Chapter Four
Hazel's POV
I held onto the doorframe as I made my way out of the lake house. The driveway was already empty.
Graham had taken my car without once asking how I was supposed to get home.
It was one in the morning out by the lake. The rideshare app spun for twenty minutes, and not a single driver took the ride. The cut on my fingertip was still oozing, and my whole finger had swollen up so much the skin was stretched tight.
I pulled my coat tighter and walked along Lakeside Road for more than a mile before I finally spotted an urgent care clinic with its lights still on.
The nurse cleaned the cut and gave me a tetanus shot in my upper arm. It hurt so much I clenched my fists until my knuckles went white.
To take my mind off it, I pulled out my phone.
Sloane had posted twenty minutes earlier.
"First tetanus shot of my life. Hurt so bad I almost cried. Good thing someone let me squeeze their hand."
The photo showed the back of Graham's hand, with four crescent-shaped fingernail marks dug into it. Half his face was in the corner of the shot, and he was smiling in a way I hadn't seen in a long time.
Graham always said the perfect partner could handle things on her own.
Last year, my period cramps got so bad I was curled up on the bathroom floor and couldn't get up. I begged him to take me to the hospital. He stood in the doorway, glanced at me, took a bottle of painkillers out of the medicine cabinet, and tossed it at my feet. "Take two. You'll be fine. I've got a meeting at ten."
I thought that after all these years of him wearing me down, I'd stopped being scared of pain.
But the moment the needle came out, I started crying anyway.
The nurse paused, then got a lot gentler with me. She told me to spend the night in a recliner in the observation room and head out in the morning.
I nodded, but my thumb had a mind of its own and scrolled down to the comments.
The first one was from the account with the coffee shop sign as its profile picture.
"Perfect Moment #613: Didn't flinch once during the shot. So here's that trip you've always wanted."
Below it was a screenshot of two first-class tickets to the Amalfi Coast and a booking for an oceanfront villa.
I stared at it with my finger hovering over the screen, frozen for a long time.
That was my honeymoon with Graham.
The wedding had been put off for seven years, and so had the honeymoon. The booking expired again and again. Every time, he said we'd just rebook it, but we had to do things in order. No wedding, no honeymoon.
Now he'd taken the honeymoon I'd waited seven years for and handed it to someone else as a prize for getting a shot.
Could a honeymoon somebody else got to enjoy first even count as perfect anymore?
I didn't even want to know anymore.
I wiped my eyes and replied under that comment.
"The water in Amalfi is really blue. Have fun."
"Graham, let's break up."
I didn't want a secondhand honeymoon, and I didn't want a secondhand man either.
Less than a minute later, Graham was calling.
I declined it, and he immediately switched to blowing up my phone with texts.
"You think making a scene in Sloane's comments looks good? That's what you came up with after a whole night of thinking about what you did?"
"She's not even holding it against you. The trip's just me smoothing things over with her for you. Drop it."
"Rule number one. You answer my texts right away. That's going in the post-mortem."
The last one was a little softer. "Ten tomorrow morning, Logan. Be on time and you can come with us."
I didn't read any further. I blocked him and Sloane and deleted them both.
Right after that, a message from Ms. Harrington popped up.
"Something came up with a big client in Zurich, so I moved my flight to six thirty tomorrow morning. My assistant changed your ticket too. Can you make it?"
I wrote back one word. "Yes."
I toughed it out in the recliner until dawn, caught a ride back to the apartment to grab my luggage, and got to Logan by five.
I'd barely stepped up to the check-in counter when I saw Graham.
He saw me too, and he couldn't hide how stunned he was.
He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Sloane called out excitedly from behind him. "Hazel? Are you coming with us?"
She jogged over, pushing her suitcase. Her hair was a mess, and her finger was still wrapped in last night's gauze. She'd obviously made it at the last minute. Graham automatically reached out and took her suitcase.
He swallowed whatever he'd been about to say, and his face went cold. "No. She can't even make it by ten. You think she'd make it by six?"
I got it.
He'd told me ten because by then their flight would be long gone. His punctuality had only ever been for Sloane.
From the very start, there had never been a spot for me on this trip.
After a few seconds of silence, Graham sighed and pulled the wedding ring out of his pocket. The blood on the setting had been wiped off. He took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger.
"Come on, babe. We'll be back in seven days. Keep planning the wedding like normal. I'll be right on time this time, I promise."
"I won't put last night in the post-mortem. So no more sulking, okay?"
He was so sure I was still the same girl who'd wait right where he left her, sulk whenever he got close to Sloane, and cave the second he made a promise.
He was wrong.
When someone's really ready to leave, they don't even bother explaining.
I watched them go through security, took off the ring, and dropped it in the trash can beside me. Then I turned and walked toward the gate for Zurich.
He wouldn't be there. Only my own future would.
Third-Person POV
Seven days later, as soon as his plane landed, Graham went straight to the country club and pushed open the ballroom doors right on time.
The room behind them was empty. No flowers, no guests. Not even a single chair had been set out.
His stomach dropped. He grabbed the venue manager. "Isn't Hazel's wedding today? Where is she?"
The manager had no idea what he was talking about.
"Hazel? She canceled every wedding booking she had with us a week ago. She signed all the paperwork. She even told us specifically not to hold any more dates for you. I heard she's already left the country!"
