Love in his Lie

Circle

"There you are! Do you know how close I was to calling the cops?"

Mindy's voice rang across the room, bouncing off the cathedral ceilings and earning herself a few confused glances, as well as some panicked grimaces from the ritzy hotel's staff.

"I'm okay."

A sigh dropped my shoulders, and I continued my trudge forward while she raced over to embrace me.

"You're not okay," she said, pulling me to a stop. "You would never insult cinnamon the way you did. What happened? Did Justin try to..."

She swallowed hard, fighting back some nausea as she assessed the state of my clothing.

"Why would he jump me in the lobby when I would have easily followed him to a hotel room had he asked me?" I rolled my eyes and pulled from her grip before continuing on my way to the exit. "It was his fiancee that tried to abduct me."

"Fiancee?" She stood for a minute, dumbfounded by my words, but when I didn't halt my stride to answer her question, she sprinted forward to catch up with me. "What do you mean fiancee? What the heck happened at that airport?"

She followed me through the revolving door and out to the street. We were some distance from the bakery and our apartment above it. Though I could walk it, my ankle still sent sizzles up my calf and so I headed for the subway a couple blocks away instead.

"We surprised Justin and a woman who apparently is his real fiancee. Not that he told his parents that. He just ended up confusing me and pissing off Fran by continuing the charade that I was his fiancee."

"Who's Fran?"

"The fiancee."

"Oh okay, but why was she with him and why isn't she, you know, his, uh, public fiancee?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, Sara has probably locked up the bakery by now, so I've got nothing but time for the rest of the day."

"Wait until we get on the train," I said with a sigh. "I don't have the energy to go through this again and walk at the same time."

Mindy agreed, though every attempt she made to start polite conversation ended up redirecting to what happened that morning. At some point, she just gave up and remained silent until we'd found our seats on the train and were zipping off to our local station.

With a deep breath and leaden lips, I told her about Justin's reaction to seeing me at the airport and about Franziska's stormy exit. I told her how Wes offered to drive us to Justin's condo and how painful it was to leave him. Then about how Justin was relieved to hear I hadn't taken him seriously and how, for a moment, things looked right in the world. Of course, I had to follow that up with how Fran was his real lover and how I had been the last of many "imaginary" girlfriends used to distract Justin's family while he dealt with Fran's scandalous situation. Which led me to her need to have a fresh start here in America and how they needed me to breakup with Justin so they could proceed with their plan. And finally, I told her about how Wes was left at the altar and how, no matter what the outcome was to all this, things weren't looking good for me regarding dating Wes instead.

"Who knew bear claw boy lived such a complicated life?" Mindy mumbled her words as she reclined back against the stiffly padded bench. "Although... he does always wear nice suits. People with that much money have to create their own drama since they don't get naturally occurring stress that comes with living paycheck to paycheck."

"That's not... I don't think he wanted this drama."

"If he didn't want drama, then he should have just told the truth."

She had a clip to her voice that she often used when nasty customers were out of earshot.

"Don't blame Justin," I said with a shake of my head. "It's the opposite. He's trying to avoid the gossip and sneering by letting Fran enter his life without fanfare and baggage. He never intended to get me wrapped up in this."

"Then he could have used a different name," added Mindy, with a piercing squint in her eyes.

"Yeah," I sighed, "he really isn't that creative."

"So what now? How are you breaking up with him? I mean, is it really going to ruin your chances with Wes?"

"We're having dinner with his family tonight. He was going to have me cheat on him, but now that they know who I actually am, he thought better of it."

"I should hope so," scoffed Mindy.

"So instead we're going to realize we differ on our opinion about having kids."

"Oh? He doesn't want kids?" asked Mindy, turning towards me with a shocked jut of her lip and rise of her brow. "I would have bagged him as the fatherly type."

"He does. I'm just supposed to lie."

"Oh, well, I mean that makes sense, I suppose. It's his family, so he very well can't lie and it's not like they'll be checking up on you to know that you were... Oh." My painful sticking point dawned upon Mindy, her face sinking with the realization. "They would check up on you if you were with Wes."

"And it would be no big deal to say I've changed my feelings on children, but I'm supposed to be so strongly opposed to the notion of parenthood that I'm willing to end my engagement overnight because of it. I can't just flip flop like that without raising eyebrows and I also can't be with someone I'm keeping a secret from. Someday Wes would have to find out and then he might just resent me for lying all this time."

"Well, maybe you won't have to worry about it. Maybe you and Wes won't work out." She offered a consoling shrug, but she grimaced in the face of my glare. "Yeah, that sounded more supportive in my head."

"I realize I'm planning a future that I have no reason to believe will come to fruition, it's just..."

"You don't want to kill that future before it even begins," sighed Mindy. "Yeah, I understand."

For a moment we rode in silence, me staring out over the heads of our fellow passengers, while Mindy leaned into the wall and watched the tunnel lights flit by the window. Shortly before our stop, she turned back to me with a pitying shadow cast over her eyes.

"Still, why can't you be honest with just Wes? He might understand if you're up front early on. I mean, if he really was left at the altar because his ex just couldn't handle marrying into the family, then he, out of anyone, probably understands what Justin is going through."

"They begged me to hide the truth," I answered, my resolution growing weaker by the second. "She's suffered so much."

"So now it's your turn?" asked Mindy with some bite to her voice. "At some point, someone has to end this circle and call people out with the truth."

"It's not my family, though."

"But you want it to be."

I didn't have an answer for Mindy. Instead, we rode the rest of the way in silence.