Chapter3

"A Ms. Reed came in this morning with a new set of measurements. She asked us to take the dress in to match them. It's standard to check with the bride before we make changes."

"With the wedding in two days, we only have time for one round of alterations, so I just wanted to make sure."

At the same time, Ethan's laptop chimed from the desk behind me.

Maddie: Okay, hear me out. What do you think Nora's face is gonna look like when she can't zip up her own wedding dress?? I'm dying.

Logan: She'll cry. She always cries. It's embarrassing.

Tyler: I wanna see her face when Maddie zips into it no problem.

Tyler: Honestly? The dress and the ring are both Maddie's size now. When Nora storms out, you two should just do the ceremony. She can't blame us. She's the runaway bride.

Ethan answered with one word.

Ethan: Can't wait.

I stared at those two words for a long time.

Everything the others had said hurt. But that hurt more than all of it put together.

We used to talk about our wedding when we were kids. Later, when we were older, we'd walk along the lakefront holding hands, and he'd describe the two of us at eighty, gray-haired and still annoying each other.

So what exactly couldn't he wait for now?

To watch me run out of my own wedding in tears?

Or to walk down the aisle with Maddie?

I didn't know.

And I was done trying to figure him out.

"Go ahead with the new measurements," I told Claire.

As soon as I hung up, I called our wedding planner.

"Hi, Jen. It's Nora. I need to swap out the slideshow file for the ceremony."

"Keep the beginning the same. All the sketches."

"But once the ceremony starts, I want you to switch to a new file. I'll email it to you."

Jen laughed. "Ooh, is it a surprise for the groom?"

"It's a surprise for everyone," I said.

I wasn't going to be anyone's punch line at that wedding.

I drove to my condo. The one I'd spent six years saving for.

The second I unlocked the door, a cloud of dust rolled out.

Bags of cement were piled on my couch. There were cinder blocks on the coffee table. I could barely recognize the place I used to come home to.

In the closet, my pressed work blouses had cigarette burns in them.

And my cat, Biscuit, was huddled behind the toilet in the bathroom, his paws streaked with blood.

For a second, my brain just stopped.

"What the hell are you doing?"

The contractors froze and looked at each other.

"Get out! Get out of my house!"

I couldn't stop screaming.

Then a voice behind me cut in. "Nobody's going anywhere. I'm paying you guys by the hour."

Maddie strolled in, all smiles, and hooked her arm through mine.

"Nor, babe, did you forget? You signed this place over to me. It's my condo now."

Ethan followed her in and glanced at me without much interest.

"Maddie wants to redo it. Don't worry, she's keeping a guest room for you."

Then the two of them started arguing about whether my bedroom should become a gaming room or a laundry room.

They talked about it so easily. Like a couple picking out paint for their first home.

They were having so much fun that I couldn't get a word in.

I'd bought this place with my own money. Every payment had come out of my paycheck. And somehow the only piece of it left for me was a guest room.

But the worst part was that I'd signed the deed.

Maddie had come over one night with a bottle of wine and tears in her eyes. "Nor, what if something happens to you? Who's going to take care of Biscuit? I wouldn't even have a key. I wouldn't have any right to come in."

Ethan and I found Biscuit behind a dumpster in Logan Square the first winter we lived together.

So I signed a quitclaim deed, and I gave Maddie my home and my cat.

When we found him, Biscuit was the size of my hand and too sick to meow.

Ethan and I nursed him back together. We bottle-fed him in shifts until he was fat and loud and ran the whole apartment.

Ethan built his cat tree by hand, from scratch.

I still remembered him wiping sawdust on my cheek and pulling me into his lap.

"Look at us. It's like we're raising a baby. When we have a real one, I'm building the crib myself."

Back then, everything was simple. Everything was real.

Now the cat tree was in pieces on the floor, and the cat we'd raised could barely stand.

And I was never going to see that crib.

I scooped Biscuit up with one arm, grabbed my suitcase with the other, and turned to leave.

I was not handing him to anyone ever again.

As I passed Ethan, he grabbed my wrist.

"Where are you going?"