I Cursed Out My Best Friend’s Deadbeat Husband for Four Years—He Was My Fiancé

I stand there frozen. I can practically hear my heart cracking apart. And all at once, everything that never made sense falls into place. For two years, Nolan kept finding reasons to push the wedding back. The first time, it was because the company was going public. Let’s wait till things calm down. The second time, a project blew up. Let’s wait till it’s sorted out. The third time, he said he wanted to take his time and give me the perfect wedding. And every single time, Juliet was the one comforting me. "Wren, good things come to those who wait." "He just wants to give you the best." "Don’t push him. Guys are under so much pressure." Now I can’t tell if what I saw in her eyes back then was sympathy or something closer to gloating. I don’t know how long I stand there before the room goes quiet. I wipe my face and push the door open. My hand is shaking. They both look rumpled. Panic flashes across their faces. Juliet speaks first. "Wren? What are you doing here?" I point at the charger on the table and force a smile. "Forgot my charger." Then I turn to Nolan. "Aren’t you supposed to be in Milwaukee? What are you doing here?" He recovers in a heartbeat and holds up a box of lemon bars from my favorite bakery. "You said yesterday you’d be at the hospital with Jules, so I flew back early to surprise you." "And since it’s the weekend, I booked us a table at that seafood place. To celebrate Jules getting better. What do you say?" I make myself smile. Two sentences, and he’s explained everything away. Smooth as anything. Like I imagined the whole thing. Not long ago, seeing them get along like this would’ve made me so happy. The two people I loved most, finally not at each other’s throats. Now it just feels like a sick joke. I pull up the video I took of Nolan at the preschool. But before I can get the words out, a text from Mom pops up. [Wren, every couple fights. Don’t go to bed angry. Nolan’s a good man.] [Please, for your dad’s sake, don’t make a scene right now.] There’s a photo attached. Dad’s gotten so thin. I close my eyes and swallow the bitterness down. Last month, Dad was diagnosed with a serious heart condition. The doctor said he could go at any moment. He held my hand and told me his one last wish was to walk his little girl down the aisle before it was too late. So I turn off my screen and paste on a smile. "Sure." The three of us leave the hospital and head to a fancy seafood restaurant. Nolan orders without even glancing at the menu. Lemon herb chicken. Grilled sea bass. Lobster bisque. Every single dish is Juliet’s favorite. I sit across from him, staring at a table full of bland food, and something inside me goes cold. I’m a Texas girl. I put jalapeños on everything. Nolan used to drive all over the city hunting down real Tex-Mex for me. He’d come home from every business trip with a jar of local salsa. Juliet’s the one who likes everything light and plain. Now he can’t even remember what I eat. Nolan peels a grilled shrimp and, without thinking, reaches to put it on Juliet’s plate. Juliet goes pale and kicks him hard under the table. He awkwardly swerves and drops it on my plate instead. "Eat up, Wren." I swallow the nausea churning in my stomach and keep my voice flat. "I’m allergic to shrimp." The table goes dead silent. Nolan looks stunned, then irritated with himself. "Sorry, babe. I’m running on zero sleep. My head’s all over the place." He hurries to order me the two spiciest dishes on the menu. For the rest of dinner, the two of them keep a careful distance from each other, so careful it’s painful to watch. Every bite tastes like cardboard. The truth is, I’d noticed things before. I was the one dating him, but whenever the three of us hung out, I could barely get a word in. Juliet gets carsick, so Nolan always kept motion sickness pills and ginger chews in his bag. Even during horror movies, his first instinct was to cover her eyes. Whenever I brought it up, Juliet would pretend to be offended and grab my hand. "Ew, please. He’s only nice to me because you make him. Honestly, I can barely stand the guy. And if he ever hurts you, he’s dead!" Nolan always looked a little wounded when she said that. I thought it was my fault. That I just wasn’t trying hard enough, and that’s why the two people I loved most could never get along. Now I finally get it. Behind that wounded look was a love he couldn’t hide. It’s ten o’clock by the time we get home. The second the door shuts, Nolan pulls me into a tight hug. "I cleared my whole afternoon tomorrow. I’m coming with you to the last dress fitting." I don’t answer. I just swallow the bitter laugh rising in my throat. I used to wait for him to say that. Over and over. And over and over, he bailed. Now I know that promise is just a carrot on a stick. I was never going to get a bite. Sure enough, at eleven, his phone buzzes. He glances at it and throws on his clothes in a hurry. "Something came up. Emergency call with the overseas team. I’ve gotta go deal with it." He leans down to kiss me, all apologetic. "Go to bed, babe. I’ll be at the fitting tomorrow. I promise." I turn my face away. "Okay." He doesn’t even notice how cold I’m being. He just leaves. I get up off the couch. While he was in the shower earlier, I connected his phone to the TV. Now his texts are right there on the screen. From Juliet. [Nol, I miss you so much.] [They discharged me tonight. Milo’s asleep. Come to the hotel, Room 2208.]

It’s late, and the streets are empty. I follow his location on my phone all the way to the hotel. Room 2208. They haven’t even closed the door all the way. Through the gap, I can see them all over each other right there in the entryway. Nolan has Juliet pinned against the wall like he’s starving for her. "Jules, I want a daughter. One just as beautiful as you." Juliet’s voice is soft, almost pained. "What about Wren? We can’t be this selfish…" Nolan buries his face in her neck. "She’s got nothing on you anyway. And she can’t even have kids… She gets the wedding. You get the marriage license. I’ll talk her into it. You and Milo won’t have to settle for less." I stand there in the shadows and watch my tears drip onto the carpet. Six years together. We used to cram into a studio apartment with a leaky ceiling. When his startup was at rock bottom, I got pregnant by accident. We couldn’t even afford a prenatal visit. He held my hand and said, "If we have the baby now, it’s just gonna suffer right along with us." I hadn’t even decided what to do yet. The next day, I was back at his office hauling boxes up four flights of stairs because the building had no elevator. On my ninth trip, my foot slipped, and I fell all the way down. There was so much blood. And just like that, my baby was gone. The doctor said I’d probably never get pregnant again. I can’t take another second of this. I push the door open and walk in. "Don’t worry about settling. I’ll make this easy for you." They whip around in a panic. Juliet goes white. She shoves Nolan away, shaking all over. "Wren… what are you doing here?" "Let me explain. I didn’t… it just happened…" I look at their half-undone clothes, and my chest feels like it’s about to split open. "It just happened? What just happened?" "You just happened to fall for your best friend’s fiancé? You just happened to end up in his bed? And then you just happened to have his kid, who’s four years old now?" "Juliet, are you really that shameless?" I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. That’s when it finally sinks in. This isn’t a nightmare. This is real. I’ve known Juliet for eight years. I’ve loved Nolan for six. In college, when I couldn’t afford to eat, Juliet gave me her birthday money. She shared everything she had with me, down to her last pack of tissues. After she had a baby with her so-called overseas executive, I felt so bad for her that I took care of her every single day, for years. I gave up my own sleep just so she could get some. And all this time, my best friend and the man I love most have been raising a four-year-old behind my back. Juliet is sobbing so hard she can barely stand. "Wren! I couldn’t help how I felt! You don’t get to talk to me like that!" Then she runs out. Nolan starts after her on instinct. Then he stops, turns back, and grabs my wrist. "Wren, you went way too far this time." "Yeah, I have feelings for her. But at the end of the day, I chose to marry you, didn’t I?" I’m shaking. I yank my arm free. "Chose me? To keep babysitting your kid for free, without even a marriage license?" The more upset I get, the calmer he gets. "If I were you, I wouldn’t pick now to throw a tantrum." "Your dad’s bypass is next week. I’m the one who flew his surgeon in from overseas." "Jules doesn’t want to see you get hurt. So if you want your dad’s surgery to go smoothly, you’ll walk down that aisle and keep your mouth shut." Then he walks off down the hall after her. My heart is still raw from the betrayal. Slowly, it goes numb. The summer I was twenty, I took Nolan’s hand and believed we’d last forever. I never could’ve imagined that one day, he’d hold my father’s life over my head.