Chapter 3 - The Aftermath in the Parking Lot
The crisp autumn air of the hotel parking lot felt like cold water on a feverish face.
We hadn't stayed for dessert. After Thomas delivered his masterclass in absolute devastation, there was really nothing left to say. We had walked past a weeping Melissa Grant, past a dumbfounded Cheryl Benson, and straight out the double glass doors into the cool Missouri night.
Thomas carried Leo, who was already half-asleep against his shoulder, his Cardinals cap dangling precariously from his little fingers.
As we reached Thomas’s black Ford F-150, the heavy metal door of the hotel emergency exit slammed open behind us.
"Dana! Wait! Please!"
I stopped. I didn't want to turn around, but the desperate, cracking tone in that voice was something I had never heard in the four years I had dated Ryan Mercer.
Ryan was running across the asphalt, his expensive sports jacket unbuttoned and flapping in the wind. He looked completely unraveled. His hair, usually meticulously styled, was messily pushed back, and his tie was crooked.
Thomas immediately stepped between me and Ryan, placing a hand on my truck’s door handle while keeping Leo secure in his arm. "That's close enough, Mercer."
Ryan stopped five feet away, panting heavily. He didn't look at Thomas. He stared directly at me, his eyes wide, bloodshot, and filled with a strange, frantic terror.
"Dana... please," Ryan gasped out, holding up his hands. "Just give me two minutes. Please. I... I didn't know."
"You didn't know what, Ryan?" I asked, keeping my voice steady despite the adrenaline still humming in my veins. "You didn't know I had a life? You didn't know I survived?"
"I thought... I thought you hated me," Ryan stammered, stepping sideways as if trying to get around Thomas’s massive frame. "I thought you were living in that little apartment on Elm Street! I thought... I thought you were still angry!"
"I was angry, Ryan. For about two years," I said calmly. "And then I realized that being angry at you was like holding a hot coal and expecting you to get burned. So I dropped it. I moved on."
"No, you don't understand!" Ryan took a desperate step closer, his voice dropping into an ugly, pleading whisper. "Melissa and I... it’s a disaster, Dana. It’s been a disaster for five years! She doesn't care about anything except spending money! We don't even talk! We live in the same house like two strangers who hate each other!"
I stared at him, feeling a sudden, deep sense of pity that was almost worse than disgust.
"You ran away with her, Ryan," I reminded him. "You chose her over a life with me. You left a text message on my phone three hours before our wedding."
"I was scared!" Ryan cried out, his voice cracking loudly in the quiet parking lot. "I was forty years old and terrified of getting old! She made me feel young, Dana! It was a mistake! An absolute, horrible mistake! Everyday for the last five years, I’ve woken up looking at her and wishing I was waking up to you!"
"Is that why you told me leaving me was the best decision of your life?" I asked softly.
Ryan flinched as if I had struck him across the face.
He swallowed hard, his jaw trembling. "I... I was trying to hurt you before you could hurt me. I saw you walk into that room looking so... so beautiful, so confident... and you didn't even look at me. You didn't care that I was there! I wanted to make you feel as small as I felt!"
"Well," Thomas spoke up, his voice dangerously low, "you failed. Now turn around and go back inside to your wife, before I forget that I’m a doctor and treat you like the trash you are."
"Dana, please," Ryan ignored Thomas, reaching out toward me. "Can we just talk? Just one coffee? Please. Give me a chance to explain... to apologize..."
Before I could answer, the side door of the hotel opened again.
Melissa Grant stepped out into the bright security lights of the parking lot. She was holding her cream-colored handbag like a weapon, her heels clicking angrily against the pavement.
"Ryan!" she screamed, her voice shrill enough to wake the dead. "What the hell are you doing out here?! Are you seriously chasing after her?!"
Ryan closed his eyes, his shoulders slumping in absolute defeat.
Melissa marched up to him, grabbed his arm with a force that looked painful, and glared at me with pure, unadulterated venom. "You think you’re so special, don't you, Dana? Bringing a fake family to a reunion just to humiliate us?!"
"He’s not a fake family, Melissa," I said, looking her up and down. "He’s my real husband. And that’s my real son. And if you want to keep whatever dignity you have left, I suggest you take your husband home before he tells you everything he just told me."
Melissa froze, her eyes snapping from me to Ryan’s guilty, pale face. "What did he say to you?"
Ryan didn't answer. He looked at the pavement, unable to meet her eyes.
"Get in the car, Thomas," I said quietly, opening the truck door.
Thomas strapped Leo into his car seat in the back, then climbed into the driver's seat. I sat in the passenger side, pulling my seatbelt across my lap.
As Thomas started the engine and pulled out of the parking space, I looked in the side mirror.
May you like
Ryan and Melissa were standing beneath the harsh yellow streetlight of the Holiday Inn parking lot, screaming at each other in full view of three classmates who had just walked out of the lobby.
I rolled up my window, cutting off the noise completely, and took a deep, clear breath of fresh air.
