by Lauren Layne
Gage to Ellie: Which would free you up to…?
Ellie to Gage: I dunno yet. I’m soul-searching, Hollywood. Don’t rush me.
Gage to Ellie: Right, sorry.
Ellie to Gage: Gage?
Gage to Ellie: What’s up?
Ellie to Gage: Does your girlfriend/wife (however the finale worked out) know we talk?
Ellie to Gage: Hello?
Gage to Ellie: No.
Ellie to Gage: I’m still not watching…but when I was buying Ben & Jerry’s at the store, I saw a story about the show on the cover of a tabloid. Only Ivy, Paisley, and Brooklyn left.
Gage to Ellie: What kind of ice cream?
Ellie to Gage: You’re changing the subject.
Gage to Ellie: Yup.
Invitation Ceremony #14
TEN WEEKS LATER, DURING THE AIRING OF EPISODE 14 OF JILTED
Dear Ivy—
You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of Gage Barrett and his future bride on Saturday, May 21, at two o’clock in the afternoon. Dinner and dancing to follow.
*
The Runaway Groom on why he jilted Ivy: “Ivy’s sweet and will make some guy very happy, but I’m not that guy….Why not? Thought that’d be obvious by now, Adam. I do want to spend the rest of my life with a contestant, but it’s not Ivy. She’s great, but I’m in love with someone else.”
*
Text message from Gage to Ellie: Wrapped up the last shot today. Headed back to the States on a red-eye tonight.
Ellie to Gage: Just in time for the finale.
Gage to Ellie: Yeah. You gonna watch?
Ellie to Gage: Nope. I can’t. But my mom spilled the beans about Ivy going home, and I will say that with Paisley and Brooklyn, you did good. Either one will make you very happy.
Gage to Ellie: That’s what you want? Me to be happy?
Ellie to Gage: Of course. I mean that, Gage.
Gage to Ellie: You ever regret it? Leaving like you did?
Ellie to Gage: Do YOU regret letting me leave?
Gage to Ellie: No. Things worked out as they were meant to. And I’m really glad we’ve been able to stay friends.
Ellie to Gage: Right! My thoughts exactly.
Ellie
Friends.
Gage Barrett and I are friends.
He said so in his text, I agreed, and it’s true, and…
I slam my laptop shut and slap my palms on top of it, annoyed that I’m not able to focus on work.
For the millionth time since I got back from Maui, I realize that my company no longer feels like enough. High Tee is thriving, I have everything I thought I wanted, and yet…
I tap my fingers against the laptop, then stand up and go into the kitchen to get ice cream. And I pour a glass of wine for good measure. It doesn’t take away the pain, but it does dull it a little.
I miss him. I miss him, and watching him on the show is killing me. I survived the episodes with me in them—and yes, I watched them, despite telling my mother that I wouldn’t. Seeing myself on camera? Super awkward. But those early episodes haven’t been as hard to watch as the ones filmed after I left.
It stung to watch him casually tell the remaining contestants that I’d been just a fling. Yes, I know he did it for me. He let me go because I asked, but I’m doing that girl thing where maybe I wish he’d protested just a little bit.
I know. I’m the worst. I make him let me leave and then I’m mad at him because he did.
It’s not that I’m mad at him so much as…
Brokenhearted. My heart is broken.
I stick a spoonful of peanut butter ice cream in my mouth and lean forward, resting my forehead on the cool surface of the fridge, and then, like the worst sort of chick flick cliché, I cry into my ice cream.
Ellie
ELEVEN WEEKS LATER, DURING THE AIRING OF EPISODE 15 OF JILTED
“Are you sure you won’t come over to watch it? Your mom’s coming!”
I roll my eyes as I pull eggs out of my shopping bag and place them in my fridge. “Oh, gosh, well, if my mom will be there to watch my ex marry someone else…”
Marjorie sighs on the other end of the phone. “Is that what we’re calling him? Your ex? Because I saw the way he looked at you when you got eliminated, El, and if you’d given him any hint—”
“Can we not?” I say a little sharply.
My best friend goes quiet for a long moment. “Okay, don’t bite my head off, but I really don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
“I’m fine.”
“Really? Gage is marrying either Brooklyn or Paisley on national television, and you’re fine?”
“We don’t know that he’s marrying either one of them.”
“It’s pretty likely, sweetie,” she says gently. “He said last week that he was in love.”
“It’d better be Paisley,” I say, placing the milk beside the eggs. “There’s something about Brooklyn I don’t like.”
“Maybe that she’s not you?”
I slam the fridge door.
“Did you at least tell him that you’re moving to L.A.?”
“Why, so he can invite me to the housewarming party he’ll be throwing with his new wife?”
“So that’s a no.”
No, I haven’t told Gage that I’m moving to Los Angeles to take a job with a new PR company. In fact, I haven’t spoken to him since he left Dubai. Apparently I was a great international pen pal, but he doesn’t need me now that he’s back and probably cozied up in the Jilted “safe house” with his new wife, passing the last few hours until they can go public.
I open the fridge door, and then slam it again, just because.
I’m dealing with it.
“Okay, that’s it,” Marjorie mutters. “I’m putting Steve on baby duty, and your mom and I are coming over there tonight. With wine.”
“That sounds great. As long as the TV stays off.”
“It’ll be good for you to watch it, sweetie. We want to see you before you move next week. Plus you’ve been edgy with each new episode of Jilted. I want to make sure you’re not around sharp objects.”
Edgy? That doesn’t feel like the right word. Destroyed. That sounds much closer.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Come over.”
Ellie
My mom, Marjorie, and I reach a compromise: I’ll watch the finale—they’re not wrong about me needing closure—but not the whole thing. I’ll watch the final half hour, enough to see who he marries, but I’m not going to endure the entire two-hour nightmare of having to watch as he falls in love with someone else.
God. Even so, I don’t think I can watch this.
I hoped that time and distance would prove to my stupid heart that it was a passing, unavoidable crush on a movie star who’d paid attention to a regular girl.
Wrong.
With each passing day, I’m more aware of one unavoidable, heart-squeezing realization: I love Gage.
I’m all the way, hopelessly, maybe a little stupidly in love with Gage Barrett.
“Are you okay, honey?” my mom asks, setting a bowl of popcorn on the table and sitting beside me, hand on my knee. “You look queasy.”
That’s one word for it. I would also throw miserable, idiotic, and heartbroken into the mix.
“Is it because everyone’s talking about how devastated you were that he didn’t use his veto on you? If it makes you feel better, all my friends think he used you horribly. Seducing you like that, and then sending you home.”
“Everyone thinks that,” Marjorie agrees from the kitchen, where she’s wrestling with a wine cork. “Although for the record, when you’re ready to talk about it, I get first dibs on knowing what actually happened during those twenty-four hours when you disappeared.”
I drop my forehead to my knees and let out a crazy laugh.
“Isn’t it obvious, Marjorie?” my mom murmurs as she pets my hair. “She fell in love.”
“Did you?” Marjorie asks, coming into the roo
m with three glasses. “Is that why you’ve been so weird and won’t talk about it?”
I lift my head. “I haven’t been weird.”
“Super weird,” my mom says, patting my knee, then accepting the wineglass Marjorie holds out. “This guy hurt you, Ellie.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I say, taking a sip of my own wine. “He gave me exactly what I wanted. What I thought I wanted.”
“How’s that?”
“Right before we walked into the house after our time…away…I told him I wanted to go home. Actually, I was kind of begging him to send me home from the very beginning, but there was always some reason to stay, and the longer I stayed the more I realized that I had to go. You know?”
“Um, no,” Marjorie says. “Not following, babe. At the end, did you want to stay? Or did you want to go?”
“I wanted to go because I wanted to stay.”
“I think I follow,” my mom says slowly.
“Good, because I don’t,” Marjorie mutters, dunking a chip into ranch dip. “It was Gage Barrett, babe. How do you just walk away from that hotness?”
“I think that’s the problem,” I say, plucking at the blanket draped over my lap. “I stopped thinking of him as Gage Barrett the movie star and started thinking of him as Gage Barrett the guy I was falling for.”
“Was he falling for you too?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Maybe. But I killed it before we could really give it a chance, and now he’s…” I wave my hand at the TV. “Getting married.”
“I didn’t know,” Marjorie says, reaching out and squeezing my hand. “I thought you were just preoccupied by the job shift. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“Me too,” my mom says. “And I understand why you didn’t reach out to me. I’m not exactly the poster child for lasting love. No wonder you’re wary.”
I give her a surprised look. I don’t want to say that my mom is shallow, because she’s not. Not in the ditzy, superficial kind of way—it’s more that she’s just unaware. When I was growing up, she’d frantically apologize for forgetting to pick up groceries like she promised. But then the very next day she’d forget all over again. Or she’d break up with boyfriend number 829 just as I was starting to like him, and promise she’d never bring a guy into our lives until she was “sure.” That resolve would last about three days. And so on.
When I was a kid, it sucked. When I was a teen, it was more than a little exasperating. Now that I’m an adult, though, I’ve more or less accepted it as a part of who she is.
But here’s the thing about learning from other people’s mistakes: you miss out on the chance to make some mistakes on your own. And sometimes you get so busy dodging the potential mistakes that you miss the potential magic.
You miss the one.
I look up in time to see my mom and Marjorie exchanging a look.
“What was that?” I ask, gesturing between them.
Marjorie tops off my wineglass even though I’ve only taken a sip or two. “I don’t think watching the last part of the finale’s a good idea after all. How about Gilmore Girls? Some good old-fashioned Stars Hollow distraction?”
For a split second, I’m tempted. I’m relieved that I don’t have to watch Gage fall in love with someone else. But the relief is short-lived, replaced with the knowledge that even if I avoid the pain tonight, it’ll still catch up with me tomorrow. And the next day. And next week, and next month, and all the days until I face it.
And then let it go.
Let him go.
“I think I need to watch,” I say, reaching for the remote. “I need to say goodbye, if that makes sense?”
My mom and best friend exchange a dubious look, but after finding the channel, I tuck the remote into the pocket of my hoodie and give them a stubborn look. “We are watching. Although we may need more wine. For survival.”
It’s a commercial break, and I stuff handfuls of popcorn in my mouth and listen to my mom and friend discuss whether Paisley or Brooklyn will be the winner.
Both of them put their money on Brooklyn—apparently he and Paisley get along great, but there’s been no romantic chemistry. Which is a relief, what with Paisley being my girl and all.
But the silent implication that he does have romantic chemistry with the oh-so-perfect Brooklyn…
I shove the popcorn bowl at Marjorie. “Take this away. I think I’m going to barf.”
“Too much butter?”
Too much heartache.
Then the show’s back, and my stomach churns for real. The camera zooms in on Adam, dressed in a suit and teal tie, the scene behind him unmistakably bridal. White chairs are lined up to face an elaborately decorated archway. There are no wedding guests yet, but the milling tuxedoed servers in the background and the harpist sitting down at her instrument give a realness to the scene that makes my heart stutter.
“Well, we’re just minutes away from the wedding you’ve all been waiting for. As we heard from Gage himself, there will be a wedding this afternoon. The only thing left to be revealed is, who will be the bride? And will the Runaway Groom finally say his vows?”
There’s a long, meaningful pause as the camera zooms in on Adam’s serious face.
Then he nods. “Let’s find out.”
The footage of Adam fades, replaced by Brooklyn looking every bit the part of the bride in a gorgeous white gown, her hair in an elaborate updo, studded with white pearls.
“Holy shit,” Marjorie breathes. “This is really happening.”
“Not necessarily,” Mom counters, gesturing for the popcorn bowl. “She’s first, which usually means a rejection. And remember what they said in the last episode: both women picked out wedding dresses, as they won’t know until the very last moment which one of them is the bride.” Then she gives me a wary look. “Sorry, Ellie.”
I take a gulp of wine, then another, as Brooklyn talks to the camera about how she’s fallen hopelessly in love with Gage and can only hope he loves her back.
She looks like a beautiful angel, and I can’t help but think how perfect she’d look on his arm at all the red-carpet events and sushi dinner date nights in West Hollywood. How beautiful their children will be.
“Nope, I can’t,” I say, fumbling for the remote I stashed.
Marjorie snatches it away, then grabs my hand and squeezes. “Therapy, remember?”
A second later, Gage appears and I lean forward, hugging my wineglass to my chest, eyes watering at the sight of him.
He walks toward Brooklyn, smiling as he stops in front of her on the secluded beach and presses a kiss to her cheek. “You look beautiful,” he says solemnly.
He looks beautiful. Handsome. He looks…oh God, he’s so good-looking. He’s wearing a tux, which I’ve never seen him do outside of his movies, his hair recently cut into photo-op perfection.
The camera zooms in on his face, and I scan anxiously for any sign of what he’s thinking, but I can’t read him. Damn actor skills.
Brooklyn apparently can’t either, because her smile wavers as he reaches out and takes her hand.
“Brooklyn…”
I sit perfectly still in a state of euphoria and disbelief as he lets her down with what has to be the world’s sweetest breakup speech. He tells her that she’s smart, and beautiful, and as good a person as he’s ever known, but that he can’t marry her—because he’s in love with somebody else.
Somewhere along the line, I realize I’m crying. And I’ll give Brooklyn credit—she handles it with a heck of a lot more grace than I’m exhibiting right now. Her eyes water with unshed tears, a beautiful heartbroken angel now.
There’s a cut to commercial break, and I slump back.
My mom gets up and comes back with a tissue box. I honk noisily. “So. Paisley.”
“Bitch,” Marjorie mutters. “She was your bestie.”
I swallow. “I told him. When I left, I told him to keep her around….”
“That’s what you whispered in his ear?
” Marjorie demands. “Social media totally thought it was something dirty. People have been taking bets.”
“Shhhhhhh, it’s back!” my mom says, gesturing frantically for the bowl of popcorn.
This is a good thing, I tell myself as I pass the popcorn from my best friend to my mother and then back again. It’s an excellent reminder that I dodged a bullet. It could have been my love life that’s making gossip fodder for millions of women across America. My heart that could have been broken in front of the entire country instead of my two best ladies.
This time it’s Paisley who comes into view, and I gasp, because she looks every bit as beautiful as Brooklyn. More so, because whereas Brooklyn looked angelic but guarded, Paisley’s joy is written all over her face.
She’s left her hair down, and it falls down her back in wild red curls. Her dress is a mermaid cut, showing off her impressive curves. Her smile is radiant.
“She looks like Ariel!” Marjorie says. “Except without the pesky fish feet.” Then she glances at me with a loyal expression. “Tacky, though. Very tacky.”
I roll my eyes, but still, I’m grateful when somehow I end up holding both of their hands as Gage comes on the screen once more.
I don’t think it’s my imagination that his smile seems a bit wider than it was when he greeted Brooklyn, as though he and Paisley are on some grand adventure together. And why shouldn’t it be? What’s a grand adventure if not the start of a marriage?
Too late I realize that if it had been me, if only I’d been brave, I could have been the one marrying him.
And too late I realize that the cameras aren’t what matter. Neither does the spectacle, or the fact that the start of our marriage always would have been met with eye rolls by the snobby, judgy type of people.
Too late I realize that it’s not the time on camera that defined what Gage and I had. It was the time spent off camera. In that damn closet, in the car, in the ocean, in that hotel room…those were our moments.
That’s what mattered, and I threw it away.
