I sat down, having no idea where to begin. But my fingers knew what to do.
I just did the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do and made the biggest sacrifice I’ve ever made in the name of friendship. Bride C, my lifelong best friend, told me last weekend that I couldn’t date her fiancé’s friends. Which sounds both petty on her part and like a no-brainer on mine, but matters of the heart are never that simple.
It’s actually not petty of her. She’s not wrong. I have the world’s worst relationship track record. I could give you all the sob story about the one who got away from my youth, but the reality is that I did all of this to myself. I fell in love with an idea that didn’t exist and stayed fixated on that idea for a really long time, sabotaging anything that could have been a relationship along the way because it wasn’t that.
But this time, I met someone real. Someone funny, and charming, and sweet, and kind, and wonderful. Someone who, against all odds, sees me. Likes me. The real me. Not the internet persona, not the shined-up penny version I present to most of the world, but me, flaws and all, and still wants what he sees.
So what’s the problem?
I got ridiculously drunk and slept with the most repulsive, former-frat boy meathead I could find—who happens to be a groomsman in Bride C’s wedding.
Did I mention Perfect Guy is also a groomsman in Bride C’s wedding?
Bride C knows I slept with the horrible one, which is why she told me to stay out of her fiancé’s circle of friends for future dalliances. So you see, dear reader, she’s not wrong to make that demand of me. I’ve already been there, made that mistake, and she’s perfectly right to not want me to have slept with two of her husband’s best friends before her wedding.
Especially with my history of screwing everything （and apparently everyone） up.
So when Perfect Guy kissed me tonight after being his perfect self and helping me manage the girls at my sister’s bachelorette party （and even preventing my idiot sister from doing something with a random dude that would probably call off the whole wedding）， I realized three undeniable truths.
I am head-over-heels crazy about this guy.
I already ruined it by sleeping with the repulsive guy.
And if I follow my heart, I’ll lose both of my best friends （Did I mention he told me I’m his best friend tonight? How is he so perfect?） when he finds out what I did and it falls apart.
I did the right thing tonight. Even though it hurt like hell and cost me the best guy who will ever be interested in me, both as a friend and as more.
But I kept my word to my other best friend, and I didn’t hook up with two groomsmen in her wedding.
Lowest bar ever? Met.
And the worst part is, unlike pretty much everything else from this crazy, messed-up year of weddings, this is all my fault.
Side note: I really hope tears don’t ruin eyelash extensions, because if they do, I just screwed up yet another wedding.
Not my best writing, but it was such a convoluted story to tell. And just putting it out there made me feel better because there was no one I could talk to about it all. Not Megan, not Alex, not Caryn, and not Becca, who would probably be moving out soon at this rate.
I hit “Publish,” and then closed my laptop.
I got up mechanically and washed my makeup off, then changed into pajamas. I was on such thin ice with Caryn, and God knew she would take any blemishes as an intentional sabotage of her pictures next weekend, so leaving the makeup on was not an option.
On my way to bed, I checked my phone to see if there was anything from Alex—there wasn’t—and did something I never did. I turned my phone all the way off. No alarms, no texts to wake me up. Nothing. I wanted to sleep for as long as my body would let me.
I climbed into bed and lay there staring at the ceiling for a long time as I thought about where I had gone wrong, and wishing, desperately, that I could turn back the clock and avoid Justin entirely.
Eventually, I fell asleep. And if I dreamed, I mercifully remembered none of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I woke up at some point and drank some water, then went back to bed. I woke up again to pee, drank more water, ate a protein bar, then went back to sleep.
When I woke up for real, my eyes felt puffy and swollen, and the whole situation with Alex came flooding back to me. I sighed, swinging my legs out of bed, and went to take a shower. I didn’t want to turn on my phone yet because I knew there would be nothing from him.
After my shower, I pulled on a pair of yoga pants, a sports bra, and an old University of Maryland T-shirt that had seen better days, and I ate a yogurt. The clock on the microwave said it was almost noon, which wasn’t so bad, all things considered, but because it was Memorial Day weekend, that meant I had a long day and a half in front of me to fill on my own.