Chapter 4

A rejection that plain—how could I not understand it?

I picked up the juice on the table and drank, keeping my tone light.

"Whatever you two decide is fine."

"You're the people I trust most. There's no way you'd plan it wrong."

They glanced at each other, and both seemed to let out a breath.

"Vivian, you're my best brother. Your wedding is the biggest day of your life. Say what you want, but I'm giving you the best of everything."

I looked at the sincerity all over Ned's face and gave a small smile. "Is that so."

If he knew it was the biggest day of my life,

then why was I shut out of everything?

But once a thing like that is said out loud, it stops being worth saying.

Partway through, Ned went off to the restroom.

Gabriella vanished right after him.

Something urgent had come up at work, and I wanted to tell them I was leaving first.

But at the restroom door, I heard Ned ask, his voice thick with tears.

"Are you really going to marry him?"

I stood behind the wall and watched Ned cry until his eyes were red and swollen.

"I don't mean anything by it. I watched the two of you together all these years, and I don't want to split you up."

"It's just, thinking about you getting married, I can't quite hold back how much it hurts…"

Gabriella stayed silent a long time, and in the end she threw herself into his arms, her voice pressed down tight.

"Ned, I have to marry Vivian."

"I still love him. And besides, he's got a temper and he's hard to please, but he hasn't done anything wrong. I… have no reason to call off the engagement."

Ned's eyes went redder. He tipped his head up to look at her. "And me?"

"Just now you gave the shrimp you peeled to Vivian. It really hurt."

"The thought of you being someone else's wife from now on, I…"

Gabriella couldn't hold back anymore and pulled Ned hard against her.

"There, there."

"Even after I marry Vivian, I promise, things between us will stay just like before."

"But won't that be so hard on you…"

Gabriella didn't say anything, but her eyes stayed fixed on his.

I watched all of it coldly, and suddenly I smiled.

You don't need to make it hard on yourselves.

I'll step aside for you.

They spent a week scouting the coast for the honeymoon.

Somewhere in the middle, Ned posted to his feed with me blocked from it. I only saw it through my burner account.

"This place is really as beautiful as a dream. How wonderful it would be to stay here forever and never go back."

The photo showed two backs turned toward the camera, out combing the tide flats.

He and Gabriella held hands, like a couple in love.

But the day they got back, he posted again.

"The dream's over. Time to return her to my brother."

I pretended I'd seen none of it, and I didn't chat with them again.

Neither of them noticed anything off. They assumed I was the same as always, a full-on workaholic.

Except, the day they came back, I happened to be walking out with my suitcase, and we passed each other at the airport.

"Off on another business trip?"

Running into me, there was no surprise on Gabriella's face.

"How many days this time?"

I didn't want to lie, and I was weighing how to answer.

Ned spoke up beside her, smiling. "It won't be long. With the wedding so close, when has Vivian ever taken a long trip, just to keep from being apart from you?"

That one line pulled me back.

It was true. All these years.

I believed distance made feelings go bad.

That even after a fight, you couldn't get to the other person in time to say something soothing, or give them a hug.

So my trips almost never ran past a week.

But this time, the assignment was for ten years.

"Relax. Your husband's a workaholic, but he'd never let it wreck the wedding."

Ned smoothing it over.

It kept Gabriella from pressing further, easy as anything.

She looked at me, gentle in a way she rarely was.

"Same as always. Once you get where you're going, send me a message and your location."

"Don't worry yourself over the wedding."

"When the day comes, just show up on time in your groom's suit."

With that, she handed her suitcase over to Ned, natural as breathing, turned, and walked off.

I watched the two of them go, matched so perfectly, and said it to myself,

but Gabriella, this time I won't be showing up.

I turned and, without looking back, gripped my boarding pass and walked through the gate.