Shit, people who start their own businesses and no longer have any sense of work-life balance?
For sure.
But a support group for jilted brides?
Well, I didn’t see that one coming.
“Olivia!” a pretty brunette with fair skin and a huge smile says as she opens the door. “My goodness, I’m so happy you came! Come in, come in!” She steps aside, and I almost turn around and run down the hallway because I’m fully second-guessing the decision to say yes to this.
“Uh, yeah. Thanks for inviting me. This is for you,” I say, handing over a bottle of Champagne to who I’m fairly certain is our host.
My mom isn’t perfect, but she did teach me to never show up empty-handed.
“Oh, look at you! You are so kind. Come, come, let’s meet everyone.”
Everyone turns out to be four women sitting around a small coffee table, a large charcuterie board in the center and glasses of wine at the ready.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this . . . this book club-looking vibe.
“Everyone, this is Olivia. Olivia, this is, well, everyone,” she says with a giggle. A chorus of excited hellos comes my way and I force out a smile.
Jilted brides.
This group of women looks more like a group of bored Stepford wives.
That’s not nice, Olivia. You don’t know these women at all. Judging them is just as bad as what the Bitch Pack did. You’re better than that.
“It’s so great to be here. Thank you so much.”
“Of course! We’re so glad you found us.”
I sit at the end of the couch, crossing my feet at the ankles and putting my bag in my lap, trying to shake off how uncomfortable I am.
“So, we’ll let you settle in a bit and go around and introduce ourselves, just so you know who we are. We’ve learned it's easier to open up once you hear everyone else’s story, you know?”
I nod, unsure of what else I should say.
And then they begin, starting with who I’ve confirmed is our host, Julie. She was dumped a week before her wedding by her boyfriend of ten years. They had a conversation and despite her wanting to work on the relationship, it wasn’t something he was interested in.
Chrissie is a blonde with bright blue eyes who tells me with little to no pain in her voice that her fiancé ghosted her the day before they were to wed and she has never heard from him again. From what a friend of a friend has told her, he’s living two states over and is engaged to someone new.
Naomi confesses her ex is already married with a baby on the way despite the fact their one-year anniversary would have been last week.
Simone, a redhead with big curls tells me her ex broke up with her the night before their wedding and get this: they still live together three months later.
Strangely, I suddenly feel a bit better about my circumstances.
Which, I suppose, is the point after all, isn’t it?
“If you’re comfortable, Olivia, we’d love to hear your story. If not, you don’t have to talk at all, though. The goal here is to heal and find people who understand what you’re going through; part of that is, we know it can take time.”
Glancing around at the friendly faces, though, I want to. I want to open up to them, to tell them everything.
“I met my . . . ex at my family’s country club three summers ago. I fell hard and he did too . . . or so I thought. Last year, he proposed, and everything seemed perfect. My mother went into overdrive, planning a giant wedding, and he seemed . . . content. There wasn’t any sign he . . .” I pause.
I pause because for the first time, I’m ready to admit out loud that there were signs.
He gave me so many, and I ignored them all.
“That’s a lie,” I say, my voice low, my head down as I start picking at my cuticles. My wedding day manicure is almost completely chipped off, the long-lasting gel polish having fallen victim to my anxious picking. “There were signs.” I sigh and suddenly, my hand is being held by a light-brown one—Naomi.
“We get it. This is a safe place. We’ve all . . . We’ve all been there.” A round of murmured agreement circles the coffee table and suddenly, I believe them.
This is a safe place.
Not to say my friends, who would have spent a full year in a hotel room with me while I cried and yelled and broke down, aren’t a safe place because of course they are.
But there’s an untouched embarrassment I feel when I look back on the past three years and see all of the red flags.
He gave me so many signs he wasn’t in this for the long run, that he wasn’t invested in this.
We never moved in together and never discussed our post-wedding living arrangements.
We never spent more than a night together.
We never went on a vacation in the nearly three years we were together.
He never talked to me about his work, about his frustrations, and anytime I talked about mine, the subject was quickly changed.
I brought it up one time, early in our relationship. I remember it so perfectly.
“I built a business with one of my best friends. A good one. A big one. We have an entire staff, have won awards, and we’ve only been around for a little over three years.” I shake my head, picking at my nails. “I tried talking to him about it once, about an issue we were having. I remember it so well. I was frustrated and I was talking and he came over and tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled at me and gave me this look . . . god.”
I shake my head again, remembering his face, a mix of pity and annoyance and boredom, the kind of look you give a kid who has been talking about some video game you don’t understand for the past six hours.
Not your adult girlfriend talking about her business.
“He said, ‘Babe, you know that all goes over my head. It all sounds so silly to me, parties and whatnot.’” My eyes slip closed and it hits me in a way that hasn’t registered just yet.
“He never cared, did he? It was always . . . I don’t know. It was always artificial for him or something.” I’ve tried to figure it out a few times now, to decode why he let it get so far, let us get so far, and why he stopped when he did.
Was it for the image boost?
Was it for his ego?
The press?
I guess I’ll never know since he hasn’t responded to any text or call since that day.
“I think that’s the hardest part,” I say. I’ve kept my head down, not looking at them, too embarrassed and unsure of myself. “The not knowing. Not knowing why he ended it but also not knowing why he . . . why he started it. Why he continued it. That’s almost worse, you know?” I lift my head and finally meet their eyes, expecting to see what I saw in the hotel room when my world burned around me, while the pretty curtain I had hung around my relationship for the past three years fell, leaving me with . . . reality.
The pity.
The sadness.
The concern.
Of course, I could have told Cici all of this. I could have told Cami or my dad or my mom—okay, maybe not my mom—and they wouldn’t have held it against me.
But I don’t want to see it in their eyes. The looks of pity, of dismay.
Of disappointment.
I interrupted their lives with my wedding—both the planning and the actual day itself—and it all could have been avoided if I had just opened my eyes.