Left at the Alter

He turned around to face me when I walked into the garage and repeated it.

“I proposed to Abigail.”

“What? What the f…”

Before I knew there was an Anna. I proposed to Abby.”

 “Wait…”

“You’re a smart girl Cass. She played me. Played the fuck out of me. Would get tired of her boring ass life and come crawling in my bed. Only I never knew she was crawling out of someone else’s.” 

“Shit.” 

“I proposed to her, Cass.” His voice cracked and he turned his back to me. I stood there for a moment, maybe several, before walking over and placing my hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. 

“Her husband followed my construction company on Facebook. She is his profile picture.”

We sat in silence for a moment, but I had to know.

“So how did Anna get involved?”

  “I found her. She was great which made this terrible. It was never about hurting Anna it was always about Abigail.” 

  “That’s fucked up.”

 “I know.” We sat in more silence. “You want to know what’s real fucked up?”

“Oh, it gets worse?” I laughed. 

“I started to feel like if I tried hard enough, I could have what I wanted in Abby in Anna.”

“Ha! Did you find out that’s not how that works yet?”

“I found out that’s no longer what I want.” He looked at me. 

I shook my head and stood up, my bullshit meter detecting some foul smells up ahead. 

“Hmm was it right around the time that you met me that you realized that…”

“Cassidy.” He made his voice over power mine. “I’m not here to trick you or run no game. I’m just saying I think there is a reason that we met. A reason that Abigail and I didn’t work out.”

“All for this moment right here. Abby’s pain, your pain, Anna’s pain? All a part of some scheme to run into me and all my greatness?”

 I went towards the door. 

 “You would want a woman who sneaks off in garages to see if her sister in law’s boyfriend is ok because he pulls at her heartstrings despite, her fiancé being upstairs in the shower.” I grab the doorknob and pushed the door open before looking back at him. “Pay attention, I ain’t that damn great either.” 

I went through the garage door and sat in my car a moment to catch my thoughts.

I must have been in the car about five minutes or so before Eli tapped on my window. I hit the unlock button and let him in. 

“Uncle Day is firing up the grill now. I’m going to have to leave for a little bit to go pick up the chairs.”

He reached over and kissed me, a quick peck on the cheek and then one on the lips. I had closed my eyes not knowing what type of kiss we were headed for just yet and when I opened them Jeremy was at my passenger window with my phone in his hand. 

I saw  Marla’s face come across my screen. 

“Hey, baby I have to take that.” I opened the door and stepped out of the car retrieving the phone and redialing Marla’s number.  

“Hey, I need you to come to the studio.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s really important and I would rather not discuss it over the phone.”

“Marla! Are you hurt?”

“No, it’s the studio. Please don’t drive crazy, but the studio… there was a fire. It is looking like there is going to be costly damage. “

“Marla, what?”

I brought my hands up to my mouth as Marla ran the scene down for me. I was walking through the house half looking for my keys and trying to get myself all the way together so that I could leave. 

“You good?” came Eli’s voice from behind me. My keys dangling in his hand. 

“I can’t… I need…” I couldn’t speak, I could barely breathe. When he was within reach, I handed him my phone. When I saw his face go from worry to horror, I knew it was real, I collapsed into his chest. 

---

I sat on the front porch and looked out into the yard wishing we could rewind time back. I would have moved more of my art into the sculpture shed out back. My mind kept shifting back to how I was going to handle the renovations that the studio was going to need. I’ve never seen a building look so sad. I tried to push the images out of my head, but they continued to creep in. That is probably why I never noticed Jeremy when he crept through the gate and into the front yard. 

 “Hey, You good?”

  “Yea was just taking a minute to myself.” 

Jeremy came and sat one step below me. We just sat in silence for a moment. Nothing but the wind, the birds and a faint sound of a distant horn every once in a while. Jeremy reached in his pocket and held out a hard case of gum to me. 

“Thank you- what does my breath stink?” I forced a joke. It was a lot of effort and I made a note not to do it anymore. It was not my job to make people feel less awkward around me. 

“That too but take a smell.” He watched me as I opened the hard case to find two pre-rolled joints inside. I looked at him. He pulled a lighter from his coat and lit one end, drew in a long smoke and handed it to me. He looked surprised when I took it, hell I surprised myself. I knew this would make it a lot easier to pretend to not be upset any longer. I re-lit it, hit it and passed it back to him.

“Hey,” he said passing the joint back to me, “We’re going to come out and take a look at the studio tomorrow.”

My head dropped. I couldn’t believe the damage that had been done and the artwork that had been lost. 

“Marla already sent me some of the pictures. It won’t be easy, but we can do it. Maybe during the rebuild we will be able to get you to those seven rooms. The claim you put on this thang may cover the whole remodel and allow you to restock supplies. 

“I’m done smoking,” I said, noticing I was quite high already, “it’s burning my lips. Look at my lip.” 

“You want to get me in trouble huh?” he smirked at me. 

“What?” 

“I guarantee you if you have a conversation with me about your lips it’s going to get really inappropriate really fast.”

I stared at him and he smiled as he shrugged. 

“Just ain’t got no act right.” he jumped back as I acted like I was going to hit him. I stood up to walk into the house and damnier ran right into Eli.