by Lynn Costa
Kensie had stayed with Rick Worthington for just about one year; coincidentally the exact same number of days, we calculated one night after they broke up, that Dustin and I had been together. It probably was just was a coincidence but there was something cosmic about our discovery, which Kensie originally took to mean that the next guy she met would be The One for her. That’s not what happened, of course. She was with the next guy for about four months, and hadn’t been serious with anyone since then. We didn’t see each other as much these days as we once did because she left our firm about six months ago to take a better job at a different one down in Orange County, which was where she mostly worked. But there was no way she wasn’t going to be in my wedding. And since she was here without a plus-one, maybe she would meet somebody. After all, resort weddings and receptions are the perfect setting for meeting someone, right?
As I finished putting on my makeup in the bridal room at the resort, Lauren was out checking on some final detail for the wedding ceremony that my mother had insisted wasn’t correct and I was alone in the room with just Kensington.
“I’m so happy for you!” she blurted out as she watched me touch up my eyes for about the sixth time in the past twenty minutes. Obsessive-compulsive, anybody?
“I can’t believe you’re actually getting married!” Kensie continued. “I remember when you first met Zack we used to have those long talks about how much you liked him, but that you weren’t sure how and when you would break up with Dustin...”
The sharp look I shot her way cut off her meandering speech.
“Sorry,” she said. “We were talking about Dustin last night so I just thought...”
“But not today, okay?” I interrupted. “I know Dustin will always be a part of the whole story of Zack and me, but for today especially I don’t want to think about that part. I still feel ashamed about what I did with Dustin after I met Zack, and I think I’ll always feel that way.”
I paused from working on my makeup.
“I can tell you this, though; but probably not anybody else.”
Kensie looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
“Every so often I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m pretty sure I’ve had a dream where things turned out differently, even though I can’t remember any of the details of the dream. Sometimes it’s that I never went back to L.A. and wound up staying together with Dustin in Chicago, and that he asked me to marry him and I said ‘yes.’ Or that I did come back but Zack stayed up in San Francisco, and eventually Dustin came back and we stayed together. Dreams like that. I keep thinking how close I came to things having turned out differently, and it scares me. Just a twist of fate here or there, with both of them overlapping for those couple weeks, and who knows what might have happened?”
Kensington shrugged.
“I know,” she replied. “But this is how things turned out for you, and I’m sure that they did turn out this way for a reason. After you say ‘I do’ in...” – she glanced at her watch – “...about an hour, I’m pretty sure those dreams will fade away, probably forever.”
I nodded.
“You’re probably right,” I responded.
“Well then,” Kensie said, just as my sister Lauren walked back into the bridal room, “let’s finish getting you ready so you can become Mrs. Zachary Buchanan, and you can put any more ideas of what might have happened to rest forever.”
About the Author
Lynn Costa lives in Arizona, and The Overlap is her debut novel. Watch for Lynn’s next novel in early 2014. Lynn can be reached at [email protected].
