I stare into the eyes of the woman who once begged me for an engagement ring because she couldn’t possibly go another minute without bearing my last name. The woman who planned a beautifully elaborate wedding, at my expense, and then left me at the altar like a fucking schmuck in front of hundreds of friends and family. The one who ran off with my childhood best friend; the one she’d been fucking in secret for months, or so I later found out.
Kerenza breaks down into tears, which I’d realized over the years was nothing more than a manipulative tactic. Any time she wanted attention or sympathy for some first world problem of hers, she’d break down into tears, collapse into my arms, and beg me to hold her.
If Kerenza were an actress, she’d have an entire case full of Oscars and Golden Globes.
After a while, I stopped playing into it. I stopped giving her what she wanted, and I began meeting her faux tears with distance in hopes that she’d learn it wasn’t the way to get what she wanted. I’m assuming that’s when she started directing her affections toward my best friend.
She’s nothing but a narcissist. Kerenza is selfish and wicked, someone who schemes in order to control the lives of everyone around her, bending and persuading until she gets precisely what she wants, and then she walks away with her targets convinced everything they did was of their own free will.
“Did you get the journal?” she asks, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “I left it on your steps a couple months ago.”
Dragging my hand down my face, I tuck my chin and drag in a heavy breath.
“I took it from him after we broke up,” she says. “I . . . I thought maybe it would show you . . . I just . . . I just wanted you to see how much he loved me.”
“Of course. It’s all about you.”
“And why I chose him over you.” Kerenza reaches for me, foolishly expecting me to need comfort from her of all people, and I back away.
Peering at her, brows furrowed, I spit my words, “Why? Why the fuck would you think it mattered a year later?”
Her red lips form an O shape, and her narrow brows meet. “Because . . . because you fell apart after . . . after everything that happened. I mean, you basically became a recluse. I destroyed you, Alessio. And I feel awful for that. I’m trying to right this ship. I’m trying to give you closure, because clearly you needed it.”
Wearing an incredulous smirk, I drag my thumb across my lower lip and stare at the sidewalk behind her.
“Really?” I ask. “Really, Kerenza?”
She says nothing, only stands up tall with ironclad confidence. Funny how those tears of hers dried the second she realized they weren’t working on me.
“You didn’t destroy me,” I say. “Let me make that extremely clear to you.”
Her eyes soften, as if I’ve hurt her feelings, which is pretty damn hilarious because I’m not sure she has any.
“You leaving me on our wedding day, in front of four hundred thirty-two guests, was classic fucking gold. I mean, seriously, go big or go home, right? And then finding out you’d been fucking my best friend behind my back for months? That was the icing on the $15,000 wedding cake we never did get a chance to enjoy,” I speak through gritted teeth. “But my anger this last year? My bitterness? It’s always been directed at myself.”
Kerenza seems confused, her lips dancing and then sealing.
“I never should’ve gotten in that car,” I say, jaw clenched so tight it hurts. I’d rented a 1957 Austin-Healey convertible, white with a red interior. The car was Kerenza’s idea after she’d seen a photo shoot in some wedding magazine, and me, being the ignorant schmuck that I was, wanted to make her happy, to give her the wedding of her dreams. After our wedding reception, we were going to drive off, dragging tin cans and one of those God-awful “Just Married” signs behind us, waving at our friends and family and kissing as we rode over the hill past the venue. Just like we’d planned since we were kids. Instead, I left the church, yanked the bullshit signs off the back of the classic car, and sped off in the direction of my best friend’s Martha’s Vineyard retreat where he was staying during the wedding