This is the man who broke my heart, after all, and even though he’d been a boy when he did, I’m here tonight to make sure it’s the man he’s become who will regret it.

CHAPTER
2

I HEAD FOR a cluster of my classmates grouped around the silver trays of appetizers placed on tables covered in black and red cloths. Our school colors. There’d been chatter on the reunion event page about dressing to match, and I see a lot of red or black gowns and ties. One man stands out in a bright crimson suit with a trendy cut, tight pants cropped at the ankles. I don’t recognize him, but I wave as though I do.

My simple black dress is a classic look, approved by my husband, who has opinions about things like that. He’d never come right out and use the word “whore,” but I know that’s what he thinks about too much cleavage, skirts cut too far above the knee. I’d bought the dress at an estate sale to wear to his company holiday party a few years ago. It’s one of at least two dozen black dresses I own, all in a similar style. I doubt Ken would be able to tell one from the other, which is kind of the point. He can’t complain about me having too many black dresses if he can’t tell them apart.

Christian might be watching me walk away from him, but I don’t look back to check. I wave at a few more people in the group. I live in the same town I grew up in, and yet I haven’t seen any of these people in years, some since our graduation twenty-five years ago. I know the woman in front of me, though. Lisa Weaver and I had been friends in elementary school, bonding over our love for sticker albums and hatred of white milk in cartons. We’d drifted apart in middle school, and in high school she joined the cheerleading squad in a desperate but successful bid for popularity. I’d taken the path toward a different cliché, thrift-store Goth. Looks like we both ended up in much the same place, though. Domestic “bliss.”

“Jewelann! Don’t you look great! Like something right out of an old black-and-white movie. So glam.” Lisa’s dark-eyed gaze moves up and down over my dress, takes in my upswept hair and the glint of my earrings, real diamonds that had belonged to Ken’s mother. Her eyebrows lift the tiniest bit at the sight of my black heels with the red soles. “Oh, wow, I love your shoes.”

I tilt my foot side to side. Nonchalant, although inside I’m gleeful that she noticed. “Oh, these? Thanks.”

“‘Oh,’ she says, like you picked them up at Target.” Lisa wears her hair in a natural wealth of soft curls that she’s pinned back on the sides. Her deep red lipstick is perfect against her dark skin. She wears a red dress to match.

I resist the urge to tell her I bought them at an estate sale, still in the original box with the receipt. I spent less than half of what they originally cost. Less than half was still a lot. This is the first time I’ve ever worn them. They pinch my toes.