “No. What? You looked like…you know, like…an out-of-date bombshell.”
Darby rolled her eyes as she scanned her memory. “Dean Martin was mostly in westerns and comedies. I think you meant James Dean.”
“Whatever.”
“No, really, there’s a big difference between James Dean and Dean Martin. James Dean was—”
“That doesn’t matter,” Jennifer insisted. “None of that matters. What matters is that you’re fake too. You’re just fake in a different way. You’ll probably look like a bad 1980s era Madonna next. Don’t tell me I’m fake when you’re standing here like this.”
Darby stood taller. “I might put on fancy makeup and clothes, but I would never dress like a bad version of Madonna, and I would never hurt anyone with the intent of getting views on a video. That was wrong and you know it. There is a difference between putting on an act to protect yourself and putting on an act to dupe people so you can make a buck off them.”
Jennifer widened her eyes like a doe in a spotlight. “Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? You… You are going to lecture me about monopolizing off other people? When your entire website is about mocking women who had to cancel their weddings?”
“I’m not mocking anyone!”
“The hell you aren’t.”
Darby pressed her lips together. She wasn’t going to let Jennifer distract her from the point she was trying to make. “You edited my words and made me come across like a heartless, money-hungry vulture,” Darby said. “You made me seem malicious, and you did it on purpose to get hits on your site and make money off your advertisers.” Darby glared.
Jennifer snorted as if she couldn’t believe those words had been used to describe her. “What about you? You’re selling people’s broken dreams.”
“I’m selling dresses I made with my own two hands. When those weddings fell apart, I did what I could to make things easier for the brokenhearted brides by not charging them for wedding dresses they would never wear. Instead of telling them ‘tough shit, pay me anyway,’ I swallowed the cost. I was kind and understanding when I didn’t have to be. I took a financial hit to help those women, and you made me look greedy and shallow to get people to come to your website. You… You’re the one who’s greedy and shallow and mean.”
“Oh my God,” Jennifer said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. When she looked at Darby again, she pushed her head forward and creased her brow as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You seriously don’t think there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing? The way you’re making jokes about those poor women and their cancelled weddings?”
“I never said anyone’s name,” Darby stated in what was beginning to feel like her new life mantra.
Jennifer shook her head as if she was trying to understand the words Darby had tossed at her. She looked like she was putting together a puzzle and realizing the pieces didn’t fit. “That doe
sn’t matter, Darby. Why can’t you understand that doesn’t matter? They know. Other people know. And you’re dredging up what could possibly have been the worst day of someone’s life and making a profit off their pain.”
“That’s not true,” Darby insisted quietly.
“It is true,” Jennifer said. “And it’s disgusting. I didn’t edit Sue Berdynksi’s video together to make her cry, Darby. She was crying. And she was crying because she was devastated you’d told the world about her breakup.”
“She told the world she was the canoe bride,” Darby said. “I didn’t.”
Jennifer’s shoulders sagged slightly, barely enough for Darby to notice, and she looked down for several long seconds. When she looked up again, the sarcasm and bitter edge was gone. Her face was sad, like she was giving up. “You don’t get it. What you’re doing is mean-spirited. More than mean-spirited. It’s cruel. Whether you want to believe it or not. It is. You can’t tell other people how to feel. If they feel hurt by your actions, you need to reconsider what you’re doing. And there are people who are hurting because of your website. Rather than reconsider or even take a moment to think how they might be feeling, you’re attacking me in a grocery store for exposing the truth of what you’ve done. You need to take a step back, Darby. You need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes for one minute instead of digging your heels in to prove a point.”
A huge breath left Darby—loud and forceful—and took with it a big part of the confidence and determination she’d been holding on to.
Jennifer’s words had struck a nerve. A raw one.
Darby could be stubborn, she was well aware of that, but only on things that mattered to her. Being stubborn wasn’t a bad thing, not when it was used to protect things, like her work or her website. Not when it was used to stand up for herself against someone who had used her social media platform to bully her.
Rather than stand there and continue to sort through this disaster, Darby shook her head. “Even if you think what I did was wrong, what you did was worse. You intentionally edited that interview. And you know it.” Turning on her heels, she stormed off, groceries and eyebrow gel forgotten.
Darby didn’t stop angrily marching until she climbed into her old car and pulled away. She ground her teeth hard as she headed home. Rage boiled in her chest until she let out a frustrated scream and slapped her hand on the steering wheel.
The road turned and the little gravel road she’d usually take to the cove appeared, but Darby didn’t slow down. She drove by the cove and followed the road around the lake. As she did, she sped up until her car matched her racing thoughts.
From that day on the beach when she was so excited to promote her boutique on The Noah Joplin Show to Taylor and Jade pointing out that she should change the sales pitches. From the initial onslaught of supportive posts to people calling her names and picking on her style. From Jade saying Darby should consider how the brides feel to Jennifer pointing out that Darby was incapable of seeing the truth of her actions.
She pulled her car over at Chammont Lake Lookout Point and turned off the ignition. Leaning her head against the headrest, she stared up at the waning moon and the stars sparkling against the dark sky.
Other memories flooded her as she sat there looking up at the universe. Her mom had been one of those read-the-stars types. Whenever Darby got overwhelmed, they went out into the backyard and sat on the broken and crumbling cement steps of their rental.
The answers are in the stars, little one, her mom would say. All you have to do is look up and listen with your heart.
“Okay,” Darby whispered. “I’m listening.”
She sat, staring, but no words of wisdom filtered down to her. No ah-ha moments hit her. Not a single light bulb went off to show her the way.
Something built low in her gut, though. She tried to ignore the sensation, but it grew heavier and heavier by the moment.
She pictured Jade sitting out by the cove early in the spring. Her divorce had been finalized for like five minutes when her ex-husband had announced he was engaged to someone else.
Darby was trying to cheer her up. With the saddest eyes Darby had ever seen, Jade softly explained that it wasn’t only being left that hurt. It was the embarrassment of knowing that all her friends, neighbors, and family members knew that he’d been cheating. They knew she hadn’t been good enough. And that was humiliating. She’d told Darby that simply trying to hold her head up felt much too exhausting at times.
Darby had tried to reassure her that she was more than enough, but Jade sniffled and shook her head and said clearly she hadn’t been.
That conversation had broken Darby’s heart. It hadn’t been fair that Jade was hurting so much over someone else’s actions.
That memory bled into the image of Sue Berdynski sniffling on Jennifer’s video as she talked about how humiliating the experience had been and how cruel it was to hear someone talking about it as nonchalantly as Darby had. Sue had said that Darby hadn’t seemed to care that she was sharing the most devastating thing that had ever happened to Sue—in fact, she’d said, it seemed like Darby had enjoyed sharing her pain.
Darby deepened her frown as she recalled sitting in Noah’s studio. She had been…excited…to share the stories. Too excited, perhaps. Now that she thought about it, she could see how Sue would think she’d enjoyed sharing someone’s pain.
Furrowing her brow as tears filled her eyes, Darby sighed. Oh, damn. She had enjoyed it. Not causing someone pain—she hadn’t realized she’d been doing that. But she had enjoyed being in the limelight, and she’d dragged Sue’s broken heart out there with her like it was some kind of show-and-tell.
Darby hadn’t done that to be cruel or to inflict pain like Jennifer had been insinuating, but she definitely hadn’t been as thoughtful as she’d pretended to be.
Wiping her eyes, she scanned the surface of the lake and the reflection of the moon warped by the waves.
The answers are in the stars.
Lifting her gaze, Darby watched the twinkling for several more minutes as she, as Jennifer had suggested, put herself into someone else’s shoes. Sitting there, imagining how she’d felt when Mark and Ted had talked about their breakups. She hadn’t even been engaged to either of them, and she still hadn’t appreciated them sharing their so-called heartbreak. Those moments had been private, but they’d shared them, and Darby hadn’t been pleased.
Yet hadn’t Darby done the exact same thing? And on a much larger scale.
Closing her eyes against the twinkling stars, Darby sighed and then whispered to the stars, “Oh, Mama. I think I screwed up.”
As soon as Darby got home from the lookout, she started the shower and then stood under the hot water until it ran cool. Her mind was on repeat, playing the last week over and over, despite her intention to let the water cleanse her mood so she could focus on the situation with a clear mind.
She slowly dried off and dressed in her favorite cheetah print pajama set. Then she took her time drying her hair and going through her bedtime ritual. She was procrastinating because there was another feeling coming over her that she was desperate to ignore.
Shame.
And it was taking over her mind.
She considered calling her friends and asking for an impromptu support session, but she’d already heard all she wanted from them on this topic. She knew where they stood. They had already given their input, and she didn’t want to hear it again. They both thought she was wrong, and neither seemed interested in hearing why she disagreed.
And she wasn’t quite ready to admit she was starting to think they had been right all along. The hesitation wasn’t pride, at least not all of it. It was the fear that she’d said and done things to cause pain and then stuck her head in the sand to ignore the fallout.
Ignoring the consequences of her actions wasn’t too far from the norm for Darby, but the other part? The hurting people part? She couldn’t stomach the growing realization that she had done exactly t
hat.
She’d been too stubborn to allow herself to think she could have done something that others would consider atrocious. Having spent years feeling like she was an outcast, she’d always considered herself overly sensitive to others. More than one person in her past had told her she had to stop trying so hard to tiptoe around everyone’s feelings.
She hadn’t tiptoed this time, had she? She’d donned her favorite black patent leather Mary Janes and stomped all over her former clients without even considering that was what she’d been doing. Then she kicked a few of them in the shins for good measure.
At least that was what Jennifer and her legions of fans seemed to think.
Were they right?
Heaving a big sigh, Darby walked into her closet and frowned at the totes of keepsakes she really didn’t have the room to store. One day, she didn’t know when, she’d make herself go through them all and thin down the old stuff she didn’t really need.
She found the box with old books and pulled the top off, sorting through the contents until she found the yearbook that had been calling out to her since she’d gotten home. She hadn’t wanted one, but her mom had bought it anyway. This was from her senior year, and her mom had insisted Darby would want it someday. She never had. This was the first time she’d pulled it out since sticking it in the box years ago.
Running her fingers over the cover, she felt the embossing that was made to look like Chammont Point High School—right down to the trees scattered along the school property. The gold lettering proudly spelled out the school’s name and the years the contents memorialized.
Darby didn’t need to look at the photos to remember that year. Her senior year was burned into her mind. From the first day when someone had commented on how much weight she’d gained over the summer to the last day when she walked out, knowing she’d never have to step foot into that building ever again.
That was what freedom felt like. Darby had never forgotten that.
