My Fiance Kissed My Best Friend on Our Fourth Anniversary novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Fourth Anniversary
June catches her fiance kissing her best friend at their anniversary party, drops the ring in his champagne and leaves for Crater Lake; her card is declined at midnight.
On our fourth anniversary, sixty people watched me find my fiance kissing my best friend.
The party was his idea.
Brett had rented the garden club hall in Klamath Falls and hung paper lanterns from every beam.
His mother had picked the cake, the flowers and the seating chart.
I had picked my own green dress, from a thrift shop, and I wore my mother's silver watch.
At seven my phone buzzed on the head table.
It was Kendra, my best friend since seventh grade.
"Stuck at the Portland airport. Fog. I'm so sorry, Junebug. Kiss the cake for me."
She sent three crying faces.
I typed back that it was fine and that I missed her.
Kendra was the one who had planned my whole college life.
She booked my classes and sorted my bills.
She had grabbed our mail from the lobby every single day for four years, and she always said the same thing.
"I've got it, you've got class."
I had not opened my own mailbox since I was eighteen.
Sheila Tolland, Brett's mother, swept up to my chair with a glass of champagne.
"There she is," Sheila said. "The graduate. Drink, honey. You look pale."
"I'm fine. Where's Brett?"
"Fetching his gift for you. He's been nervous all week."
She patted my shoulder with a hand covered in rings.
Everyone in that hall called Sheila warm.
I took the champagne.
Twenty minutes later Brett still had not come back.
I went to look for him.
The cloakroom was a narrow room behind the stage, full of coats and the smell of wet wool.
The door was open a hand's width.
I heard a woman laugh, low and happy.
I knew that laugh.
I pushed the door open.
Kendra stood against the coats in a red satin dress with her black hair pinned up.
Brett had both hands in her hair and his mouth on hers.
She was kissing him back.
My phone was still in my hand, and it showed her message from the airport.
Behind me a guest gasped.
Another one said, "Is that the bride?"
Someone lifted a phone and started to film.
Brett jerked back and saw me.
His face went white, and then it went soft.
"June. Baby. It isn't what it looks like."
"You're in the Portland airport," I said to Kendra.
She smoothed her dress.
She did not look sorry, and she did not look scared.
She looked tired.
"Junebug," she said, "let's not do this here."
"You did this here."
Sheila's heels clicked up behind me.
She took my elbow, gently, and turned me toward the hall.
"He's nervous, honey," Sheila said. "Four years is a lot for a boy. Come sit down, have some cake, and we'll talk after."
Her voice was syrup.
Her grip was an iron bar.
I looked at her hand on my arm.
Then I looked at sixty faces with their phones up.
When I turned eighteen, Brett had held my shaking hands over a birthday candle.
He had promised me that the summer we graduated, we would drive to Crater Lake and watch the twilight spread across the rim.
I had waited four years for that sunset.
I walked to the head table.
Brett followed me and caught my wrist.
"June, please. Let me explain, I swear it's nothing."
"Which part is nothing?"
He opened his mouth and nothing came out.
Behind him Kendra checked her lipstick in a compact mirror.
An older man by the cake said, "Four years, and in a cloakroom." A woman beside him shook her head.
Nobody moved to stop me.
I slid the ring off my finger.
It was a small diamond, and I had loved it so much.
I dropped it into his champagne glass, and it sank to the bottom with a tiny click.
"I'm done," I said.
Nobody in that hall breathed.
"June," Sheila said sharply. "You are overreacting in front of everyone."
"Yes," I said. "In front of everyone."
I picked up my purse and my mother's watch and walked out of the front door.
I did not cry in the parking lot.
I got into my old Honda and set the map on my phone to Crater Lake.
Two hours and ten minutes.
The sun had gone, but I was going to see the lake whether anyone promised me or not.
Around midnight I pulled into a gas station on the edge of the mountains.
I put my card into the pump.
The screen blinked and flashed one line.
DECLINED.
I tried it again.
DECLINED.
My phone buzzed against the dashboard.
It was a text from Sheila.
"That card is on our family plan, dear. Come home, apologize to Brett, and we'll turn it back on."
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