Chapter 19: Melanie in the Rain

Shane parked at the far end of the Ridgeway lot and turned off the engine.

"I'll be right here," he said.

"I know."

"If you want me, you wave."

"If I want you, I'll scream," I said. "She's pregnant, not armed."

He almost smiled.

I got out into a thin cold rain.

The bench by the pond was wet, and Melanie sat on it anyway, in the gray dress, with no umbrella.

Her hair was plastered to her cheeks.

She stood up when she saw me, and then she didn't seem to know what to do with her hands.

"You came," she said.

"You said you'd hand me everything."

She held out her phone.

It was dripping.

"Three years of messages. Every hotel, every lie about you, every plan. The ones where he called you boring."

I took it and put it in my blazer pocket without looking.

"Why?" I said.

She wiped her face with the back of her wrist.

"Do you want the real answer or the one I practiced?"

"The real one."

"Because I was tired of being the friend who stood behind you."

Her voice shook.

"For ten years I held your coat and fixed your veil and told you that you looked beautiful. And I watched everyone at every table look at you first."

"You could have told me."

"I wanted what you had."

"What did I have, Melanie?"

She opened her mouth.

"A fiancé who was sleeping with you," I said. "A house I was paying for. A best friend who held my phone."

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