Chapter 2

There is a saying that you don't marry the one you want to live with, but rather that you should marry the one you can't live without.

Without Kevin, my wedding goes on without much of a hiccup. Kevin doesn't have any friends. His brother lives a thousand miles away on the west coast. When I asked him to send invitations out to his extended family, he replied that he didn't want to pay for their cab fare from the airport and was too busy to chauffeur them around.

I had thought he was joking, but now, as I sneak a peek at the guests as they arrive, I realize he was serious. Kevin and his dad got into a fight about two weeks before the wedding. Something about someone who owed someone else a favor. That was it. Kevin says he's never talking to his dad again, and his brother was too much of a drain on everyone's goodwill to fly from California on Kevin's dime.

Even knowing all this, I didn't expect that not a single person would show up on Kevin's side of the family. Did he forget to invite his coworkers too? Or did they decide that Kevin wasn't worth the hassle of taking the subway down to midtown?

The books on dating tell you to be a "cool" girl, not to pressure the groom into the wedding, and show as much indifference to the entire institution as he did. This is all in case he felt like he was being "trapped" into a marriage. I was cool. I didn't even buy my wedding dress until two weeks from now. But clearly, that was all a lie. My coolness didn't make him love me more. He completely forgot to show up on our wedding day!

"There, there," Nick says with that devilish smirk like he's Lucifer himself, who had come to the mortal realm to make fun of me for my miserable failure of womanhood. "I'm sure Kevin wishes he were here. You look amazing like any man would crawl through the mbenga waters of the Congo to stand here by your side."

"You're too kind."

"No, if I were Keven, not even a piranha eating away at my balls could keep me from you."

I laugh. Okay, I don't know why I'm pretending to be a cool girl in front of this stranger. Nick Madigan didn't matter. He is only here as a stand-in for my doofus of an ex-boyfriend/fiancé. I don't have to be likable or charming or polite with him. For once, I should be allowed to be angry, to want to smash my hand into a vase. Isn't this the type of situation for which the word "bridezilla" was invented?

Instead, I allow Nick to offer me his arm. He smiles at me again. This time he tilts his head toward me. A strand of his charcoal-black hair falls out of place, and it lands in his dreamy blue eyes. I've never described anyone's eyes as dreamy before. In fact, I've never had a thing for eyes, either male or female.

Nick's eyes, though, those suckers would charm their way through a brick wall. Do you think Cyclops has piercing eyes? You've never met Nick Madigan. His eyes could do more than shoot down planes. They could wrassle down the world's most pissed-off bridezilla.

I don't think it's just the color of his eyes, which were a gorgeous blueish gray, like the color of the sky when the rain finally lets up, and bits of sunshine down on the dewy, freshly washed streets. It's also his eyebrows which almost seemed like they were stolen from a pirate. When he looked at me with those eyes, we were sharing a joke about how ridiculous this entire ceremony was, the type of joke that should have been passed wordlessly between a future husband and wife.

No! Stop it, Lyvia! Don't give in to hysterical bonding!

They say the first thing after a break-up is the need to engage in rebound sex. Here I was, on the rebound before Kevin's ring was even off my finger. Or rather, his earrings, because he never gave me a ring.

Maybe my mother was right.

A man who doesn't bother to buy you a wedding ring isn't worth half a damn.

Etta James' At Last starts to play, and I know that's my cue. It's time to start the procession to walk down the aisle. I decided I didn't want the entire wedding procession with my parents, bridesmaids, and flower girls walking down the aisle. Now, as I confront facing an entire room full of just about all my friends, family, and coworkers, I suddenly wish I weren't going first.

"Here we go," Nick says as the wedding planner gives us our cue. "Ready?"

I swallow hard. I hadn't planned to walk down the aisle side by side with Kevin. Yet, now, I couldn't bring myself to let go of Nick's impossibly muscular arm. It was as though I felt like I would drown in my own dark thoughts if I released him—change of plans. I'm not making it through this day without my arm securely intertwined around this stranger's forearm. No one should have to face a nightmare such as this, alone.

It occurs to me, with a bit of irony, that I never needed Kevin. Not through the entire process of planning this ridiculously expensive wedding which was my dad's dying gift to me. But, now, as I cling to Nick's arm, like a woman with rigor mortis, I finally know what it means to unequivocally need someone.

"Yeah, let's go."