“I did,” Brett said, glancing at me and then looking away again, back to the Braves. He took another sip of his wine and didn’t elaborate. I felt the blood drain from my face, and my throat went dry. I gulped a few times and wondered why all of the air had suddenly been sucked out of the space around me.
“You did?” I finally asked, my voice squeaking a bit as it rose an octave.
“No offense or anything, Emma, but I don’t think I love you anymore,” he said casually. “I mean I love you, of course, but I don’t know if I’m in love with you. I think maybe we should go our separate ways.”
My jaw dropped. I mean, it actually felt like it came unhinged and fell open on its own.
“Whaaaa . . .” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to cooperate with me. I was so shocked that I could hardly form words. “What?” I finally managed. “Why?”
“Emma,” Brett began, shaking his head in that condescending manner he seemed to have adopted when talking to me lately (it was the same way his father often talked to his mother, I’d noticed). “It’s not like I can explain why I feel the way I do about things. Feelings change, you know? I’m sorry, but I can’t control that.”
“But . . . ,” I began. My voice trailed off again because I hadn’t the faintest idea what to say. A thousand things were racing through my mind, and I couldn’t seem to get a handle on any of them. How could he have stopped loving me? Had our whole relationship been a lie? How would I tell my parents that the wedding was off ? What was I supposed to do now?
After an uncomfortable moment, Brett filled the silence. “You know, Emma, it’s for the best, really. You didn’t want to stay in Orlando anyhow.”
My jaw dropped farther. “But I did stay in Orlando!” A little flash of anger exploded inside me all of a sudden. “I turned down that job offer. For you!”
Just three months earlier, I’d been offered the job of my dreams—as the head of PR for a new alternative rock label under the Columbia Records umbrella in New York. I’d talked it over with Brett, and he’d told me in no uncertain terms that he would never consider moving; his life always had been—and always would be—here in Orlando. So I’d reluctantly turned down the job (after all, I was engaged, and my fiancé should come first, right?), and as a result, I was still working the same less-than-fulfilling job as a PR coordinator for Boy Bandz, the thriving Orlando-based record label whose latest creation, the boy band 407, had just landed at number four on the Billboard Pop Charts with their song “I Love You Like I Love My Xbox 360.”
“Well, Emma, that was your choice,” Brett said, shaking his head and smiling slightly, as if I’d said something childish. “You can’t really blame me for choices you’ve made in your life.”
“But I made the choice for you,” I protested. My head felt like it was spinning. This couldn’t be happening.
“And I’m supposed to marry you out of a sense of obligation?” he asked. He stared at me. “Come on, Emma. That’s not reasonable. We make our own choices in life.”
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
“That’s what it sounds like you’re saying,” he said. He looked almost smug. “And that’s not fair.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “So that’s it, then?” I managed to say. “After three years?”
“It’s for the best,” he continued smoothly. “And don’t worry; you can take as long as you want to move out. I’m going to go stay with my parents to give you some time.”
I gaped at him. I hadn’t even considered that I’d have to move out. But of course I would. That’s what happens when people break up, isn’t it? “But where will I go?” I asked in a small voice, hating how desperate and unsure I sounded.
Brett shrugged. “I don’t know. Your sister’s?”
I shook my head once, quickly, pressing my lips tightly together. No way. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to slink up to Jeannie’s door and admit that I’d lost Brett. Eight years my senior, she was married to the passive, mousy Robert, and they had a three-year-old son who was the most spoiled child I’d ever seen. I couldn’t bear to think what she’d smugly say about Brett leaving me. Failure, she would call it. Another failure for Emma Sullivan.
“Well, I don’t know, Emma,” Brett said, sounding exasperated. He raked a hand distractedly through his hair, which was starting to grow too long. He needs a haircut, I thought abstractly for a millisecond, before I realized that it would no longer be my responsibility to remind him of such things. “You could go stay with one of your friends,” he said. “Lesley or Anne or Amanda or someone.”
Hearing their names—the names of three of the girls who were meant to be my bridesmaids—sent a jolt through me.
Brett blinked at me a few times and looked away. “Obviously you understand why you need to move out.”