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Miranda actually had the gall to look excited.
We went through baggage claim at a slow pace. My feet hurt in my flip flops, which offered no support. But I couldn’t bring myself to shove the swollen things in shoes, so flip flops it was. When a minivan rolled up, I couldn’t help but laugh. She asked me what was so funny, and I shook my head, my stroll down memory lane being one I took alone. It was raining heavily, much to my annoyance.
When I told Ralph I was coming, he sent me all the details. We still had another two hours before it began, so I told her to take us to the bed and breakfast. I begged Ralph not to tell Dexter I was coming, to which he agreed. It was my deepest hope that we’d either not see each other or I’d leave before he saw me. Unlikely, but it could happen. And itwouldhappen if I had any control over the situation.
I wasn’t here for him.
Seeing him would only affirm the need to stay away because I was so sure Rachel would be with him, and a perverse part of me needed to see them together to really move forward. The final nail in the coffin.
I was constantly seeing Dexter in my thoughts. He was around every corner. He was a ghost in my bed, an apparition standing behind me whenever I looked in the mirror. I felt him even when I wanted to feel nothing. I worried that my need to be emotionless would lead me down a dark path once again, but my love for my child saved me in a way Dexter Andrews could not.
Miranda carried the bulk of the baggage, which I thought was fair since the majority of it was hers anyway. When we stepped to the counter, I felt all my patience leaving me like a balloon being deflated. I was dripping wet and exhausted, and now this?
“Noa?” Becca looked a great deal heavier, her cheeks protruding from her smile.
This coming from the heaviest woman in the room.
But life had been good to Becca. She had laugh lines and a glow about her.
Life hadn’t been good to me, so I acted my role—a woman scorned. “Oh, hi.”
Becca continued to try to make small talk, asking me how I’d been when I snatched the room key from her hand and waddled down the hall. The house looked lovely, and when I opened our room’s door, I was pleasantly surprised. Becca Hamilton was doing well for herself.
Miranda trailed in after me, struggling with the luggage. “Well, that went to shit,” she said with a huff, all etiquette flying out the window.
I grinned, glad we were both in bad moods. I sat on one of the beds, calling dibs. I couldn’t wait to take a shower, the rain and sticky air making my clothes feel like a second skin.
“That nice lady said it’s been raining nonstop for two weeks. Terrible. What will we do now?” Miranda called out after I closed myself in the bathroom to wash up.
I waited until I was finished to step out and answer. “That means we’ll be home sooner. Thank God.” I rifled through my bag, noticing time had passed quicker than I realized.
We had a half hour to get there. I pulled out my black dress and got ready.
“You look so sad. Did you know her well?” Miranda asked.
I shook my head. I felt like I was getting ready for my own funeral.
* * *
We were late.Miranda was too much of a diva to understand the termpunctualwhen it came to getting ready. The businesswoman in her checked out the moment we climbed aboard the plane. Late to a funeral. Full of people. One of them being the man I ruined after he ruined me.
We were such tattered messes.
Maybe Rachel could heal Dexter. Maybe she’d be good to him. She certainly seemed better for him than I was, despite the fact that she was secretly a villain. If I wore my crazy out in the open like clothes, Rachel wore hers like undergarments, only ever revealing it seductively, using it to get over and ahead.
She was good. She’d even fooled me. Fucking saint-colored demon that she was. But she was what he wanted.
I was going to hyperventilate. Miranda looked over at me from the driver’s side of the minivan with concern. With the engine off, the sound of rain pelting against metal was more apparent. I focused on the sound, trying to ignore my feelings.
“You be strong, you hear me?” she said, with more strength than I could muster.
Someone who didn’t know me well would’ve asked me if I was okay. Miranda knew I wasn’t, so she didn’t smother me with that ridiculous question.
I nodded and she nodded back. Then we opened the van doors to head inside.
We hustled through the rain to the front door. I cringed when we entered the building after everyone was already seated. My eyes searched the room, trying to suck in my stomach. I felt so stupid.
What idiot would try to suck in their pregnant belly?
