The Life I Chose novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Unwell

Holt hit the gas before I could answer her.

The Audi backed over my flower bed and was gone.

I stood there on my step.

One night, he'd said.

She'd been dumped, she'd come to him soaked, he'd only meant to comfort her.

And she'd just laughed at it out the car window.

"You all right?" Daniel said.

"No."

"Want me to stay?"

I looked at him.

I wanted it so badly my knees went soft.

"Not tonight," I said. "Not with his stuff still on my porch."

He nodded.

He peeled the label off the empty bottle with his thumbnail, wrote his number on the back with a pen from his coat, and pressed it into my hand.

"It's twelve oh one," he said. "Bet's over. I won."

"What did you win?"

"I'll let you know."

He walked down my steps and got into an old green pickup truck with salt rust on the doors.

I watched the taillights to the corner.

Ruthie showed up ten minutes later with fries and two bottles of Malbec, and she slept in my bed with her shoes on.

At nine the next morning she shook me awake and shoved her phone in my face.

"Read it. Don't throw anything."

It was a statement from the Thackery family, posted on the Thackery Foundation's page.

"Due to a sudden family medical emergency, Holt and Margo's wedding has been postponed. We ask for privacy, especially for Margo, who has been under enormous strain and is unwell. Last night's remarks at the rehearsal dinner were a painful misunderstanding. We love her and are standing by her."

I read it twice.

"Unwell," I said.

"They're calling you crazy," Ruthie said. "Politely. With a lot of money."

"Misunderstanding."

"Like you misheard him. Like eighty people misheard him."

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Marjorie.

"Lunch at the club, one o'clock. Just the two of us. I've ordered the sole for you. Love, M."

Ruthie read it over my shoulder.

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