I know we had a fight last night, that me leaving him at the restaurant wasn’t the most mature move on my part. But when I tried to tell him how his actions were making me feel, he ground my heart in a blender with his words.
“He never showed, huh?” Janet comes up on my left, hugging me from the side.
“Nope,” I say through a sniffle, wiping my nose on my sleeve while continuing to scrub the pot in the sink.
“Sometimes the people we love let us down in the worst way, Waverly.”
“Yeah, well, this was a pretty big letdown for me, Janet.”
“You know that man loves you. If he wasn’t here, it was probably for a good reason,” she offers, and I’m inclined to believe her. However, with how our fight went down last night, I’m not surprised—but yet, I still held out hope.
“I’m not so sure of that anymore.”
“Nonsense,” she grates, grabbing my chin so I have to stare into her eyes. “I saw the two of you. You have that connection, that ever-lasting friendship that turned romantic. That’s what all good marriages are built on. Just because you had one little fight …”
“It wasn’t little, Janet. It was big, and he said things …”
“Have you ever said something in the heat of the moment you wish you could take back?” she interjects, and I know she’s trying to prove a point.
“Yes.”
“So don’t hold this one mistake against him.”
“I just don’t know if this is worth it. I had a plan, and Hayes wasn’t part of that. But then he had me making new plans, but now those have gone to shit too.”
She slams her hand on the steel counter. “Damn you and your plans! It’s time to grow up and realize that plans don’t always work out, that love is hard, but worth it with the right person, and not every fight you have is going to be an easy one to solve. Talk to him, Waverly. Work out your shit, or you’ll regret it. I promise you.”
Janet saunters off, leaving me reeling, and by the time I leave, I’m convinced she’s right. We need to talk, have a tough conversation and hash out our feelings. I love him and I don’t want to walk away, even though my heart is begging me to out of self-preservation.
So I stay up late, waiting for Hayes to come home, but I fall asleep before he ever arrives. And when I wake up the next morning, he’s already gone, and that action alone tells me he didn’t care—he didn’t remember about the spaghetti dinner, he didn’t feel remorse for missing it, and he must have meant what he said to me the other night.
So in that moment of realization, I stand firm in my stance too—I deserve more; I want more, and perhaps the future I thought included Hayes is not the future that’s meant for me at all.
* * *
“Okay, so I may be way off base right now, but shouldn’t you be happy tonight? I mean, look at this place,” Shayla says while waving her hand around the club. “This club is phenomenal, Waverly. You should be so proud.”
“I am proud,” I say sharply before taking the last sip of my glass of champagne.
“Then what’s wrong because the bubbly Waverly I’m accustomed to that should be out tonight is hiding beneath a layer of animosity and anger.”
“Well, that woman was in love and happy in her marriage a month ago. The woman who’s standing before you right now hasn’t spoken to her husband in three days and is probably getting divorced.” I know I shouldn’t be bringing to light the problems between Hayes and I right now, but alcohol makes me brutally honest sometimes and I know Shayla won’t stop pressing me until I tell her the truth.
It’s Friday night and the second weekend in June, and we’re currently gathered at the opening of Midnight Cowboy. The club didn’t open on time due to Hayes’s new job description and a few last-minute permits that had to be signed off on, but the delay only gave Ian more time to promote and make the opening night even more spectacular. And as I stare across the room, taking in the giant moon on the wall behind the stage where the DJ is playing impeccable dance music and the servers in costumes are sashaying by me, I can honestly say I’m proud of how this all came together.
“What? Why didn’t you call me?” she exclaims, moving to stand right in front of my face now.
“Because I don’t want to talk about it,” I reply, but the truth is I’m channeling my anger right now just to keep it together for the opening tonight. Emma is aware of the state of my marriage, but she’s the only one I divulged everything to since the night Hayes stormed out of my room.
Hayes and I didn’t even come up to Vegas together. His assistant called and told me he’d have to take a later flight because he had a meeting that was going to run late. As I sat on the private plane by myself, I made the decision that this wouldn’t be my life. I wouldn’t end up like my mother, married for the title and benefits alone, but without the love that’s supposed to go with it.
Desperate to convince myself it was all a lie, my mind is trying to have me believe that someone can so blindly deceive you that you don’t even realize it’s happened before it’s too late. I had no question about how Hayes felt about me until he got his promotion. Then it was as if the curtains had been opened and the reality of our situation
