Chapter 3 The Choice on the Ice
815 Words
Half the ballroom followed us outside.
The Aspen wind cut through my silver gown.
Below the hotel, snow covered the lake in a smooth white sheet. A single black c***k split the ice near the center.
Molly stood dozens of yards from shore, only a few feet from the black fracture.
Her thin white dress whipped around her legs. Beneath her feet, the ice made small, splintering sounds.
Julian stood at the shoreline, his face white.
"Molly, don't move!"
She looked at him and laughed through her tears.
"You followed me."
"Come back."
"And then what? I watch you marry her next month, and you throw me away forever?"
Julian clenched his jaw.
"Whatever you want to say, say it from shore."
"I've loved you for 10 years."
Her voice broke apart in the wind.
"At school, no one would let me sit with them. You were the only person who gave me a chair.
"You probably forgot by dinner. I never forgot.
"I followed you to New York. I worked near your school, then near your office. You insulted me. You blocked me. You had security drag me out.
"I still didn't give up.
"I kept thinking that if I held on for one more day, eventually you'd see me."
Someone behind me whispered that she was insane.
Molly didn't seem to hear.
"Everyone says I'm nothing compared to Vivian.
"She's beautiful. She's educated. She can stand beside you on magazine covers.
"But does she love you the way I do?"
Cold seeped through my skin and into my bones.
Julian stepped onto the edge of the lake.
The rescue captain grabbed him immediately.
"The ice won't hold both of you. She has to walk back on her own."
Julian stopped.
His voice softened into something I had never heard him use with Molly.
"Listen to me. Walk back slowly."
She heard the tenderness, too.
Fresh tears rolled down her face.
"Do you like me at all?"
Julian said nothing.
"If you don't, why do you always come?
"Why do you remember that I'm afraid of the dark? Why do you remember my peanut allergy?"
She drew a ragged breath.
"Why have you been paying my rent?"
The entire shore went silent.
I turned to Julian.
Rent.
He had never told me.
Molly took another step backward.
The ice cracked sharply beneath her heel.
"Don't move!" Julian shouted.
She stopped beside the black fracture and reached one hand toward him.
"Then choose me.
"End your engagement. Cancel the wedding. Tell everyone you want me, too.
"Or I'll keep walking."
I understood then what the manager had meant.
Every face turned toward Julian.
I caught his arm.
"Don't do this."
He looked at me, anguish filling his eyes.
"Vivian, she could go through the ice."
"The rescue team is here."
"They can't reach her."
"So you're going to end our engagement?"
"It's only words. I need to get her back."
"Are they only words?"
He went still.
I looked at the man I had loved for seven years and barely recognized him.
"You pay her rent. You remember her allergies. You cross New York in the middle of the night because she calls."
My voice trembled.
"Julian, do you truly feel nothing for her?"
He looked away.
That was an answer.
Molly cried out, "If you won't say it, I'm going farther!"
She lifted one foot.
"I like you!"
Julian's shout tore across the lake.
No one moved.
He closed his eyes as if something buried inside him had finally broken free.
"I don't know when it happened.
"But I like you.
"The engagement is over. The wedding is canceled. Now come back!"
My hand slipped from his arm.
Molly bent forward, sobbing.
The rescue crew used the moment to slide an inflatable walkway over the ice. They brought her back inch by inch.
The second she reached land, she threw herself into Julian's arms.
He wrapped his coat around her shaking body and held her tight.
"Are you satisfied now?" he demanded.
His voice was harsh.
His arms were not.
Molly nodded against his chest.
"Julian," I said.
He looked over his shoulder, guilt crossing his face.
"I'm sorry, Vivian."
That was all.
Then he lifted Molly into his arms and carried her to the ambulance.
I stood in the snow wearing the silver dress I'd chosen for our engagement party.
Our wedding had been one month away.
Now the groom was leaving with someone else.
Our guests drifted back toward the hotel.
The same people who had laughed at Molly hours earlier now looked at me with pity.
Everything I had believed made me secure—beauty, education, success, seven years of love—had become worthless the moment Julian made his choice.
The woman no one believed could win had won.
And I didn't even know when I had begun to lose.
- Writer
