Fleeing From Her False Love

Two years in Paris. I pushed myself to the absolute brink, sacrificing sleep and sanity to finish my PhD early, all so I could fly back to Chicago and fulfill my promise to marry her.

But while unpacking in what was supposed to be our bridal suite, I found them. A pristine, velvet-lined box tucked at the back of Besss closet. Inside were dozens of boarding passes. She had been flying to France at least once a month.

Not to see me.

She had been flying to a chateau in the Champagne region, barely a hundred miles from my cramped Parisian apartment.

A few days later, I showed up early to the venue where I had meticulously planned to propose to her. Instead, I stood in the shadows of the adjacent courtyard and watched her accept a ring from the man who had haunted my nightmares.

"Bess, marry me," he murmured, his hands bracketing her waist. "Just say yes, and I'll turn this whole wedding into ours."

The tears of pure, unadulterated joy streaming down her face as he slid the diamond onto her finger paralyzed me. I couldn't take a single step forward.

If I wasn't the man she truly wanted to marry, they could have the damn wedding.

But after I packed my bags and fled, leaving her at the altar, she suddenly decided to cross oceans and tear the world apart looking for me.

The courtyard was bathed in the warm, amber glow of string lights. The air smelled heavy with crushed roses. It was romantic. It was intimate.

Bess stood there in a breathtaking white gown, a diamond catching the light on her finger. She was choking back sobs of overwhelming happinessan image that aligned perfectly with the thousands of times I had pictured her saying yes to me.

But the man kneeling on the cobblestones, asking for her forever, wasn't me.

"Preston," Bess breathed out, covering her mouth with her trembling hand before reaching down to pull him up. "I've waited so long for you to ask me."

She didn't hesitate. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a desperate, fiery kiss. Preston hauled her against his chest, crushing her to him, deepening the kiss until the wet, heavy sounds of their mouths carried over the evening breeze straight into my ears.

My fingers went numb. Instinctively, my thumb brushed against the matching couple's ring in my pocketthe one Bess had mailed to me across the Atlantic.

What I had never told her was that the ring was a size too big. To keep it from slipping off, I had painstakingly wrapped a piece of red thread around the base of the band.

Maybe the thread had just worn thin over the years. Because as my thumb pressed against it, the knot gave way. The thread unraveled. The silver band slipped off my numb finger, bounced silently on the cobblestones, and rolled straight into an iron storm drain. Gone.

Just like Bess. After two years of distance, she had slipped right through my fingers.

A ring that doesn't fit isn't worth retrieving. A woman who doesn't love me isn't worth fighting for.

"Bess," Preston whispered, resting his forehead against hers. "I want your wedding day to go on exactly as planned."

"Why?" she pouted, her voice laced with a sickly sweetness I barely recognized. "I only want to be your wife."

"Because... I want to crash it. I want to steal the bride. Its the only way to prove you love me the most."

I stopped dead in my tracks. The sheer cruelty of the game they were playing rooted me to the spot. I needed to know exactly how far Bess was willing to go to humiliate me for him.

"You're awful," she giggled, playfully slapping his chest. "Only you would come up with something so wicked."

"Ill make sure to wear my running shoes," he teased. "So when we make our grand escape, I can carry you out faster."

"Are you sure you want to do that to Cole?" Preston asked, a feigned edge of pity in his voice.

"As long as I show up at the venue, I've kept my promise to him," Bess reasoned, her tone chillingly casual. "If he insisted on going abroad and can't even hold onto his own bride, he can't exactly blame me for a change of heart, can he?"

Their shared laughter echoed in the quiet courtyard. It felt like jagged glass scraping down my throat.

I turned around. My back hit the rough bark of a nearby oak tree as my legs finally gave out. The pain didn't hit me all at once; it crashed over me in a suffocating, suffocating wave. I tried to run, to escape the sickening reality of it, but my knees buckled. I hit the pavement hard, tearing the fabric of my trousers.

By the time I dragged myself back to the empty apartment, I was a hollowed-out shell. My hands shook so violently I could barely unlock my phone. I dialed my PhD advisor in Paris.

"Dr. Harley," I rasped. "That new biomedical research grant... I want in."

He sounded thrilled, but confused. "Cole? I thought you were settling down in Chicago after the wedding. Did your fiance agree to do long-distance again? Marriage and an ocean between you... thats tough on a young couple. Are you entirely sure?"

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, blindly dabbing at the bleeding scrapes on my knees. Every touch sent a shock of white-hot pain up my leg.

"The wedding is off," I said, my voice eerily flat. "From now on, the lab is my only priority."

Dr. Harley, who had been more of a father to me than anyone in the last decade, caught the devastation in my tone immediately.

"The roster closes tonight. I'll put your name on it," he said softly. "Come back to Paris, son. Well get to work. Once you're buried in the data, the noise fades away." He paused, letting out a heavy sigh. "Forgive an old man for overstepping, Cole, but for two years, you were the one burning yourself out to fly home to her. She never visited you once. Not even when you were hospitalized with pneumonia. That tells a man everything he needs to know."

"Make the break clean. Don't drown in the past."

If I hadn't found that thick stack of boarding passes hidden in her closet, I would have defended Bess instantly. I would have given him the same tired excuse: Shes just not a good traveler. Shes too busy with her career.

I had agonized over the thought of her being exhausted by long-haul flights. Meanwhile, she had been happily crossing the Atlantic every single month for Preston Vaughn.

No wonder she went practically MIA at the end of every month. She wasn't buried in quarterly reports; she was buried in his bed in the French countryside.

For two entire years, I played the absolute fool. I pulled all-nighters, crammed my course load, and published back-to-back papers, all to scrape together enough vacation days to fly to Chicago and give her a sense of "security."

Those fleeting weekends after a fourteen-hour flight used to be the happiest moments of my life.

Looking back, my cross-continental devotion was nothing but a pathetic joke.

On the cab ride to the venue earlier tonight, I had even tried to lie to myself. I told myself maybe she went to France for a girl's trip. Maybe it was a work retreat.

But seeing her melt into the arms of the man who had made my childhood a living hell? It all made sickening sense. Preston was relentlessly possessive. If he didn't want her seeing me while she was in Europe, she wouldn't. Instead, shed feed me lies over FaceTime about how desperately she missed me.

She knew exactly who Preston Vaughn was to me.

After my mother remarried, Preston and his father became the architects of my deepest childhood traumas.

I always knew the statistics of long-distance relationships. I had braced myself for the possibility that Bess might drift away or find someone else.

But never, in my darkest nightmares, did I think she would fall for him. That she would actively plot to turn my wedding day into a public execution, just to prove her loyalty to my abuser.

I sank into the scalding water of the bathtub, taking burning pulls straight from a bottle of bourbon until the violent tremors in my chest finally subsided.

My phone buzzed on the tiles. It was Bess.

"Cole? Baby, where are you? I've been waiting for you forever!"

I stared at the ceiling, letting the silence stretch.

Panic seeped into Bess's voice. "Cole? Is everything okay? Did something happen?"

"Listen," she pivoted smoothly, her tone adopting that gentle, placating cadence she perfected. "If you couldn't make it to surprise me, it's totally fine. I already checked out the venue, and it's perfect. Exactly what I dreamed of. Youre going to love it."

She was so incredibly considerate. So generous. Forgiving me for ghosting my own proposal.

"I'm at the apartment," I said, my voice devoid of anything. "Glad you liked it."

A brief pause on the line. Then, back to the soothing act. "Okay. I'm heading home right now. I'll be right there."

She didn't demand to know why I stood her up. She didn't ask why I hadn't given her a ring.

Not because she loved me enough to endure my flaws. But because she had already gotten her dream proposal, and her diamond, from the man she actually wanted.

I was just her backup plan. The safety net she was stringing along.

I had just stepped out of the bathroom, a towel around my waist, when the front door unlocked.

When I saw Preston Vaughn lingering in the hallway behind her, my stomach plummeted.

"What is he doing here?" I demanded, the chill in the room instantly dropping ten degrees.

Couldn't she wait a single day before rubbing him in my face?

Bess flashed a nervous, overly bright smile, stepping forward to touch my arm. "Cole, crazy coincidence. I ran into Preston in the lobby. Turns out he lives in this building too! He heard you were back in the States and absolutely insisted on coming up to apologize..."

I just stared at her. Watching the performance.

Preston stepped into the light, his face an immaculate mask of contrition. "Cole. What my dad and I did back then... it was crossed a line. Im here to apologize for him, and for me. Can we put this behind us?"

I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth ached. I looked at Bess, my voice barely a whisper. "And you think I should forgive them?"

The phantom pain of a ruptured eardrum flared in my head. The memory of a bamboo cane biting into my legs until they went numb. The suffocating smell of smoke when my late father's journals were tossed into the fireplace.

I didn't ask her why she fell in love with him. That would have given them the satisfaction of my shattered ego.

Besss nervous smile evaporated when I didn't break eye contact.

"Cole, Preston was just a kid back then. A mischievous kid who didn't know any better," she sighed, her tone bordering on condescending. "Hes carried this guilt for years. He just apologized to you. Why do you have to be so relentless about the past?"

The physical and psychological torture that drove me to the edge of a cliff was just the past.

Me refusing to forgive my abuser was being relentless.

Ten years ago, it was Bess who called the ambulance when I was coughing up blood. She was the one who sat in the sterile hospital room holding my hand. She knew better than anyone the depths of my hatred for my stepfather and stepbrother.

Yet she chose him. She chose to stand on the other side of the battle line.

She reached out, trying to physically force my hand into Preston's.

I yanked my arm back, slapping her hand away violently. "What gives you the right, Bess?" I snarled. "What gives you the right to tell me to forgive them?"

They abused me while my mother wasn't looking. They manipulated her into thinking I was a delinquent. And when she died, they didn't even bother to arrange her funeral.

Bess looked down at her reddened hand. A flash of genuine anger crossed her face, but she swallowed it down.

"Cole, I am doing this for you," she pushed, her voice tightening. "You don't have anyone left. No parents. Preston and his dad are practically your only remaining family. Why do you insist on drowning in old resentments? Its just making you miserable."

"People have to move forward, Cole. Don't they?"

Her delivery was earnest, but her eyes held a brittle impatience I recognized all too well. It was the look she gave telemarketers, or a waiter who got her order wrong.

The warmth, the fierce, protective love she used to look at me with? It was entirely gone.

I could practically hear the last intact pieces of my heart grinding into dust. It hurt so much I couldn't pull air into my lungs.

And standing right behind her, Preston's eyes were red with fake tears, but the smirk playing at the corner of his mouththe triumphant, arrogant sneerwas exactly the same as it was fifteen years ago.

"It's okay if you can't forgive me today, Cole," Preston said softly, playing the martyr. "But I will keep trying. I'll carry this guilt until you accept me as your brother."

"Get out."

I gripped the edge of the entryway table, my knuckles turning white, using every ounce of willpower to stop my body from shaking.

Besss impatience finally cracked her facade.

"Cole, why are you being so difficult?" she snapped, her voice rising. "Nobody is perfect. Where is your sense of grace?"

She had watched them push me into severe clinical depression. She had watched me try to take my own life. There was a time when she would scream in the faces of the Vaughn men to protect me.

What had he done to strip away all of that, turning her into his fiercest defender?

I let the coldness wash over me, locking my eyes onto hers. "Unless he drops dead in front of me, I will never forgive him."

Besss jaw tightened. A vein throbbed in her temple. Years ago, that exact expression meant she was about to go to war for me.

"God, Cole! Two years in Europe and you come back this bitter and vicious?" she yelled. "Fine. You won't forgive him? Then you need to apologize to him! I will not have people laughing at my fianc for being a petty, vindictive coward!"

"Your dad took his own life because he was weak! If he had cared about you at all, your mom wouldn't have been forced to remarry just to survive! Stop blaming your pathetic misery on Preston. Yes, his dad made mistakes, but it wasn't a death sentence! If you're going to be as fragile as your father and obsess over the past, then you deserve every nightmare you get!"

She practically spat the word nightmare.

I saw the raw, unfiltered disgust flash across her features.

The woman who promised to hold my hand through every storm had finally grown sick of the boy with the heavy baggage.

In the end, all my trauma, all my tragedies, were just weapons she picked up to butcher me with.

Once upon a time, she would wake up to the sound of my night terrors, pull my head to her chest, and cry with me. She would stroke my hair and whisper, "I'm here, Cole. Nothing is going to hurt you while I'm here."

She had hauled me out of the abyss, only to shove me back in with her own two hands.

For Preston Vaughn, she looked me in the eye and told me I deserved it.

A sharp cramp seized my stomach. I lost my grip on the table and stumbled backward, dizzy with nausea.

Bess lunged forward on reflex, catching my arms. Thats when she saw the bloody, swollen mess of my knees.

She dropped to a crouch instantly, hovering over my legs. "How did you get hurt this badly?" she asked, her voice softening in a sudden, jarring shift. "Look... forget the apology. I'll apologize to him for you. Just... don't be so stubborn next time."

I ripped my arms out of her grasp. My face was pale and slick with cold sweat. I pointed a shaking finger at the door.

"Get out. Both of you. Get the hell out."

Bess knew how dangerously close I was to the edge. She stood up, reaching out to wrap her arms around me to force me to calm down.

But Preston was faster. Tears streaming down his face, he bowed his head dramatically. "I'm leaving, Cole. Please, don't hurt yourself over me."

He spun around to rush out the door, but he turned "too fast." His shoulder clipped the doorframe, and he went tumbling backward into the hallway. His head cracked against the drywall with a sickening thud. A small patch of red immediately blossomed on his forehead.

Bess gasped, dropping her hands from me instantly. She threw herself into the hallway, dropping to her knees beside him.

Her hands trembled as she hovered over his bleeding forehead. Her eyes were wide, flooded with a desperate, frantic terror. It was a look of profound, agonizing love.

A look she used to reserve solely for me.

"Preston! God, does it hurt? Stay still, I'm taking you to the ER!"

She didn't look back. The door swung shut, leaving the apartment suffocatingly quiet.

My heart hit the floor and shattered.

Ten years of friendship. Ten years of love. Reduced to absolutely nothing.

I pulled out my phone and booked a one-way ticket to Paris for the morning of the wedding.

Seven days. Exactly enough time to sever every tie I had to this city, and to her.

Bess was right about one thing. People have to move forward.

And I was going to cut the rot out of my life permanently.

I spent the next day throwing away every single thing I had bought for our new life. The custom throw pillows, the matching mugs, the framed art.

This apartment was never really mine anyway. Soon, there wouldn't be a single trace of Cole Stratton left in it.

The only things remaining were the boarding passes. The physical proof of my blind, pathetic devotion.

I carried the velvet box to the balcony, grabbed an iron trash can, and lit a match.

I dropped them in, one by one. The flame caught the edges, curling the paper, turning the ink into ash. Every boarding pass consumed by the fire was another piece of the man who had loved Bess Kensington.

When it was over, there was nothing left but a pile of gray soot and the acrid smell of smoke in the air.

Just like the last decade of my life.

The next morning, the smell of bacon and coffee drifted into the bedroom.

"Cole, get up and wash up. Breakfast is ready," Bess called out from the kitchen.

When I walked out, she was packing a sleek thermos.

"Eat without me. I'm just running some food over to Preston's place. You don't need to come."

"Okay," I said, pulling out a chair.

She paused, looking at me. "Don't feel bad about last night. Preston is incredibly forgiving. He doesn't hold it against you."

I poured a cup of black coffee.

"Also," she continued, "after breakfast, we need to go ring shopping again. There was an issue with the custom ones we ordered, they won't be here in time for the wedding."

"Okay."

If she wanted to put on a one-woman show, Id buy a front-row ticket.

My absolute lack of emotion seemed to unnerve her. She walked over with a first-aid kit, her eyes darting away guiltily as she knelt to dab ointment on my knees.

"Cole, we've loved each other for a long time. Everything I'm doing is for us. I just don't want you to look out into the pews on our wedding day and not have a single family member there."

She kept her eyes on my knee. "You said you couldn't find a best man, right? I went ahead and asked Preston to do it."

"Okay."

She had braced herself for a screaming match. When I agreed without blinking, her head snapped up, eyes wide with disbelief.

Relief flooded her face. She grabbed my hand and pressed a warm, lingering kiss to my knuckles.

She left to deliver Preston's breakfast. She didn't come back.

I was at the sink, scrubbing the skin of my knuckles with a coarse sponge until it was raw and red, when my phone rang.

"Cole? Come down to the garage. I'm in the car waiting."

I took the elevator down to the subterranean lot. Out of habit, I walked toward the passenger side of her Audi, but stopped.

Preston was sitting in the driver's seat, one hand resting lazily on the steering wheel, looking at me with an amused smirk.

I didn't say a word. I opened the back door and slid in.

Bess glanced back at me, clearly relieved by my compliance. "Cole, Preston works in jewelry design. Having him there will guarantee we get something stunning."

I gave a curt nod, leaned my head against the window, and closed my eyes.

A few minutes later, the car hit a pothole. I opened my eyes just in time to catch Bess's reflection in the rearview mirror. She was gently brushing something off Preston's cheek, her fingers lingering on his jawline.

Our eyes met in the mirror. She snatched her hand back like shed been burned.

"He... he had an eyelash on his face," she stammered.

I closed my eyes again and kept them shut until the car parked.

Inside the luxury boutique, the saleswoman immediately gravitated toward the two of them, standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

"What kind of piece is the gentleman looking to buy for his beautiful bride today?" she beamed.

A flush of pink crept up both Bess and Preston's necks.

Bess coughed, stepping away and grabbing my sleeve. "Why are you standing all the way over there? Come look at the rings."

The saleswoman flushed bright red, stumbling over her apologies as she quickly pulled out the bridal trays.

But it was Preston who leaned over the glass, inspecting them with a critical eye.

"Too tacky," he muttered.

"Too ostentatious."

None of the mens bands seemed to meet his standard. Not compared to the heavy, custom-forged platinum band sitting comfortably on his own left ring finger.

The saleswoman looked at me, shifting uncomfortably, clearly waiting for the actual groom to speak. Preston ignored her completely.

Finally, he pointed lazily at a very generic, plain silver band. "Cole. Just get this one. Use it as a placeholder for the ceremony. I'll design something bespoke for you guys later. Something that rivals mine."

The saleswoman, trying to recover the sale, smiled tightly. "You have an excellent eye, sir."

Preston smirked, lifting his left hand and practically shoving it into my line of sight. "Of course. My fiance designed this one with me."

Bess stood right next to him. She didn't flinch. She didn't look guilty. She just watched him flex the ring they had bought together, a soft, lovestruck smile playing on her lips.

"We'll take the one Preston chose," she told the clerk, handing over her black card before I even had the chance to try it on.

When the clerk handed over the box, Bess took the ring out and, with a face completely devoid of emotion, shoved it onto my finger.

It was too small. The metal bit sharply into my knuckle.

I knew Preston did it on purpose. A jewelry designer can eyeball a ring size from across a room. A mistake like this was a calculated insult.

I couldn't even be bothered to call him out on it. I yanked the ring off, my knuckle throbbing.

"Sir, we can absolutely size that up for you," the clerk offered quickly.

"Don't bother," I said, putting it back in the box. "It's just for show anyway."

Bess frowned, annoyed by my tone. "If you're going to be passive-aggressive about it, we don't have to buy it. Preston can just make you one."

"No," I said, my voice dead. "This one is perfect."

Suddenly, Prestons eyes welled with tears. The martyr act was back. "Cole, I'm so sorry. I'll go to the studio right now. I'll work through the night. I promise you'll have a perfect ring for your wedding."

Before anyone could say a word, he turned and sprinted out of the store.

"Preston! Wait!" Bess yelled, but he was already gone.

She whipped around to face me, furious. "What is your problem, Cole? It's just a ring. Why are you throwing a tantrum?"

I looked at her, genuinely perplexed. "What tantrum?"

She gritted her teeth, grabbing my arm and pulling me out onto the sidewalk. "I have to get back to the office. We'll do the wedding photoshoot another time."

She paused, pulling out her phone. "Actually, just go to a studio and take some solos. I'll have my graphic designer Photoshop me in from an old shoot. Nobody will notice on the welcome sign."

"Okay," I said.

Whatever she had been prepared to argue died in her throat. She stared at me for a long time, the anger slowly bleeding out into something resembling guilt. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my torso.

"Cole... I promise, once this week is over, we'll go on a proper honeymoon. We can take our real wedding photos in Europe."

The promise of a honeymoon felt like a physical slap across the face.

She didn't have a single weekend to visit me in Paris, but she had two weeks to fly to Antarctica to watch the penguins with Preston. She had the time to chase the Northern Lights with him in Iceland.

As she pulled away, my phone buzzed. We shared locations. I watched her avatar moving rapidly down the avenue, heading straight for Preston's design studio.

I opened the velvet box, pulled out the silver band, and tossed it into the open guitar case of a street musician playing on the corner.

Bess didn't come home for the next two days.

I wasn't surprised. I knew she and Preston were on the coast, shooting their own wedding portraits by the ocean.

And true to her word, she actually sent me a mock-up of the welcome sign. It was a sterile, heavily photoshopped image of the two of us pasted together.

With my flight booked, I knew that after I left, the only time I'd ever set foot in Chicago again would be to visit my parents' graves.

I bought two large bouquets of white lilies and took an Uber to the cemetery.

After sitting quietly by their headstones, I went to the management office to update the contact info, wanting to make sure I could pay the upkeep fees from abroad.

"From now on, route all the invoices to my email," I told the manager. "You don't need to contact Miss Kensington anymore."

The manager clicked through his system and frowned. "Mr. Stratton... the maintenance fees on this plot are six months past due. We tried calling the emergency contact on file, but the number was disconnected."

My chest tightened. When I moved to France, I changed my primary cell number. I had left the cemetery upkeep entirely in Bess's hands.

If she didn't love me anymore, why would she bother remembering my dead parents?

I paid the balance, along with a ten-year advance, and walked out of the office, the weight of the isolation settling heavily on my shoulders.

But as I walked down the gravel path toward the exit, a voice drifted over the hedges. A voice that froze the blood in my veins.

"Bess, sweetheart, it is so touching that you remembered it was his mother's anniversary. If the old lady knew you brought her favorite cake, she'd be smiling down on us."

I turned my head stiffly.

Walking up the stone steps to the mausoleums, flanked on either side, was Bess. Her arm was looped through Preston's, and her other arm was looped through his father's.

"It's the least I could do, Mr. Vaughn," Bess said, her voice dripping with affection.

"Oh, nonsense. Stop calling me Mr. Vaughn. In a few days, you'll be calling me Dad."

Bess let out a musical, chiming laugh. "Okay... Dad."

My eyes burned. I turned my back and walked to the gates, numb.

I took a cab straight to a dive bar downtown to meet my groomsmen. The moment I sat down, I told them the wedding was off.

They exchanged heavy glances. One of them slid his beer aside and leaned in.

"Cole... so, you know?"

I frowned. "Know what?"

My best man pulled out his phone and slid it across the sticky wood. It was a photo of Bess and Preston, walking hand-in-hand out of a fertility clinic downtown, looking at some paperwork.

"Cole, we've had your back since college. If you want to bail, we're with you. Frankly, I want to see the look on Preston's face when he crashes a wedding that doesn't even have a groom."

Hearing him say it out loud sparked a dark, twisted sense of anticipation in my gut.

The night before the wedding, Bess finally came back to the apartment. She was carrying a pristine box of Brooks Brothers running shoes.

I looked up from my laptop. "I thought you hated cardio."

She froze for a split second, then walked over, dropping the box to wrap her arms around my neck from behind, nuzzling my shoulder.

"I have to be ready to run my feet off tomorrow with the groom!" she chirped.

The groom she was talking about wasn't me.

And the bright, genuine smile that lit up her face wasn't for me, either.

The thought of Preston bursting through the church doors to "steal" her was clearly the most thrilling thing she had ever anticipated.

The next morning, I swung by the venue before heading to O'Hare.

The massive poster on the easel at the entrance looked utterly pathetic in the daylight, the bad Photoshop blurring the edges of my face.

I took out my keys, scraped the metal over the canvas, and completely carved out my own smiling face.

Then, I got in a cab.

As I sat by the gate, watching the Boeing 777 pull up to the jet bridge, the flight attendant announced it was time to switch devices to airplane mode.

Right on cue, my phone screen lit up. A barrage of incoming calls from Bess.