“We were so close to the wedding day, and he really did seem like he was sorry. I was stupid enough, eager enough to move on to the next step that I’d believed him. Things were fine. Better than fine. Until the night of the rehearsal.”
My fingers dug into my biceps.
She was pacing now in front of me. “He showed up to the rehearsal smelling like a distillery and he had several more drinks during dinner. I overheard his mother making snide comments about how she wished she could have invited more people but that she couldn’t because my parents couldn’t afford it.”
Fuckface’s mom sounded like she needed her own kind of ass-kicking.
“I was so mad I confronted him when we left the restaurant.” She shuddered, and I was afraid I was going to grind my fillings into dust. “Thank God we were alone in the parking lot. My parents had already gone home. Stef and the rest of the wedding party were still inside.
“He was so angry. Just like a switch had flipped. I never saw it coming.”
She closed her eyes, and I knew she was reliving the moment all over again.
“He slapped me right across the face. Hard. Not hard enough to knock me down, but just enough to humiliate me. I just stood there in shock, holding my cheek. I couldn’t believe he’d do something like that.”
I doubted that Naomi was aware she’d lifted a hand to her cheek as if she could still feel the hit.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I turned for the door and was ready to rip the knob off when I felt her hands on my back.
“Knox, where are you going?”
I flipped the lock and wrenched the door open. “To dig a shallow grave so I have a place to put him after I get tired of throwing punches.”
Her fingernails dug into my skin under my shirt, giving me something else to feel besides fury.
“Don’t leave me alone,” she said, then pressed herself against my back.
Fuck.
“He started pacing and yelling. It was my fault, he told me. He wasn’t ready to get married. He had goals he wanted to accomplish before focusing on his personal life. It was my fault for pushing him. All he was trying to do was give me everything I wanted, and there I was complaining to him the night before the wedding he didn’t want to have.”
“That’s fucking bullshit, Naomi, and you know it.”
“Yeah,” she squeaked, resting her forehead between my shoulder blades. I felt something damp leak through the shirt.
Damn it.
I turned and took her in my arms, holding her face against my chest. Her breath hitched. “Baby, you’re killin’ me.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered. “It was a slap. He didn’t put me in the hospital. Didn’t threaten my life.”
“Doesn’t make it anywhere near right. A man doesn’t put hands on a woman like that. Ever.”
“But I wasn’t exactly innocent. I tried to force a man to marry me. I almost said ‘I do’ even after he hit me. How pathetic is that? I was in that church basement in my dress, worrying about what other people would think if I didn’t go through with it. Worried about letting them down.”
I thumbed away the tears that tracked down her cheeks. Each one felt like a knife to my heart.
“I still don’t know if I would have made the right choice if Tina hadn’t called me and said she was in trouble. That’s when I knew I wasn’t going to go through with it.”
After everything Tina had done, at least she’d provided the excuse Naomi needed when she needed it.
“Daisy, you gave him a choice. It doesn’t matter how shitty the options are. It’s still his choice to make. He could spend the rest of his life with you or without you. He didn’t give you a choice when he hurt you.”
“But I should have listened to what he was trying to tell me. He didn’t want to commit, and I forced him to.”
“He had a choice,” I repeated. “Look. A man doesn’t go all in with a woman, it’s for a reason. Maybe he’s looking for something better. Maybe he’s just comfortable with his place in your world and doesn’t want to make a place for you in his. Either way, he makes no forward progress unless he’s forced into it.
“After that, even if he pops the question, even if he shows up at the altar, he’ll hold on to the fact that it wasn’t his idea. He washes his hands of responsibility for the entire relationship. But the bottom fucking line is, he had a choice every step of the way. You didn’t force him into anything.”