“Oh, but it is. Besides”—a cruel smile crept across her lips—“I don’t think Caryn still wants you in the wedding after this. You can go back to your tacky little life now.” She walked back into the party room and started ordering the busboys around. I debated hurling the heavy crystal vase at her head, but she was the type who would sue for assault.
Shoulders slumping in defeat, I left. The wait for the valet felt interminable; I just wanted to get out of there. Eventually, he pulled my six-year-old Hyundai Elantra around the loop in front and had the grace not to mention that it was probably the least expensive car he had ever driven there.
I threw the present in the trunk and climbed in, feeling lower than I had since the morning after Megan’s engagement party.
A car pulled in behind mine, so I put it into drive, barely recognizing where I was going.
When I came to a stop, I was in front of Megan’s old apartment building. But Megan didn’t live there anymore—she had moved to Columbia, forty-five minutes away. Muscle memory had just taken me there, craving the comfort of my best friend. I put my head down on the steering wheel and started to cry.
When my tears had slowed and my breathing calmed, I called Megan. I knew I needed to apologize to Caryn, but I didn’t know how to start. Megan would know what to do.
She answered on the third ring. “What’s up? Aren’t you at the shower?” The background was noisy, people talking and laughing, glasses and silverware clinking.
I started to tell her what happened, but she stopped me. “Hang on, it’s loud here. Let me find a quieter spot.” She moved away from the noise. “Sorry, we’re out with some new friends in Baltimore for drinks by the water since it’s so nice out today.”
I hadn’t seen Megan in a couple of months. Yes, I had been busy with wedding stuff pretty often, but she hadn’t invited me to her house since January. She was building a whole new life, and I wasn’t in it.
“Start over. What happened?”
I gave her the short version, not wanting to keep her from her new friends and also worried she would just cut me off if I spent too long explaining.
“You have to tell her.”
“But Caroline already showed her this fake email.”
“So? She needs to know.”
“She’s not going to believe me.”
“Then is she really your friend in the first place?”
Are you anymore? I wanted to ask. Because I still need you and you’re never there.
“Look,” she continued. “If someone was doing that in my wedding, I would want to know.”
“Yeah.”
“I know that ‘yeah.’ You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
“It’s not going to help. She’s already mad at me for not going to the bachelorette party and not paying my share.”
“Then she’s being unreasonable. You have your brother’s wedding that weekend. And no one spends that kind of money on a trip they’re not even going on.”
“I think she’s going to kick me out of her wedding. Caroline hinted at it.”
“Is that such a terrible thing? Be honest.”
“It’d be so awkward at work.”
“Yeah, for her. She’s got to see you every day if she does that, not the other way around. You’ve got this.”
“Thanks, Megs.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go back in. Call me later, okay?”
I said I would, but we both knew that I wouldn’t because we were done talking for the day. Which wasn’t how it used to be, but Megan had a new life now. And I didn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I sat down at my computer when I got home, but the words wouldn’t come. I needed to know how it turned out first. And as much of a relief as it might be to not be in the wedding anymore, especially with a keratin treatment and fake eyelashes still on the docket of things that I had to sit through （and pay for）， I wasn’t ready to write Caryn off as a friend.
However awful she had been these past months, it didn’t cancel out the seven previous years of friendship. She had kept me sane at work when I was bored silly by the content of the press releases. Touched up my hair and makeup when I went on television. Helped me prepare for interviews with the press by going over questions they were likely to ask. Commiserated when I had to deal with scientists who lacked even basic social skills. If our friendship was the sum of its parts, yes, her behavior since gaining that diamond on her left hand had detracted from the overall equation, but we were still very much in the positive column.