“I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m not sure what else I can say in this situation. I can’t admit that I held on because I regret letting go so easily the last time.

“Why are you marrying him?” Jack practically screams as the bartender deposits our drinks in front of us. Apparently, we’ve reached the point in the night where we’re addressing all trapezoidal elephants.

I take a sip of my mule. “Jack…”

“I don’t get it.” She shakes her head, her expression almost angry. “I want to get it. I want to be supportive, but what do the two of you even have in common?”

I recoil back from the drunk woman taking up too much space in front of me. “What, because Andrew is successful and handsome and wealthy, and I’m a mess?”

Jack’s hands slip on her sweaty drink. “You know that’s not what I meant. Of course he would choose you, Elle. You’re—shit, you’re so—” She shakes her head. “You’re so beautiful. You’re even more beautiful than my brother. Which is, I’m realizing now, kind of a weird thing to say.” Jack pauses, and once again, I don’t fucking kiss her, somehow.

She once again tries to grip her drink and fails, and I can’t seem to look away from the whole sloppy mess of her in this moment. “But why are you choosing him?” Jack asks me, her eyes like liquid fire, scorching me through with the intensity of their stare. And then she asks me the question. The worst possible question she could ask me here in this bar. “Do you love him?”

And I know I have to lie. I have no other choice. A million dollars and napkin contracts, and I know I have to say it. I have to tell this woman with the restless heart and the hair stuck to her face that I am in love with her brother.

I open my mouth to say it—just say it, Ellie.

Jack looks at me with confusion and accusation and the smallest sliver of hope, I think, right there in the corner of her mouth. It’s the hope that gets me. “I…” I try.

And then I pivot on the heel of my boots and take off in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

My attempt to flee the scene is hindered by several factors.

One, that the sticky floors slow me down.

Two, that Jack’s legs are longer than mine.

And three, that it’s a multi-stall bathroom with a swinging door that I don’t think to lock. Jack stomps into the bathroom behind me like she stomps everywhere and stares at me where I’ve propped myself against the sink. “Do you love him?” she asks me again, the door swinging closed behind her.