The Story of us

Chapter 26: Bachelor parties are meant to be for boys only

Boston, Massachusetts 

"And you seriously didn't know that he was married?"

I had to take a minute to keep myself from screaming into the phone before sighing, "No, Niall, I obviously had no idea that he was engaged, not married. Clearly, if I did, I never would have gotten involved with him."

"Shit, Lex." I could imagine him shaking his head over the phone. "That really is bad." Did he think that I wasn't already aware of that or something? "And with your sister. Fuck! What a d-bag."

I didn't even have it in me to make fun of him for saying the word 'd-bag' like we were in fucking middle school or something. To be honest, I didn't have it in me to do much of anything these days, not after I had found out the truth. 

The truth. Just the mere thought of it was enough to make my chest ache; it felt like something more than heartbreak. No, it felt like my whole soul was hurting because of how much Harry had managed to affect me. I hadn't left my room for the entire week, only coming down to bring my meals upstairs so that I could eat in bed–that is, if I was even planning to eat that day. I hadn't had much of an appetite ever since I had gotten back home.

Not that I could call this place much of a home, though. Of course I had missed both of my parents, and okay, I guess it had been nice to see my little sister, Ella, after all this time (although I was certain that she never had to know that), but I had been gone for so long that it almost felt like I was an outsider in my own house. Like I was an intruder walking in on a perfect house full of perfect memories that I had missed out on. And now I had to watch my mother plan my perfect half sister's perfect wedding. All of these wedding plans had been bad enough before I had found out who Brielle's fiance was, but now that I knew she was getting married to Harry, things suddenly felt like they were a million times worse. Which, I suppose, they were.

"You want to know what I think?" Niall asked from the other line, after a couple of minutes of silence had passed between us. I had honestly forgotten that he was still there.

"Since when do you need to ask me for permission to state your opinion?" I asked him, but even I could tell that I didn't sound at all like my usual sarcastic self. Instead, I just sounded tired, exhausted even, which I was. Perhaps I might have been sounding overdramatic to some, but I meant it when I said that this really had been the worst week of my life. How else was I supposed to react, though? I had fallen in love with a guy after only a month and a half of knowing him, and he had apparently cared about me too–or at least, that's what he was claiming–but then I found out that he was secretly engaged. This sounded worse than one of those shitty Lifetime movies, and trust me, I knew what I was talking about when it came to that subject.

Niall ignored my comment and then continued, "Okay, so I obviously didn't know that he was engaged, because–what the fuck, I would tell you. He clearly wouldn't, though, because–"

"You know, you're really not making me feel better right now!" He wasn't. Give it a couple of more sentences, and I bet that I would start crying right then and there. It definitely wouldn't be the first time.

Huffing dramatically, Niall sighed, "All right, so like I was saying before you interrupted me, I didn't know that he was engaged, but I think that part of me was suspicious that he might have a girlfriend, or at least a hookup back home."

With his words came a lump growing in the back of my throat, and I quickly tried to swallow it back down before asking, "What made you think that?"

He didn't answer me for so long that for a moment, I thought that the line might have went dead. However, right before I was about to ask him what had happened, he said, "I heard him on the phone once, all right? And I think he was talking to a girl, but they were, like, fighting or whatever. I mean, he sounded pissed, Lex, and he was saying stuff like, 'what good is saying that now going to do?' and shit like that. You know what I'm talking about."