Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
My heart is racing. My head swirling with panicked thoughts. “Okay,” I whisper hoarsely.
Her jaw tightens. “Okay, what?”
“Okay. I understand where you’re coming from. And I’m sorry I can’t offer you what you want.”
Marnie glares at me like I’ve insulted her. “It’s not only what I want,” she says. “It’s also what I deserve. And Ripley, too.”
“Of course, you do. Both of you. I didn’t intend to imply otherwise.”
Marnie takes a deep breath and exhales. “Good talk, Max. I’m glad we had this conversation. It’ll save me from wasting my tears after we get home.” She gets up. “Thanks for a great week. Congratulations on the new job.” She takes off her fake diamond and tosses it onto the bed. “We’re still within the return period,” she mutters. “You should be able to get a full refund.”
“I’m not gonna return the ring. Marnie, wait.”
I try to shove it at her, but she waves me away.
“I don’t want it,” she says.
“Sell it, if you want,” I counter. “But it’s yours.”
“I don’t want it, Max. I don’t want the ring or the money you spent on it.”
“I bought it for you, remember? And it wasn’t cheap.”
Marnie shakes her head. “If I’d known when you bought that ring what an amazing week we’d have, I would have insisted you’d return the ring after family camp and get your money back.”
I sigh. “Would you stop being such a fucking pain in the ass and take the goddamned ring? I’m not going to return it, and I don’t need a fake diamond ring sitting in my desk drawer for the rest of my life.”
She folds her arms over her chest. “And I don’t want the fucking memory of how fun it was to wear it, okay?” She throws up her hands. “Give it to the next woman you ask to be your fake fiancée. Or your real one someday. It looks real enough. She’ll never know the difference.”
I grit my teeth. Why is she doing this? Only a nut job would make a lifelong commitment this quickly. For fuck’s sake, if I were willing to slip this ring onto her finger again, and tell her it was for real this time, wouldn’t that be a huge red flag? She’s insane if she thinks any rational person would do that.
When my silence becomes deafening, Marnie turns and stomps out of the room, throwing over her shoulder, “Thanks for a great week.”
When she’s gone, I stare at the half-opened door—the space where Marnie stood a moment ago—feeling utterly incapable of commanding my limbs to move. My entire body is quaking with adrenaline. My heart squeezing painfully. I should go to her. But to say what? I’ve got nothing more to say than what I already have.
With a deep sigh, I slide into bed and tell myself Marnie is the crazy one, not me. She’s asking too much. Being naïve. I tell myself these feelings I’m having for her will disappear when we get back to reality. That soon, this magical week—this alternate universe where I was Marnie’s fiancé and future husband and Ripley’s daddy—will fade from memory and feel like nothing but a beautiful dream.
30
MARNIE
Ten days later
“Aw, honey,” Lucy says sympathetically. “I’ve never seen you so brokenhearted. I wish I could help.”
My other friends at the table—Victoria, Selena, and Jasmine—chime in to say essentially the same thing in various forms and iterations.
“Nobody can help me,” I murmur, staring blankly across the restaurant. “There’s no way around this storm; I simply have to go straight through it and feel all the pain.”
The five of us are sitting in our usual downtown spot for another monthly dinner. Luckily, nobody brought a plus-one this time, so I’ve felt comfortable baring the naked depths of my heartbreak without holding back. No sugarcoating. No putting on a brave face, like I usually do. My friends are getting Real and Raw Marnie tonight. And she ain’t pretty. If only Max had felt even half of what I did by the time our last night of camp rolled around, he’d have begged me not to take that damned ring off.
My heartbreak and rejection feel that much worse, now that my period is three days late. I haven’t taken a pregnancy test yet out of sheer terror, so I have no idea if I’m late due to stress or because I’m carrying Max’s love child. I’ll take a test within the week, I think, if my period doesn’t come before then. Hopefully, that will give me enough time to push past this acute sadness, at least enough to handle whatever outcome without totally falling apart.
Another reason I’m not itching to take a pregnancy test just yet is that I’m admittedly still holding out hope Max will change his mind, track me down, and beg me to wear his ring, after all. In the unlikely event Max were to do all that, I’d want it to be for no other reason than he’s realized he loves me madly and genuinely wants to make a lifelong commitment to me, rather than because Max now feels a sense of obligation to me, thanks to an unplanned pregnancy.