Then, it was my turn.
I wasn’t the bride, but people were still craning their necks to look at me, and I felt a little self-conscious as I made my way down the aisle. The church was lovely, decked out in garlands with white and purple flowers that the other bridesmaids and I had spent forever hanging up and interweaving between the church pews.
Everyone was dressed in their best, and at the altar stood Josh, sweating nervously in his tux, with his brother Henry as his best man and the other groomsmen. Some of the groomsmen were eyeing the bridesmaids, and I made another mental note to make sure that none of the bridesmaids made decisions they would regret in the morning.
When I came to a stop at my spot at the altar, I smiled reassuringly at Josh. He gave me a nervous smile in return. Then, the music swelled, turning into the wedding march, and Mary stepped into the room, her arm linked with her father’s.
Everyone turned to look at her, but I snuck a glance at Josh, and I got to see his face light up—and I mean completely light up. I didn’t think that was possible, honestly; I thought it was just an exaggeration. But no, he really was looking at Mary like she was the moon and the stars and everything else on top of it.
It made something wrap around my heart and squeeze, to think that there might be someone out there that would someday look at me like that. Would Asher look at me like that? Would he ever come to love me that much?
Mary seemed to float down the aisle, all of her worries and nerves gone—or apparently gone—and replaced with this serene smile that made her look all the more beautiful. It was breathtaking, actually.
She came up to stand beside Josh, handing her flowers over to me without even a glance my way. Normally I’d make a joke about that, but right now she was all wrapped up in Josh and that’s how it should have been. They were looking into each other’s eyes like they were the only people in the universe, and maybe for each other, in that moment, they were.
I looked back out over the wave of people all staring in raptures up at the couple. Even Josh’s mom looked like she was about to burst into happy tears.
The priest was talking about loving each other through thick and thin, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, and for the first time, I thought about that—I mean, really thought about that. The idea that you would promise to love someone without any caveats, without saying, “All of you except for this one part,” or, “All of you, but only if you change or fix this one thing.” Just…love them, unconditionally.
I wanted someone to love me like that. I wanted someone to make that promise to me. Although my wedding would be a lot smaller, I thought, looking back out over the sea of people. I didn’t think I even knew that many people, certainly not enough of them well enough to invite them to my wedding. And, I thought, I would like to have mine outside.
What was I thinking? I didn’t even have a fiancé or anything yet. Asher and I had barely been together for a month.
Could Asher be the person who waited at the end of the aisle for me? Would he be the one saying things to me like what Josh was saying to Mary? Josh was talking about how he loved having Mary’s face be the first thing that he woke up to in the morning, and how she liked to sing in the shower, and how generous and enthusiastic she was about everything.
Would Asher say similar things about me? Even if I never orgasmed, and made him play golf with me every weekend, and sometimes forgot about sleep because I was bringing work home again, and watched crappy predictable mystery shows, and spread my makeup products all over the floor when I was working on a big project?
I think I want that with Asher, I thought to myself, and that was terrifying.
Terrifying to think about, terrifying to say even if it was just in my own head…but also liberating. At least I’d admitted it. I wanted a wedding, wearing a lovely white dress that had practically been sewn onto me, with my mom crying in the front row, and all of my friends grinning at me like idiots.
I wanted a wedding. And I thought I just might want it with Asher.
Chapter 11
Jessica
Asher showed up right on time to the reception, thank God. I needed an excuse to get away from the relatives all asking me if I remembered them from Thanksgiving and Christmas parties at Mary’s house when I was a kid.
When I saw Asher step into the garden, his eyebrows raised as he looked through the crowd for me. I thought that my heart might leap out of my throat.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mary’s Aunt Something, giving her a polite smile. “I’m sorry, but my boyfriend is here and I have to grab him before he gets lost.”
“No problem, dear,” she said, and I hurried away.
It felt good to say, ‘my boyfriend.’ That was what Asher and I were now, right? Now that he’d said to my parents that we were official, confirming their thoughts? Maybe that was just for my parents’ benefit, though.
I planned on asking him once I got to him, but then Asher caught sight of me and gave me the biggest, most relieved smile ever, grabbing my hands and pulling me into him so that he could wrap an arm around his waist.
“Thank God. I was starting to wonder if I’d have to wander through the crowd like an idiot.”
“Well, now you will, but you’ll be an idiot with me for your guide,” I told him.
Asher laughed, smiling at me, and I felt something in my chest tighten. Was this what being in love was like? This tight feeling in your chest like you were going to burst at any moment?
“Looks like I missed the first dance,” Asher said, gesturing at the hardwood dance floor set up where Mary and Josh were in the middle of their first dance.
“It’s fine,” I whispered, realizing we should keep our voices low since we had a wedding videographer filming all of this. “I helped Mary through her panic attack this morning; she’ll forgive me for missing a few moments of her first dance.”
There was the mother-son dance and the father-daughter dance, and the whole time, Asher held me from behind with one arm around my waist and the other wrapped around my chest. I leaned back into him, swaying slightly with the music, just soaking in the feel of him standing behind me. I liked the warmth of him and the solid weight of him keeping me propped upright. It was like I could depend on him.
For those few moments, it was like we were in our own little time bubble, safe and protected from the rest of the world, and I wondered if this was what Mary and Josh had felt while standing up on the altar. I hoped that it was, because this was a nice feeling. A perfect feeling, in fact.
Then, the music changed to something slightly more upbeat, and the rest of the guests started heading out onto the dance floor. Asher grinned, looking down into my face. At this angle, I had to tip my head up to look into his eyes, and he kissed me quickly, softly—so sweetly, that I almost started crying. What had I done to deserve this patient, funny, charming man?
“Want to dance?” he asked.
I wasn’t about to say no to an offer like that.
Asher let me out onto the dance floor, where he quickly proved that he actually knew how to waltz. I was crap at it and told him so, but he just laughed and told me to relax and follow his lead.
Sure enough, it was easy to follow him. I just paid attention to his body, the little movements of his hand at my back as he whirled me around the dance floor. We danced like that for a few songs, Asher whirling me and me laughing like an idiot, feeling like a princess as we glided around the other couples.
Then, the music slowed down and Asher guided my arms up around his neck and wrapped his own around me as tightly as he could, so that I could rest my head just beneath his chin.
“I feel a bit like we’re back in high school,” I noted.
“Your high school boyfriend was never this handsome and devilishly charming,” Asher pointed out, all matter-of-fact, as if he had personally known Jake, my high school boyfriend.
I laughed quietly, into his shirt. “True.”
Someone grabbed my shoulder and
whirled me around, out of Asher’s grasp, and I found myself staring into Mary’s flushed face.
“Jess!” she said, drawing out the ‘s’ sound. “You’re looking at the new Mrs. Porter!”
“I am!” I said, laughing. “An already drunk Mrs. Porter, I see.”
“Oh, pssh, it’s my wedding; I can drink as much as I want. ‘Specially ‘cause I’m celebrating. ‘Cause it’s my wedding. And Josh is going to do the most amazing things to me tonight with—”
“I am so glad you decided to do a buffet while everyone danced because there is no way you’d have made it through a three course meal without embarrassing yourself,” I told her, laughing. “Where is this new husband of yours? I need to give you back to him so he can keep an eye on you.”
“Ooh, who’s this?” Mary asked, looking past me to see Asher standing there.
I looked over my shoulder. Asher, for some reason, looked really uncomfortable. Almost like he was bracing himself. Maybe he wasn’t comfortable around drunk people? He didn’t know Mary, after all, and drunk Mary can be rather…exuberant.
“Oh my God,” Mary blurted out, suddenly sounding more sober than she had a second ago. A lot more sober.
“When I decided that I was going to come over and meet Jessica’s new love interest, I had no idea I’d be in for this surprise.” She looked at me accusingly. “You didn’t tell me that you were dating Dr. O!”
I know it’s not physically possible, because Josh works in physics and has informed me of this fact many times, but I swear that it felt in that moment like the entire earth stopped with a sickening lurch.
“Dr. O,” I repeated, praying that I had misheard her. “As in the guy you wanted to set me up with, as a client? The guy who…” I trailed off, unable or unwilling to say the rest out loud.
I wasn’t sure which one it was. Lord knew how many people could be listening in right now.
“The guy who helps you have your first orgasm! Yes!” Mary had no such qualms and, on top of it all, was very loud. I prayed for the floor to open up and swallow me. “That’s what the ‘O’ stands for, right Asher?”
Any doubt that I’d had about who Asher was suddenly shattered. I’d never told Mary the name of the guy that I was seeing. If she knew that his first name was Asher without my telling her and without her ever meeting Asher until this moment, then he had to be who she said he was.
I’d been dating a liar.
“I hired him for you!” Mary explained.
I looked over at Asher, who was unusually pale and shaking his head very slightly at Mary. Normally, I would have warned him that Drunk Mary wouldn’t know subtlety if hit her in the face. But normally, I would not be confronted with the fact that my new boyfriend was, in fact, the sort-of-prostitute doctor—or whatever you called the male version of a prostitute—that my friend had paid to sleep with me, without my knowledge and without my consent.
So, I didn’t warn him. I just let him dig his grave even further.
“Tell her, Asher!” Mary said.
By now, I could see Josh making his way over out of the corner of my eye, clearly realizing that Mary was saying something she shouldn’t be saying and hoping to diffuse the situation. I wanted to tell him it was way too late for that. Mary turned back to me.
“I hired him! I know you said no, but I knew that you’d feel so much better if you would just see what you’d been missing, and then maybe you would be more confident about dating and you could be as happy as Josh and me, Josh and I? Whatever. So, I hired him and I guess it worked out better than I expected because now you two are dating!”
Mary clapped her hands together, as if this was the greatest thing ever. I narrowed my eyes.
“So when you called me, canceling our meeting at Piper’s, that was on purpose?”
“Oh, yeah, totally,” Mary replied. “I’m good at fake crying, wouldn’t you say?”
When I had finished murdering Asher, I decided, I was going to murder Mary as well. I’d make her murder quick, because she had been my good friend all of these years, but now she had also lied to me and manipulated me and—
“What is the one thing,” I said, “The one thing that I hate, Mary? What is the one thing that I told you never to do to me after you went to Dairy Queen without me and lied about it because you felt bad for not waiting for me, because you wanted to go while the cute guy was still working his shift?”
Mary finally seemed to realize that this wasn’t a good thing that was happening right now, because she shrank back a little and her voice got very small.
“Don’t ever lie to you?” she offered up.
“Exactly.”
I felt like a complete heel, ruining Mary’s wedding like this, but she had lied to me! My best friend had gone against my wishes and done exactly what I had asked her not to do, and she hadn’t seen a problem with it! What the fuck?
“Don’t lie to me, Mary, how hard is that to do? I wasn’t interested, I didn’t want to be fixed, I didn’t want some random gigolo quack doctor guy—”
“I actually do have a medical degree,” Asher piped up.
I rounded on him. “I suggest you shut up right the fuck now.”
Asher, to my shock, actually shut up. I guess I was scarier than I’d thought when I was angry. I looked back at Mary, who now was leaning on Josh, who had his hands on her upper arms to keep her still and support her. And I don’t just mean emotionally—I think she was in danger of falling over from the combination of shame and alcohol.
“You could have ruined my career!” I yelled. “What if Tamara found out about this? That I’d—hired this guy? I could have gotten in massive trouble! This is borderline illegal! In fact, it might be actually illegal! And you—you manipulated me, without a single second thought, because you thought that you knew what was best for me despite my very clearly stating that I didn’t want to talk about this and I didn’t want a visit from Dr. O!”
Mary looked like she was about to start crying. I took a deep breath. This was Mary’s day, her happiest day, and I couldn’t ruin that for her, no matter how much I wanted to keep screaming at her until I lost my voice. That was when I realized how silent it had gotten. Even the music had stopped.
I looked around. Everyone was staring at me. Some people were whispering, obviously wondering what was going on. Josh’s mom looked pissed, and I realized that what I had just said was not about to earn Mary any points in her mother-in-law’s book.
Everyone was staring at me. Me, who liked to just sit and watch. I was not the center of the universe, the life of the party—the bitch of the party, more like.
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t handle everyone starting at me like I was a free television show. I couldn’t stand the whispering I could hear starting up. I couldn’t stand that my friend had lied to me and now I looked like the bad guy for yelling at her about it at her wedding. I especially couldn’t stand Asher hovering there like he thought he had a right to say something.
I was a lot of things, but I never said that I was brave.
I ran for the door.
Chapter 12
Asher
I stood there the entire time, listening in quiet horror as I realized what Mary was saying. I saw the puzzle pieces click into place for Jessica, and I saw the anger that blazed to life in her eyes—anger that I had never seen before from her.
I wanted to say something. I automatically made to say a joke, to reaffirm that I was in fact medically licensed, thank you, but that immediately and obviously backfired. Now, I had no idea what to say.
Jessica looked like she was going to break down in tears. It was like when her parents had shown up at the restaurant, only ten times worse.
Mary looked small and shrunken, the opposite of the Mary that I knew, and her fiancé—now husband—looked like he didn’t know whether he should chastise Mary, defend her, or put an end to this entire affair and send everyone home. Everyone was staring as well, and I remembered how Jessica had told me that she
wasn’t a party person, that she liked to just be on the outskirts and people watch.
This must be hell for her, I realized.
So when Jessica turned and ran for the door, I didn’t stop her. I didn’t call out. I couldn’t prolong this scene, not when she was so clearly desperate to get out and away before she completely broke down. I couldn’t make her stay, and if I tried, I had a feeling she would hate me even more than she already did.
She paused, just once, in the doorway, and looked back at me. I’m not a particularly romantic guy, but I’ve seen some romantic comedies in my time, and there’s usually a moment where one of the protagonists, usually the woman, will look across a crowded room or street at the man, and there’ll be this ‘I’m about to cry but I can’t’ look of heartbreak on her face.
Those actresses, I realized then, didn’t know shit about what a broken heart looked like.
The look on Jessica’s face wasn’t forlorn, or struggling to be brave, or brimming with unshed tears. It was devastation. Complete and utter devastation. It was like someone had smashed their fist into a piece of china, scattering the pieces everywhere, crushing what had once been beautiful into nothing but sharp edges and dust.
She looked destroyed.
Then, she was gone.
I would like to say that I didn’t mope, that I took action immediately like the heroes in films, but I didn’t.
I totally moped.
I took down my website and canceled all my future client meetings. I couldn’t go through with it, not with Jessica’s words ringing in my ears. I’d manipulated her. I’d dated her under false pretenses, lying to her the entire time about who I was. I had met her parents and charmed the pants off of them, and the entire time I had been lying about it.
On the third day, I realized that I couldn’t be Dr. O anymore. I put in some applications for local hospitals as an OB/GYN, citing personal family issues as the reason I hadn’t been operating in the years since I’d graduated from medical school. Since my father had died of cancer and I’d gone into this business to pay off my student loans, it was sort of true.
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