Chapter 3 - What His Mother Knew
I didn't move.
Around me, parents were pulling their kids into hugs. Cameras flashed. Somewhere close by, someone popped a bottle and whooped, and everyone laughed.
The whole world kept turning. I was the only thing in it standing still.
Eleanor leaned in and murmured something into Nathan's ear. He nodded, not looking at me. Then he turned, and the young woman threaded her fingers through his, and the three of them started toward the reception hall together — Nathan, his mother, and the girl with the flowers.
Like I wasn't there. Like I'd never been there at all.
I followed them. I couldn't tell you why. My feet just went.
I caught Eleanor by the doors of the hall. Nathan had already gone inside with the girl.
"Eleanor."
She stopped and turned, slow and calm.
"Who is she?" I asked.
She looked at me the way you'd look at someone who'd already lost a game nobody had told her was over.
"Her name is Kayla," she said. "She's been in Nathan's life for three years."
Three years.
I did the math without wanting to. Three years ago, Nathan had held my face in the kitchen and promised me we were going to make it. Three years ago, I'd picked up a second cleaning route so we could cover his textbooks.
"You knew," I said.
She didn't bother denying it. She opened her purse, took out a folded piece of paper, and held it toward me.
I didn't take it. "What is that?"
"Nathan asked me to give it to you today. He thought this would be kinder."
"Kinder," I said.
"Diane." Her voice dropped, but there was nothing gentle in it. "You were never meant to be a permanent fixture. You were what he needed while he needed it. He's said that to me for years. I honestly assumed you knew, somewhere inside."
Something rolled through my chest. Not quite pain. Something colder and quieter than pain.
"I worked three jobs," I said. "I didn't sleep. I buried my father from a break room."
"I know," she said. "Nathan knows too. He's grateful for what you did."
"Grateful."
"Take the paper, Diane."
I took it. My hands were steadier than they had any business being.
One typed page. Nathan's name at the top, and a law firm's letterhead — Prewitt & Cole. Underneath, a paragraph I had to read twice before it turned into words.
A settlement offer. Fifty thousand dollars. In exchange for my signature on a divorce agreement that was already written and already dated, plus a line saying I gave up any future claim on Nathan or anything he ever earned.
At the bottom, in his handwriting: *I hope you get it. This is the cleanest way to do this.*
I looked up. "He had this made before today."
"He wanted to be fair to you."
"He had this made before today," I said again, louder. "He knew exactly what he was going to do when he came off that stage. He put me in the front row so I'd have a good seat for it."
Nothing in her face moved. "It's a generous offer, considering."
I folded the page and put it in my bag.
"Tell Nathan," I said, "that he should've had his lawyer call me instead of sending his mother to do it."
I walked into the reception hall.
Not to scream at him. Not to flip a table. I walked in because Kayla was standing by the windows with a glass of champagne, and I wanted to watch her face when she saw mine.
Up close she looked even younger. She had the easy posture of a person who'd never had to fight for a single thing. She saw me coming, and her smile stuttered for half a second before she got it back under control.
"You must be Diane," she said.
"And you've known about me this whole time."
She sipped her champagne. "He told me you'd take it hard."
"Did he tell you what I gave up so he could stand here in that gown?"
"He told me you were very... devoted." She said *devoted* the way people say *obsessed* when they're trying to be polite. "He also told me people grow apart. That it hadn't worked between you two in a long time."
"Is that the story he gave you?"
"Diane—"
"Four months ago," I said, keeping my voice flat, "he sat across a table from me and told me I was the only reason he was still standing. Four months ago."
Something shifted behind her eyes. A flicker. The first honest thing I'd seen from her.
Before she could answer, Nathan appeared at her elbow. He looked at me, then at her, then back at me, and his jaw went tight.
"Diane. I asked you not to do this."
"I'm not doing anything," I said. "I'm having a conversation with your girlfriend."
"This is not the place."
"You made it the place, Nathan. You're the one who put me in the front row."
He stepped in close and dropped his voice. "Take the offer. It's fair. Move on with your life."
"Answer one question first." I held his eyes. "Was any of it real? Any of it, at all?"
He didn't answer right away.
And in that pause — that one long, ugly pause — I got the only answer I was ever going to get.
I turned and walked out of the reception hall.
The folded letter sat against my hip like something that had already been decided in a room I'd never been invited into.
May you like
But by the time I pushed through the doors into the afternoon sun, one thought had planted itself in my chest and refused to move.
*Fifty thousand dollars was not what seven years of my life was worth. And Nathan's lawyer was about to find that out.*
