I sat up too fast and my knees complained. One of them had a stiff, bruised pull right below the kneecap where I’d hit the ground, and my palms were still raw from gravel. There was dried mascara in the corners of my eyes. My scalp smelled faintly like the motel shampoo Ben had used the night before while helping me wash dirt out of my hair with one hand and steadying the back of my neck with the other.
The other side of the bed was empty.
For a second panic moved through me before I heard the soft scrape of a key in the door.
Ben came in carrying a cardboard tray with two coffees, a paper bag from a gas station, and the face of a man who hadn’t slept much either. He had changed into jeans and the blue T-shirt he’d packed for the honeymoon drive we were supposed to start that afternoon. His hair was still damp from a shower, and there was a shallow red line on his ring finger where his brand-new wedding band had rubbed overnight.
When he saw me sitting up, he stopped.
“How are your knees?”
That made me laugh, just a little. It hurt my throat.
“Still attached.”
He set the coffee down on the little round table by the window and came over to sit on the edge of the bed. He didn’t touch me right away. That was one of the first things I noticed about Ben when we were dating and one of the reasons I loved him before I knew how much I would need that part of him. He always gave my body the chance to say yes before he assumed comfort looked the same to both of us.
“Your right palm looks worse,” he said, looking down at my hand. “I got antibiotic cream.”
I looked at him properly then.
There were shadows under his eyes. He had a tiny nick on his chin from shaving in a motel mirror that probably steamed up every thirty seconds. He looked angry still, but not in the hot way. In the quieter, more dangerous way that lasts.
“I’m sorry,” I said before I could stop myself.
His whole face changed.
“Claire.”
“I know,” I said quickly. “I know I shouldn’t be apologizing. I know that sounds ridiculous. I just—”
My voice caught.
He waited.
I looked past him at the closed bathroom door where my dress was hanging, dripping slowly into the tub. Somebody outside started a truck and let it idle too long. The motel ice machine gave a low humming knock through the wall.
“I’m sorry our wedding turned into that,” I finished.
Ben let out one long breath and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
“I am not sorry we left,” he said. “I’m not sorry I said it out loud. And I’m definitely not sorry Jenna got exposed in front of people who’ve been helping her get away with things for twenty years.” He paused. “I am sorry that on the first day you’re supposed to feel safe in your own life, you’re in a motel room with mud in your cuticles.”
That did me in more than if he’d given me some big speech about soulmates and fresh starts.
Because he was right. The worst part about the whole thing was not embarrassment. It was the sharp, private grief of realizing my family had found a way to make even my wedding feel familiar in the wrong direction. Me absorbing something. Jenna getting forgiven. My mother acting like the real emergency was my reaction.
I picked at the fraying edge of the motel blanket and said, “My mother’s going to tell everybody you humiliated her.”
Ben gave a short, tired smile with no humor in it.
“She looked pretty committed to humiliating herself.”
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