I should have put a stop to the engagement party. But while I was passed out in bed, she’d gone full steam ahead.
Which resulted in me standing next to her, dead on my feet, watching our friends with an empty gaze. From my side, only Jazz had made it as she had a break in her filming schedule. And that was it. Cat was due to give birth in two months, Grace would never come, and Mum wouldn't be caught dead in a place like Paulie's unless it was a publicity stunt. Plus, the only person at work I was close with was Anita.
All other guests were people I knew with or through Molly. And maybe I would lose them all if I ended things.
I could manage everything at work, but my social life was burning down around me.
“Now, I’m not one for making speeches—” Mollybegan.
“Liar!” Ralph shouted, and they all laughed. Completely relaxed, completely normal, exactly how it would be at any other engagement party.
Molly persevered with her speeches as I glanced around the room, searching for him even though my best man was missing.
Molly’s maid of honour, who was with me at A&E weeks ago, Susie, was standing to her right, but Molly only had eyes for the crowd. I looked up at her, barely acknowledging the fifteen people who had come out to celebrate our upcoming marriage.
It was good—small, casual, no Mum going about making sure everything was perfect. It was exactly what I wanted, and it helped avoid the obvious fallout that would come when I turned into the bad guy and Molly discovered how I really felt.
“… but now it’s finally the right time to announce that—we’re getting engaged!”
All the gasps of surprise were fake. Molly had spent the past day phoning up friends and sharing the news while I lay sick in bed, unable to talk to or stop her.
There was still cheering. A crowd of other bar-goers had gathered with our friends to watch Molly’s speech and joined in with the clapping.
But it was off. I looked up at Molly, beaming over the attention as she spread her arms, and it all felt so wrong. “Harry and I haven’t had the easiest road. Like all couples, we’ve had our ups and downs. But we’ve made sure we were there for each other when we needed it the most.”
I tried to pinpoint a time when she was there when I needed her. So many instances streamed through my mind of me reaching for Molly and her response was anger. Often about how I should be there for her, and how she felt like I was deliberately ignoring her despite the sheer pressure crushing me.
“Three years we’ve been together,” she continued. “We’ve shared every part of ourselves with each other, and we’re finally ready to share a real commitment.”
Bile rose in my throat. I made myself look up at her so I didn’t have to face our friends.
I could have stopped her if I'd tried.
But I wanted to cling to something familiar. Even if Molly was the furthest thing from it, we had a home together and had built roots, and that was the last excuse I had for why I let the party happen.
It was like that person said; it was a lie. Because I was looking up at the woman I thought I had been falling in love with all over again, and I felt nothing.
No spike of love, no hint of excitement, no wonder at the life we were going to have together.
Not since I’d tasted Dom's lips as he pressed his body against mine and told me he loved me and—
No.
I wasn’t thinking about it again.
“And I wanted to say thank you to you all for your love and friendship over the years,” Molly continued. “You’re allwonderful people, and we’re so lucky to have you in our lives, just as Harry and I are lucky to be together!”
I watched her as she spoke, laughing and swaying about on her chair, and I realised then that I didn’t trust her. The moment she slammed the door behind me, something broke inside me, and it couldn't be fixed.
“And so, to Harry!” Molly lifted her pint, looking down to me, nothing in her expression or words to say that she comprehended the impact she’d had on me. “My love, my partner, and soon-to-be my husband!”
I was the worst person in the room.
There was more cheering and clapping, but it fell away, dead noise filling my ears.
It was wrong. It was all so wrong.
I called on all of Mum’s training. Every single time she told us not to show any real emotion, to hide it all down behind a smile so that people thought we were better than we actually were. It was all about appearance, and this was where I needed to play it up.