My Power Showed Me His Cheating An Hour Earlier novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: One Hour Ago
Three days before the wedding, Brenna's kiss shows her fiancé with her best friend, the friend walks in wearing a nightgown, and Brenna tells the planner to change the bride's name.
I have a gift I've never told a single person about.
When someone I love holds me close, I see where they were exactly one hour before.
A few seconds. Sound and all. Then it's gone.
For seven years, Kellan's hour was always about me.
Kellan in a lingerie shop, red to the ears, pointing at a box he was too shy to say out loud.
Kellan in a downpour outside the bakery on Passyunk, fourth in line for the cannoli I like.
Kellan in his car with a ring box, practicing his proposal to the steering wheel and messing it up every time.
Seven years of that.
So I never worried.
Three days before our wedding, he came home late, kicked off his shoes, and pulled me in by the waist.
"Hi, wife."
"Not yet."
"Saturday," he said, and kissed me.
The room went dark behind my eyes.
A lounge with low lights and a velvet couch. Kellan by the door.
Larissa in front of him.
My best friend since we were eight.
She was crying, her back against the wall.
"We can't keep doing this. Brenna is my best friend."
Kellan moved closer. I'd never heard his voice so rough.
"I'm marrying her in three days."
He put his hand on the wall beside her head.
"Let's just call this the last time."
The lounge went away.
I was back in our kitchen with his hand on my cheek.
"Saturday," Kellan said again, softly. "Are you happy, Bren?"
I looked up into those warm brown eyes.
A laugh came out of me.
I couldn't stop it.
He smiled, like I'd said yes, and leaned down to kiss me again.
I went stiff.
The dark came back.
The same lounge. Later. Larissa curled on the couch in his lap, her lipstick smeared down her chin.
"Do you think she'll even fill out the dress?" she said. "I was at her fitting today. It hung off her like a sheet."
Kellan laughed into her hair.
"She's too thin. Holding her is like holding a bag of bones."
Larissa slapped his chest. "Don't say that. She's my best friend."
Then she put her mouth against his ear.
"What about me? Do I matter?"
He didn't answer.
She smiled anyway.
"Never mind. I won't fight her for you. She waited seven years. Poor thing."
It cut out.
I shoved Kellan away so hard he stumbled into the counter.
"Bren? What's wrong?"
I put my hand flat on my chest.
I couldn't get any air in.
He reached for me and I stepped back.
Then the keypad on the front door beeped four times.
The lock clicked.
Larissa walked into our apartment.
She was wearing a thin silk slip with no bra under it, and fuzzy slippers.
At eleven at night.
"Bren, my shower's broken." She held up a toiletry bag and smiled at me. "You're so close, I figured I'd borrow yours."
I looked at the slip.
I looked at the code she'd just typed without thinking.
For the first time in twenty years, I didn't smile back at her.
"Larissa. Do you really think it's okay to walk into our place dressed like that?"
Her eyes filled up instantly.
She's always been able to do that.
Kellan stepped in front of her.
"Bren, come on. She lived in London for years. That's just how she dresses."
"She's not what you're making her out to be," he said.
Funny. I knew all about London.
I was the one who paid for it.
When Larissa couldn't cover her first year of graduate school, I gave her the twenty-two thousand dollars I'd saved for two years.
At the airport she hung on me and sobbed.
"You're the best friend I'll ever have. When I come home, I'm your maid of honor."
When Kellan started flying to London for work, I sat him down and asked him a favor.
"She doesn't know anybody over there. Look out for her a little. For me."
He'd laughed and called me a softie.
At first he sent me pictures. Larissa with the groceries he'd brought her. Larissa at dinner, stressed about her thesis.
Then the pictures stopped.
Then he was in all of hers.
Larissa dabbed her eyes behind his shoulder.
"If it bothers you, I'll go."
She didn't move.
"Don't be silly," Kellan told her. "It's late. Use ours."
That was when I saw her neck.
A diamond necklace, a long rope of little stones with a teardrop at the bottom.
I'd found the receipt in Kellan's study two weeks ago.
Thirty-one thousand dollars.
I'd thought it was my wedding present. I'd pictured him fastening it on me before the ceremony. I'd cried a little, picturing it.
My engagement ring cost twenty-nine hundred.
"It's the meaning that counts," he'd said, when he slid it on.
Kellan went to the linen closet and took out a towel.
A cream one. One of the matching pair I'd bought for after the wedding, still with the tag on.
Larissa took it without a glance.
"You're so thoughtful," she told him. "Bren's trained you well."
"Careful," he said. "The floor's slippery."
The bathroom door shut.
The water came on.
I stood in the middle of my own living room.
Kellan came over and rubbed my arms.
"Don't overthink it, okay? She's your best friend. I only look out for her because of you."
I didn't look up.
"Mm," I said.
He went to the couch and turned on the game.
I went into the bedroom and shut the door.
My phone lit up on the dresser.
It was our wedding planner, Wells Bradshaw, who never said a word more than he had to.
"Final poster proof for the ballroom easel. Need approval by midnight."
The poster had a photo of Kellan and me on the beach at Cape May, our names in gold script across the bottom.
I typed with steady fingers.
"Change the bride's name."
The dots appeared at once.
"To?"
In the bathroom, the shower was running. Through the wall I could hear Larissa humming.
I typed it one letter at a time.
"Larissa Delancey."
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