Aevum of Itero

Chapter 1

(originally started on ffn on 3/16/22 and ao3 on 3/19/22)

xx

The bride had worn white.

That's what the magazines had written, anyway, which he would come to read in the group email had been incorrectly reported.

The bride, wrote one of two of his friends invited to the celebrity wedding of the year, had worn more of an off-white, perhaps a buttercream.

He would spot the tiny bump through her dress in the Facebook photos that popped up unwanted on his feed after his former best friend, a top journalist on Capitol Hill, accepted his friend request.

His former best friend, now Facebook acquaintance, who also served as his ex's twin brother.

His ex, who had wed another and awaited the birth of their child.

Their child, which should have been his, if he hadn't fucked up so badly.

And she should have been his wife, not the wife of some film producer.

Even if that producer was supposedly a good lad that allegedly made her supremely happy.

He could fall back on the blonde, if he wanted.

He didn't want.

Their last farcical attempt at a relationship had forever solidified their breakups with two individuals neither had wished to break up with in the first place.

His blonde ex was on her second husband, a decent fellow who treated her well. They were childless, friends more than lovers. He didn't know of the number of times she had cried on her ex's shoulder over her other ex, the man she could never have again.

The brother of the brunette he could never have again.

He clicked onto her page, the Add Friend button staring out of his screen.

Mocking him.

His request was left pending, sent after an evening of one too many beers when he made the horrible choice to stalk through her rarely updated page.

His one consolation was that the request hadn't been declined.

Missing Cork already, said her latest status of three months prior, but New York isn't half bad.

She'd finally made it to New York. Attended a Wicked performance, by the looks of it.

A mutual friend had liked the status, one out of four hundred and ninety-two people to do so.

Three hundred and forty-three comments, one of which demanded to Get your ass out west!

It was a comment from a second mutual friend, and had the most replies of the bunch.

But not one reply from her.

Because she never came out west, and neither did her brother.

Their entire group knew why.

He knew why.

She'd never forgiven him for lying about their time in London.

He still didn't know why the fuck he had done it.

Made it easier, he guessed.

Easier for whom? He had quit trying to figure out.

Certainly not for him.

Made it easier for her, maybe.

Easier for her to move on.

Easier for her to tell him to go to hell the last time she had ever initiated contact.