When I’d lumbered up the stairs last night, I’d known what I had to do—that I had to finally let Max go. I’d debated changing my mind as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, but his words to me in the kitchen hung in the air like red flags. All this time, I’d been fixated on Courtney, as if she were the real problem. But when I’d finally mustered the courage to ask Max why he loved me, my temple pulsed as I heard my own doubts echoed in his answer—knowing in that moment, I had to stop hiding from the truth.
Yes, Max would have married me this time, I was sure of it. His eyes would have been moist when he watched me stride down the aisle toward him. I could imagine him twirling me on the dance floor and carrying me through the doorway of our suite at the end of the night, throwing me down onto the bed as we laughed. He would have done a great job of convincing himself he’d chosen the right girl, and I’d have done an even better one of pretending I’d made the right decision too. But deep down, I knew he would never love me the way I deserved to be loved. And for me, he’d always be a prize I’d fought for, but never really earned.
“Is he gone?” I fling back the comforter, startling Jules.
“Yes—Ben just texted me that he saw him at the desk checking out,” she says slowly, as if she’s trying to take the sting off the words.
I fling my legs over the side of the bed and rummage through my suitcase.
“Are you going to try to stop him?” Jules asks, and even though my back is to her, I know she’s looking at me like I’m batshit crazy. “Kate.”
“No,” I say as I pull on a pair of jeans and a tank top and quickly run a toothbrush over my teeth.
“Then why—”
“I’ll explain later,” I yell as the door to the hotel suite clicks closed behind me. I rush down the carpeted hallway in my bare feet, hoping to stop him before he leaves, needing to say things to him that can’t wait another minute, that have waited too long already.
When I get to the reception desk he’s not there and I stop running, bracing myself for the fact that I might have missed him. But then I see him stepping into a cab out front. “Max!” I call.
He turns when he hears my voice, his face ashen, probably expecting me to yell at him, or worse, beg for him to stay. I think of the last time when Jules told me he was gone. I hadn’t asked any more questions about Max. Instead, I’d started questioning her about the guests and the wedding details, worried about what people were going to think, what I would say in my own defense of how I let a relationship I had portrayed as perfect detonate like a land mine. That day felt like a lifetime ago.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask when I reach him, now standing stiffly outside of his taxi, running his hand through his hair, and I want to pull it away from his head and tell him he doesn’t need to be nervous. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to change your mind again.”
Max gives me a long look, then asks his cabdriver if he can wait for a few minutes. As he walks tentatively beside me toward a bench at the edge of the circular driveway, I notice the dark shadows under his eyes. He hadn’t slept last night.
“Kate, I don’t know how many more times I can say I’m sorry,” he starts, but I put a finger to his lips.
“I know. That’s not what this is about. I just want to clear the air before you leave.”
“What changed? Because last night you were so”—he starts, then stops, remembering my reaction—“upset, so angry.” I raise my eyebrows and he quickly adds, “Not that I didn’t deserve it. I guess I’m trying to reconcile that Kate with the one sitting here.”
I wish I could tell him the truth. How thankful I am that he tried so hard to make it work the second time. That he might have done me the greatest favor of my life. “I had some time to think about things,” I finally say, looking down at my bare finger, my engagement ring resting in a velvet box in the safe in my hotel room, knowing I’ll return it to him as soon as I get back home.
“Okay,” Max says, giving me the same skeptical look Jules did in the hotel room. Wondering how, in just twelve hours, I could have swung so fiercely in the opposite direction.
“I just want you to know that we’re okay and I’m okay. I still wish you hadn’t waited until we were here to tell me.” I sweep my hand toward the hibiscus bushes lining the property, the rolling green hills of the golf course, the koi pond next to us. “But I agree with you—we aren’t meant to be married.”
“Really?” he says, his face so full of relief that I have to swallow back an involuntary tear. “Because, Kate, I really do believe that. And I’m so sorry I waited so long,” he says as he wrings his hands, and I imagine he’s thinking about Courtney, sure I won’t be quite as forgiving once I discover he’s leaving me for her—that she’s the reason he can’t see our future together anymore. “I was so confused. I want you to know, it was such a hard decision for me. I never wanted to hurt you. Please remember that.”