death, it would be the end. I couldn’t allow him to play with my heart. Too much was at stake.
If his admission wasn’t enough to keep me awake nights, the wedding invitation that arrived in Monday’s mail would have done it. A wedding invitation from James, whom I’d been engaged to just a year earlier. The man I’d once loved.
Loved still.
I didn’t expect to feel anything. I’d been the one who’d called off the wedding when I realized James loved Katie and Katie loved him. Breaking the engagement had been the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it easy.
When I opened the invitation, the stab of pain I felt came unexpectedly and sharply, like a cut with a dull knife. My heart did this funny thing. It beat hard and fast and then seemed to stop completely before starting up again at a less frantic pace. I literally placed my hand over my breast as I struggled to breathe again.
I should have been James’s bride. I should have been the one standing next to him at the altar. We’d been in love, and we would have had a good marriage because we’d both wanted the same thing—to share our lives with someone else. The fact that I couldn’t give James children hadn’t bothered him, and I’d believed him.
Deep down, I had to wonder. My infertility hadn’t bothered Jayson, either, until his mother had got involved…or so I liked to think. With Jayson I had two strikes against me. Two very important ones. Love hadn’t been enough and I wondered if it ever would have been.
I held the beautifully handcrafted invitation, each one done by hand, by Katie and James themselves. It was handwritten in gold ink in perfectly shaped and even lettering. Even though I knew it would be a small wedding, it still must have taken weeks to decorate and print these invites.
I read the card again and again, struggling within myself, swallowing against that deep sense of loss, holding back the pain and the bitterness as best I could. It shouldn’t hurt this much, only it did, and far more than I ever anticipated.
The envelope included a short handwritten note from Katie:
Emily, please come. It would mean the world to us both.
We hope to share our special day with you. You made it possible.
Katie
No way was I attending this wedding. No possible way.
Didn’t Katie and James realize what sitting in that church would do to me? Didn’t they understand how painful watching them exchange vows would be? Yes, I’d stepped aside, but I didn’t need my face rubbed in their happiness.
Sleeping Monday night proved to be utterly useless. I lay awake remembering how excited I was when James and I decided to marry. As crazy as it sounded, the first person I’d wanted to tell when James gave me that engagement ring was Jayson. He’d married a shockingly short time after we split. The woman was perfect for him. They had grown up together and shared the same faith. She came from a large family, which almost guaranteed she’d deliver a baseball team of children.
Less than a year after he married, I’d gotten a birth announcement from Jayson. At first it had about killed me to read that he had a son. It took me a long time to realize why he would send me that announcement. Jayson wasn’t a cruel man. He’d genuinely loved me, genuinely cared. By sharing with me the news of the birth of his son, he was thanking me because I’d given him what he wanted, what he needed—a family of his own.
Of course I hadn’t contacted Jayson to tell him I was engaged to James, and in retrospect I was glad I hadn’t, seeing what happened.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I’d loved two men and was dangerously close to loving another. I wasn’t going there. No way was I willing to risk my heart again. I’d done that and decided never again. Really, who could blame me? I was smart and brave but not that brave.
I heard the noise in the yard below my balcony, and instinctively knew it was Nick and Elvis. I’d purposely avoided another night encounter, but with James’s wedding invite fresh on my mind, I needed to clear the air with Nick.
Opening the balcony door, I stepped outside and set my hands against the railing. Nick stood below, staring up at the third floor, patiently waiting for me to show.
When