One Night: A Short Story

Noelle wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Crying was the obvious route, she thought as she felt her legs finally give out. She fell to the floor, bringing her knees up to her chest and swaying slightly as she tried to compute what she’d just heard James tell her. 

We can’t get married. I’m still married to Helena.

Helena. His wife. The woman he’d told her he wanted a divorce from so that they could finally be together. So that they could finally get married.

She started to laugh. She had to because she didn’t deserve to cry. Not when she’d known secretly how bad of an idea this was. Not when everyone in her life had confirmed it either with words or with that look in their eyes when she’d started wearing the ring he’d given her.

He can’t propose to you, Noelle, Aaron had said when he’d first seen the gaudy thing. He’s a married man.

He says he’s going to divorce her. And then it’ll be me he marries.

She put her head down now, shaking as she realized how delusional she’d been acting. Of course, he wasn’t going to marry her. All of this... the proposal, the wedding, hell, their entire relationship, had been some kind of game to him. Helena had cheated on him and so he’d done it back, not caring that along the way, Noelle might’ve actually fallen in love with him.

A knock at the door had her tensing up. At first, she wanted to ignore it. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, pathetic and on the floor and having to explain that no, the wedding wouldn’t be happening after all. But then a spark of hope flared inside of her chest. Maybe it was James and he was coming back to tell her that this was all a bad joke.

But when she finally found the strength to open the door, she found it was Aaron on the other side. The moment she looked at his face, she realized she didn’t have to explain anything. He already knew.

“How do you know?” She asked, staring at his handsome face. Right now, it looked wretched as worry lines wrinkled his brow and eyes. “How could you possibly already know?!”

She didn’t mean to sound so hysterical, just like she didn’t mean to let her half-brother in but in he came, throwing his arms around her as she shook, still unable to shed a single tear.

“Shh, it’s ok,” Aaron said as he cupped the back of her neck and held her to his chest. “He told Jake who told the rest of us. I went to go find him and fix this but he’s gone, Noelle.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, already knowing that would be the case. One didn’t end a relationship and stick around the wedding venue. He’d most likely gone home, back to his wife and daughter.

“Don’t pretend like you actually would’ve tried to change his mind,” Noelle said as she pushed Aaron’s arms away, trying to put distance between them by shrinking back to the corner she’d been despairing in. “You hated James. You told me yourself that you thought this was stupid.”

This being their mad elopement: Flying off to Vegas with only their nearest and dearest. For Noelle that had been Aaron and Nina and for James that had been his brother and Jake. But she’d known even on the plane ride here that half of the wedding party was here unwillingly. Both Aaron and Jake had told her time and time again not to go through with this. And now here was Aaron, trying to make things right. She knew he was secretly punching the air.

“That doesn’t mean I wanted this to happen. I didn’t want him to leave you the day you were going to get married. I wanted the epiphanies to happen forty-eight fucking hours ago or when he gave you that stupid ring three months ago. You should’ve ended the relationship then. You knew, just as I did, that he only bought it to piss-”

“I can’t fucking hear this right now!”

It wasn’t her intention to shout. But that’s how the words came out just as the reality of the situation was finally setting in and all her bad decisions leading up to this day were finally slapping her in the face. And there she was, standing in a stupid, white, wedding dress.

“I can’t hear this right now,” she tried again, leveling her voice. “I understand what a colossal fuck up this is, but if all you can do is point that out, then please leave because I just- I can’t-”

She looked away from him, breathing deeply as she felt the first fit of tears begin.

“Noelle,” Aaron sighed, taking a step forward. Out of her peripheral, she was aware of him raising a hand only to drop it. “I- I don’t want to say I told you so. But why couldn’t you have just listened to me before?”

She would not cry, she decided, as she stared at her brother’s face. There was something so damn patronizing about his expression and she refused to let out all she was feeling in front of him. Squaring up her shoulders, she marched toward her hotel room’s vanity table and wiped a finger under her eye where a single tear had smudged the makeup she’d spent forty-five minutes perfecting.

“You really need to work on your pep talks,” she told Aaron, watching his reflection move in the mirror. He stood awkwardly by the door, staring at her with a conflicted look.

“I’m just telling you what I think you need to hear.”

“That what? This is my fault? It takes two tango and I’m not the asshole who proposed to someone only to leave them by the proverbial alter.”

She picked up one of her perfume bottles, spraying some onto the inside of her wrist and smelling it deeply. When she was little, her mom used to do that to calm her down.

It didn’t work at that moment and she had the most insidious thought of throwing the expensive bottle across the room so that it would shatter into a thousand pieces. She slammed the bottle down to the table instead, pulling out the chair and sitting down. Her hair iron was still plugged in and she picked it up now, twining a piece of dark hair in her fingers and wrapping it over the contraption.

“Oh my God. What are you doing right now?” Aaron asked, staring at her open-mouthed as she continued doing what she’d done before James knocked on her door and told her, point blank, that it was over.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting ready.”

“Are you having a breakdown right now? He left, Noelle. He packed his bags, and left! There is no wedding to get ready for.”

As calmly as she could, she put the iron down and twisted around to look him in the eye.

“I know,” she said slowly. “I was here when he told me.”

“Then what the hell are you doing?”

Her fingers tightened where she’d wrapped them on the edge of her seat. What was she doing? Getting ready, that’s what. She’d spent hours today making herself out to look perfect. And before that, she’d spent hours shopping for the most beautiful dress. It was long and white and made out of satin and it made her feel like a princess. She wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

“What am I supposed to do? Sit around and cry? He left me. It’s his loss,” she said, trying to say the words as though she meant them.

That’s the secret to life, baby. Fake it till you make it.

Her mom’s words ran through her head as she watched her brother run his fingers through his hair, mussing up the dirty blonde strands until they pointed up in every direction. Her mother was the last person she should ever have taken advice from. After all, she’d had an affair with Aaron’s father and almost broke up his parent’s marriage and then dumped Noelle with her uncle. If anything, Noelle should’ve been actively avoiding any of the advice she’d said over the years.

And yet... Anna Fischer was a woman who continuously fucked up but never came across as anything short of a lady. She’d never broken down and thrown tantrums and wailed about men not loving her. No, Noelle’s mother may have been a terrible person, but at least she wasn’t a hot mess. And Noelle refused to be one now.

“I’m going to need a minute,” Aaron eventually sighed as she moved onto the other side of her hair. “I just... I need a minute.”

The moment the door closed behind him, she finally allowed herself a moment.

With shaking hands, she opened up the top drawer of her vanity and pulled out her phone. Her home screen was a punch to the gut, a photo of her and Juliette, James’s daughter, that he’d taken when they’d celebrated her twenty-first birthday last month. Juliette was sitting on her lap, her chubby fingers clenched in Noelle’s hair, and all Noelle could think was that he’d taken that away from her too.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the thought that she’d most likely never see that baby girl ever again, she found her contact list and clicked on James’s name.

As expected, it went straight to voice mail. Not trusting herself to leave a sane message, she hung up and scrolled until she found Helena’s number.

Don’t do this, a voice whispered in her head. But she ignored it, barely breathing when the call was picked up.

“Calling to gloat?” Came the bored answer and Noelle felt her shoulders stiffen.

“No, actually. James just left me. I thought you knew, considering you two are still married.”

“Oh, right, that...” Helena said, to her credit, sounding genuinely uncomfortable for once. “Listen, Noelle...”

She gritted her teeth together when the door swung open, this time revealing Nina with the others nervously shifting behind her. Apparently Aaron’s ‘minute’ was just his excuse to call the cavalry on her.

“If I’d known you weren’t going to be a blubbering mess, I’d have come to check on you a whole lot sooner-” Her best friend started, sauntering into her room in her pale blue bride’s maids dress. She stopped halfway to the bed when she caught sight of the phone pressed to Noelle’s ear. “Who the fuck are you talking to right now?” She asked, changing course and storming over to Noelle.

She barely had the time to hear whatever Helena was going to say before Nina ripped the phone out of her hands and tossed the device onto her bed.

“No!” She said, pointing at Noelle as she surged up from her seat to grab the phone and talk to the woman she’d been left for. “We do not talk to assholes like that!”

“I was on the phone with Helena!” Noelle corrected, not that that was any better. She made a go for the phone on the bed but then Jake was there, diving onto the white duvet and hanging up the call before she could so much as move.

“Nina’s right. We don’t talk to assholes like that,” he said, slipping the phone into the breast pocket of the jacket he was wearing. With the trouble averted, he stood up, straightening his suit and giving Noelle as warm a smile as he could muster. “How are you? Aaron says you’re having a mental breakdown.”

“I’m not breaking down!” Noelle groaned, tugging the curl she’d just given herself out of her face. “I’m just refusing to let this get to me. There’s a difference!”

“Ok, but you were just dumped on your wedding day,” Aaron reminded her tiredly. “No one would be alarmed if you cried a little,” he said as he took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Or at all.”

“Honestly, it’s expected,” Felix said but Noelle couldn’t look at him right then. She’d never really thought James and his brother looked alike until that moment. And now she could see the family resemblance: the straight, long nose, the arched brows. Even their goddamn mouths were the same and she was worried that if she looked at him too long and hard, she was either going to burst out crying like they all so desperately wanted her to or punch him in the face.

“I don’t get it,” she said, choosing to focus all her energy on her brother. “First you tell me that none of this would’ve happened if I’d listened to you and now you’re telling me it’s ok to cry? What do you want, Aaron because those are two very polarizing statements.”

He went silent as all pairs of eyes turned to him. But he didn’t blush or apologize as another person might have done. Aaron simply shrugged.

“Can you blame me for having reservations about your relationship? He was married for most of it-”

“Separated,” Nina helpfully corrected to Noelle’s relief.

“Well, actually, he was married for all of it, as we now know,” Aaron continued as if there had been no interruption. “And honestly, I hate the guy, you know I do, Noelle. He shouldn’t have dated you in the first place. He was what? Ten years older?”

“Nine,” corrected Jake who was the same age as his best friend.

“And has a kid for fuck’s sake. He was a dirtbag and I’m pretty sure only a psychopath would consider marrying a girl who he knew he couldn’t marry but he’s not here for me to beat up and as much as I want to feel sorry for you, I fucking can’t. I told you when this shit began to break it off and you never listened to me.”

Aaron’s chest heaved when he finally finished his monologue, finally able to say what he’d wanted to say to her- uninterrupted- since she’d blown him off at the airport.

“If that’s what you think, then why did you even bother coming? What was the point of-”

“Because you’re my baby sister!” He exploded. “And I still love you even when you’re acting like an idiot.”

Her lip started to quiver try as she might to prevent the action. She calmed herself by turning her anger onto her next victim.

“Did you know about this?” She asked Jake, not trusting herself to continue her conversation with Aaron. That might just be the last straw and the only thing worse than crying in front of him was crying in front of all of them. “Did you know he was still married?”

Jake held up his hands, shaking his head vigorously. She turned her heated gaze on Felix, who shifted closer to Aaron for protection.

“Scouts honor, I didn’t know,” he said, his eyes wide and pleading. “If I’d known he was still married, I’d have read him the riot act.”

“Well that’s about as helpful as shit,” Nina said, wrinkling her nose at Felix. “You were never a scout and have the moral compass of a roulette table.”

Though Noelle secretly agreed with Nina’s assessment of Felix’s character, she found herself believing that he knew nothing of his brother’s plans to jilt her.

Lord knows he looked guilty enough not to have been in on some malicious plan to humiliate her.

“And for what it’s worth, Noelle,” Jake said and she slowly returned her attention to him as he joined the others on the edge of the bed. “I know we’ve never been the best of friends, but I am sorry about this. I wanted this relationship to end long ago, but not like this.”

She laughed tiredly, her eyes flickering between Jake and her brother.

“Can’t you two give me a break? I get it. Have you got your I-Told-You-So’s out of your system now?”

They both gave her sheepish smiles that told her they still had a few more lectures in them. Before she could get annoyed, Nina clapped her hands together to draw everyone’s attention.

“Well, now that the pity party’s over and everyone’s said their piece, can we go get shit-faced? Because, if I’m not mistaken, there’s a whole bunch of booze waiting for us downstairs and I wouldn’t mind helping you drink your sorrows tonight.”

The others looked at Nina askance but Noelle breathed a sigh of relief at the suggestion. The thought of staying in this room a moment longer to talk about her feelings, or worse, her life choices felt as appealing as sticking a toothpick in her eye.

“Why not?” She sighed. “It’s not like I have anything better to do today.”