Page 9 of Slapshot Bride

“Right. Of course.”

His mouth tips up. “Make yourself at home, Riley.”

He straightens and walks out.

I listen to his footsteps move down the hall. A door closing, slowly, then quiet.

I stand in the middle of the borrowed guest room in a wedding dress that cost twenty thousand dollars and belongs to a version of my life that ended approximately two hours ago, and I breathe. For the first time in a long while, I feel different. Free, and hopeful, if it isn’t wishful thinking.

I got away from Preston Sinclair. Well, not away, but this is a start.

I make quick work of the dress, and minutes later, I’m in the bathroom for a fresh start.

The shower lasts a long time.

I tell myself I’m just washing off the day—the hairspray, the makeup, the way perfume clings differently when you’ve been sweating through panic, and running through the streets of LA. I tell myself the hot water feels good because I’m cold and tight-shouldered, because I sprinted in heels and then sat rigid in a car for an hour, and my body needs to unknot.

Then I sit down on the floor of the shower with my knees to my chest, and I let the thing I’ve been holding together since the hallway outside the ceremony suite come apart.

It isn't pretty, nor quiet. It’s six years of very carefully maintained composure of a woman who gave her life away, and just finally realized it was time to take it back. To live and be herself unapologetically.

I cry so hard my lungs burn. So hard my stomach cramps. Years of smiling through things I hated crack open all at once, and suddenly I can’t stop.

I cry for the dress hanging in the other room with thousands of dollars and expectations stitched into every seam.

For every time I said yes when I wanted to say no.

For every dinner, every event, every carefully rehearsed version of myself I turned into because it made other people comfortable.

I cry for the girl who kept convincing herself that being tolerated was the same thing as being loved.

For the way I made myself smaller and quieter and easier to manage.

For how long it took me to realize I was disappearing inside my own life.

By the time I turn the water off, I feel scraped clean. Not okay, but emptied enough to breathe.

His t-shirt hits my thighs. The shorts have a drawstring I pull to approximately twice its normal tightness. I catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror and almost laugh. Bare face, damp hair, drowning in navy cotton, freckles out in full force now that the makeup I’d been wearing since nine this morning is gone, and somehow, I feel almost… good.

Like the dramatic crying fit in the shower scrubbed something out of me besides mascara.

I look like myself.

I hadn’t realized, until just now, how long it’s been since I looked like myself.

I find my way downstairs to see the light in the kitchen is on. Easton is there, which surprises me. I assumed he’d gone to bed after what he said.

He’s standing at the counter in sweats and a different t-shirt, and when I come in, he looks up. His gaze does a quick pass over me in his clothes and then moves to the counter.

“I didn’t know what you’d want,” he says. “So…” he pushes a plate towards me.

There’s toast. Two slices, slightly unevenly done. Next, he drops a mug of tea, steam still rising, beside it. He adds a small jar of peanut butter that looks like it’s been excavated from the back of a cabinet. It's, objectively, the most minimal possible meal, but it’s perfect for the moment.

“This is perfect,” I say.

He shrugs one shoulder. “I can make eggs if—”

“No. This is perfect. Toast is perfect.” I pull out a stool at the island and sit down, pulling the mug toward me. I wrap both hands around it. The warmth moves up my arms and into my chest, and I close my eyes for half a second. When I open them, he’s watching me with an expression I can’t fully translate.